Best settings for on the fly dance recital?

Blackout

Blackout

Veteran
Once again I got an offer that I really don't want to take with the GH1 but it's $400 for an hour so I took it. Should be simple enough, just a dad who wants a copy of his son's dance recital at a school. I was told the light will be good but who knows what that means. Anyway just wondering what the best settings you think will be to do this.. obviously auto focus so kit lens but what mode? At least this time I'll be on a nice fluid head tripod so it shouldn't be too much of a big deal. I seem to have trouble getting the GH1 to stay in the autofocus I set it on as well as the white balance though it always seems to drift on me am I doing something wrong?

Thanks...
 
PS - settings are in creative movie mode full manual I will be shooting in 720 60p avchd.. 60 shutter.. one dancer on a stage
 
Regarding White Balance drifting, the white balance is a separate control when you are in Full Manual. You need to make sure your white balance is not set to AWB (Automatic) or it has a tendency to drift. My guess is that setting it to Tungsten (the Light Bulb icon in the White balance menu) will be correct for the lighting at a dance recital, but I can't say for sure. Otherwise, use the Color Temperature control (The icon on the right in the White Balance menu, and dial in a color temperature that looks correct. Higher numbers are more blue and approach daylight temperature (around 5600K), while lower numbers are for incandescent light sources like stage lighting (around 2900 to 3200K).

My recommendation for Film Mode setting is the Smooth setting as that will give you the flattest picture. In my experience, stage lighting at dance recitals is VERY contrasty, with pools of darkness and pools of bright light. It looks great to the human eye, but to a camera you risk someone being either in total darkness or overexposed underneath a spotlight. The Smooth setting with Contrast set to minus 2 will at least control this problem a bit. Make sure not to overexpose your dancer when they are under the brightest portion of the stage lights. Good luck!
 
The best settings?

A 5D.

No but seriously I would go with standard, contrast -2, saturation +/- 0, sharpness +1, NR -2.
Standard at with contrast at -2 isn't quite as flat as Smooth but I feel like it gives the cleanest image with the least chance of artifacting.

I would shoot 720/60p if I were you. Probably at a 1/60 shutter. This mode will reduce the risk of mud and rolling shutter. Also colors, particularly reds (which can get absolutely destroyed by compression) hold up a bit better in 720p.

I would also try to get close if possible because you don't want to risk focus or jerky movements on a long lens.

Good luck, sounds tricky!
 
5D.. ha. I was going to maybe use a 7D but I am still not as familiar with it as the GH1, and also, this is a one hour event... so the 7D will keep shutting off won't it?

Thanks guys. Yes I have been using the smooth setting and like the results. I have been selecting the manual white balance in the dial in menu, but for the life of me the camera seems to return to auto white balance sometimes.. I don't get it. Where is a way to actually focus on a white card and truly manually balance? or is this not possible on the GH1 or buried somewhere where I am not seeing it? Also.. with the autofocus, what mode should I keep it on if I am just panning back and forth keeping the dance in frame? Should I set it to one of the tracking modes?
 
Blackout said:
5D.. ha. I was going to maybe use a 7D but I am still not as familiar with it as the GH1, and also, this is a one hour event... so the 7D will keep shutting off won't it?

Thanks guys. Yes I have been using the smooth setting and like the results. I have been selecting the manual white balance in the dial in menu, but for the life of me the camera seems to return to auto white balance sometimes.. I don't get it. Where is a way to actually focus on a white card and truly manually balance? or is this not possible on the GH1 or buried somewhere where I am not seeing it? Also.. with the autofocus, what mode should I keep it on if I am just panning back and forth keeping the dance in frame? Should I set it to one of the tracking modes?
Click to expand...

You just hit the WB button, I think it's right on the D-pad, and go over to the manual option, you can tell it cause there should be two of them with the same icon, and then you hit up on the D-pad I think, and then center to set...I think...I do it by feel.

Yeah the 5D and 7D totally won't work. Good call.
 
This is getting off your topic a bit, but I too have noticed the White Balance drifting even when it is set to a manual preset, now that I think about it. I wonder if that is another bug? As far as focus, I am not a fan of the autofocus during movie recording, as you can see it hunt around a bit when you half-press the shutter button. But it may be your only choice as the manual focus is really difficult to get razor sharp with the eyepiece viewfinder. Ben is right, though, the closer you can get to the stage the better.
 
Is it possible that it is simply the light changing? If you're shooting outdoors this can happen quite a bit and you don't notice. You can always be safe and set it to something white (but not too bright then you end up with weird crap.)
 
Ben_B said:
Is it possible that it is simply the light changing? If you're shooting outdoors this can happen quite a bit and you don't notice. You can always be safe and set it to something white (but not too bright then you end up with weird crap.)
Click to expand...

No, that wasn't the case. It was within a two-minute take that the WB kept revolving from warm to cool, warm to cool. Not really that noticeable, but just enough to be annoying. It was a cloudy day and the quality of light was very consistent. A previous take of the same shot is fine. That's how I really notice it: the skin tones of the actress from take one and take two look very different. But I didn't change anything on the camera.
 
dvbrother said:
No, that wasn't the case. It was within a two-minute take that the WB kept revolving from warm to cool, warm to cool. Not really that noticeable, but just enough to be annoying. It was a cloudy day and the quality of light was very consistent. A previous take of the same shot is fine. That's how I really notice it: the skin tones of the actress from take one and take two look very different. But I didn't change anything on the camera.
Click to expand...

I've noticed on cloudy days it does that but because the light changes a lot on most cloudy days as clouds get thicker and thinner and diffuse the sun more or less. This can have an effect on the color temperature. While the sun might never not come out of the cloud the consistency of the cloud might change and I think that might cause it.
 
stav1606 said:
why?
Click to expand...

To me, nostalgic seems more like an effect....sure it flattens the image out, but it does it in such a way and with such a look that I hold it on par with sepia or black and white. I wouldn't want to correct the flatness of nostalgic in post any more than I'd want to add color to black and white.

I like standard because it's not doing anything to it, just the controls you program in. With a codec and processors as dicey as things are with these cameras I wouldn't want to throw more effects at it and then expect a better image quality.

Also there have been some threads about weird color shifts using modes other than standard (independent of white balance.)

So I just use standard and tweak contrast -2, saturation same, nr -2, sharpness +1
 
Well the event came out ok.. but the GH1 did weirdness on my and again SOMEHOW it switched from a 60 shutter to 30 somewhere in the middle of 2 of my about 15min long shots...


ARGHGHGHGHH!!!!!

I have NO clue how this happened. I set everything manual.... shutter 60... white balanced manual to a kid with a white shirt on stage, and set the focus to afs.. shot 720 60p in order to conform to a 24p timeline in vegas... but now I am screwed because 30p does not look good conformed to 24p... so half of it looks great.. the other has weird stutter motion.

The client wont even notice but I notice.

So what are my options now - I guess do the entire thing on a 30p timeline and output to 30p? I need to provide a standard DVD, a blu-ray, and a youtube.

I am going to repost this as it's own question because it will be lost in this thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top