Upcoming photoshoot worries

Irene McC

Legend
I've been asked to shoot this show for Zip Zap tomorrow and this was from their rehearsal.

It's incredibly difficult - I hate the stage background with that trampoline and they are wearing white, mostly black skin and the rest of the background is black.
I know I'll be struggling. Apparently they will have stage lighting tomorrow - which might or might not make it any better or more challenging still. Who knows

I'll be shooting everything at a trillion ISO to catch the speed of constant movement and will have to change from landscape to vertical to catch the throws :rolleyes:
Plus my camera seems to have tons of dead / hot pixels. I can't spend hours and hours cloning them all out on each image, surely?
The colour balance looks awful and by toning down the whites it makes them look dirty grey.

Any pep-talking and advice gladly accepted!


Web 1500_NZ6_2519 Morgan being held up.jpg
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Does your camera have a pixel mapping function?

I searched for "pixel mapping on nikon z6" and came up with this: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4473245.

Amongst the replies I saw this: "Running the sensor cleaning twice back to back does the re-mapping. Works on DSLRs (don't know if all of them) and the Z."

Also this from Nikon themselves: https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com/z6III/en/sum_pixel_mapping_334.html.

Regarding having to use very high ISOs, download a trial version of DxO PureRAW 4 and use it on the raw file before importing the resulting DNG file into your favourite raw file convertor (Lightroom? or Capture One?) for further editing.
 
Some random suggestions:

Maybe shoot at lower shutter speeds to emphasise the movement in the image - panning with the subject and letting the background blur out a little. It takes a lot of practice to get that right, and you'll probably get a lousy keep rate if you try it, but it might help with both the distracting background and the high ISO problems.

Embrace the background. As I look at your image above I see a 'frame within a frame' effect with the trampoline, which is good I think. Not for every shot though.

Shoot some before and after images. The performers preparing to go stage, and happy faces afterwards (hopefully). Audience reaction too.

Good luck!

-R
 
Stage lighting will be a lot brighter than you might think. You may want to use spot metering. Meter on the subject and don't worry about the exposure on the background at all. If you're bringing the highlights down in post then your shutter speed is too slow. A good exposure on your subject will probably bring your shutter speed up enough to lower your ISO. Once you get a good exposure, switch to manual exposure and trust your live view to make small adjustments.

I always use single autofocus and either focus and recompose or move the focus box to where I want it. One of the other autofocus modes may work better for you if you're used to working with them.
 
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I've just received this mail from them after querying about their lighting setup

"Unfortunately it will be very much the same set up as all the lighting and costumes will only come in in November…closer to the show.
Hope that’s ok"

And I've replied that in that case the images will look pretty much the same as they did from the rehearsal shoot, which I was not at all happy with.
At least I've said that to cover myself. It's an evaluation with no audience, just judges. I'm not even sure why they need photos?

Apparently 'lighting and costumes will come in November, closer to the show" and I presume the show will be their holiday programme.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

I won't be attempting any panning shots, that's for sure! I haven't been able to master those for aviation, so definitely not going to try new techniques tomorrow :)
There's no 'before' type of photo ops because they are not doing make up (this is from a 2017 backstage shoot) and there won't be an audience either

Web 1500_FUJZ3854_ Zip Zap Artscape 2017 Make up backstage CP.jpg
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Thanks @griffljg for the pixel mapping thingy; I've done that before (when I first bought the used camera) but in the meantime it seems to have repopulated more hot pixels. Will try again!

Thanks @fredlong - some good thoughts! Spot metering is awkward for a group of people with black skin wearing white clothing. Where to put the spot?
Currently I'm using centre weighted and dialling down the EV by 1.3 stops (using auto ISO and manual settings for shutter and aperture) - so it's lowering the ISO in that case

Anyway, I've warned them not to expect miracles and I'll just do my best.
 
I've lost count of the number of times I've had to shoot people in absolutely dreadful venues. Only worry about things you can change.

You can't change the venue. You can't change the lighting. You can't change the mix of skin colours and white outfits.

You can only record what is in front of you. They are obviously happy with what they've got otherwise they wouldn't want a record of it.

As long as you can see the faces and your images are sharp when and where they need to be, the rest will look after itself. Shoot RAW and monitor your skin tones. No point in having a beautifully exposed dancer if all that's up top is eyes and teeth.
 
What I do in these situations:
  1. Get their early and if you can talk with the lighting team and see if they can give you a preview of the lights for the show. Most of the time the light varies across the stage, unless they have a moving spotlight on the mains. I try and keep the images I capture in the "sweet spot".
    If you can't get their early, try and dial in with the first few minutes of the performance.
  2. Get a manual exposure and try to keep it there if you can - based on #1 above. This will help in situations where the meter may get fooled by backlighting or an extreme exposure shift as you are panning or moving.
  3. Don't worry about the ISO - but keep it somewhere that you can live with. All your cameras have good high ISO capability.
    If you have the card space, might be worth shooting in JPG and RAW so ou have both speed and flexibility.
  4. Post processing is your friend. I highly recommend Topaz Photo AI and do all the post sharpening and denoise there. I hav seen it work miracles on some images. I know it is a potential extra cost, but I find it an essential product in the workflow. It is faster and more powerful than what Adobe is offering right now in Lightroom.
  5. Don't over think it. You know what you are doing, have confidence in yourself. It will come out in the end. I've had many shoots where, in the moment, I wasn't "feeling it" or "things seemed off"....but once i got back to the home office and started processing images - the doubt went away.
 
Oh, and I should add, this is Pro Bono, unpaid work - so although I do always out of habit shoot jpg + RAW, I hope not to spend many hours post processing.

Thank you @gryphon1911 - I do always try to be at least a quarter hour earlier than show time, but there is no lighting team apparently - just flat stage lighting.
Yes, I shoot all manual except for Auto ISO and then I adjust EV's down by about 1 to 1.3 stops which brings down the ISO. Yes, the Z6ii is great in low light.

And if all else fails ... I'll just convert to artsy black and white - right ?!

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Nikon D4 + 70-200 [2018]
 
Thanks @fredlong - some good thoughts! Spot metering is awkward for a group of people with black skin wearing white clothing. Where to put the spot?
Currently I'm using centre weighted and dialling down the EV by 1.3 stops (using auto ISO and manual settings for shutter and aperture) - so it's lowering the ISO in that case
Once you get a good exposure you don't really need the meter. Use the live view to make small adjustments. Keep the highlight warning blinkies on and don't blow out the light costumes or skin. Everything else will fall where it will.

A lot of stage situations have inconsistent color temperature. I choose the preset white balance that looks the best. That way I don't have a different temp on every photo. If there's color filters on the lights, I use the temp of the "white" light so I don't accidentally "fix" the colored light.
 
Once you get a good exposure you don't really need the meter. Use the live view to make small adjustments. Keep the highlight warning blinkies on and don't blow out the light costumes or skin. Everything else will fall where it will.

A lot of stage situations have inconsistent color temperature. I choose the preset white balance that looks the best. That way I don't have a different temp on every photo. If there's color filters on the lights, I use the temp of the "white" light so I don't accidentally "fix" the colored light.
Oh my goodness, how would I determine the colour temperature to begin with? Would it be colder than 5200 Kelvin in general, do you think?
 
Oh my goodness, how would I determine the colour temperature to begin with? Would it be colder than 5200 Kelvin in general, do you think?
If they seem to be led’s I try daylight. Basically you can just cycle through the presets to see what looks “right”. If the lights aren’t gelled you can get a custom white balance off a white piece of paper or shirt or napkin. It may not be as accurate as a grey card, but it’ll be close enough. If the lights are gelled, a custom white balance will try to cancel out the color and throw the white balance way off. After the shoot you can fix the white balance in one photo and copy it to all the others at once.
 
Excellent (NOT) sigh
There were two people video-ing with tripods who were very nice and kept in one place and I spoke to them beforehand and we were all good.
Then the moment the show started, this guy arrived from nowhere and just pranced around right at the front

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At least he'll crop or clone out. Sometimes I wish there was a real life version of photoshop.
 
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