Best way to white balance and focus a dance recital

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digexpressions

Active member
I've shot many performances in my day, but last night I had some trouble with the HMC150. Conditions were not ideal, I was shooting a recital with uneven light (parts of the stage was very dark, others were HOT! It didn't help that lights would change color during the individual numbers. They also used a slow strobe-like effect for several numbers. I left the WB on auto as well as auto focus (that what I used to do with my old Sony). Not sure that was the best choice. I ending up with some rather interesting flesh tones and every time it came back from a blackout, the camera had a hard time finding the initial focus. I switched to manual focus a few times when this happened, but there was so much action on stage, that might not have been the best thing either.

What should I be doing in these cases?
 
Sometimes "auto" is the best compromise. I use it for stage productions, which I seem to shoot a lot of lately, when conditions change rapidly during a shoot as you are describing.

Typically white balance issues can be fixed more easly after the fact than trying to constantly make changes on the fly.
 
hi...

i am not using the hmc but will goona buy one in the next weeks.

I#m currently using my old Panasonic NV-GS400... I mainly set the white-balance manually because i dont like to have different color-temperatures to edit in the post... surely sometimes effect-ligthnings are really strong but thats what i can accept instead of color-temperatrures-changes.

Auto-Focus is an option i often use... because the nv-gs400 only got one ring and i primary use it for manual iris control... but in bad lightning you have to switch to manuall because the contrast is to low for the AF-unit.

If you doesnt change your standpoint every second - you wont have problems with the focus.. i simply zoom fully in and focus the person on stage... thats it.. while zooming out into wide-angle everything will be in focus...
 
I try to white balance before the performance with the lights at a neutral setting, then I have a baseline for color correcting in post. If the auto white balance shifts during a take I'm powerless to stop it, but if it's consistently off I can really easily change it after. Also, if you use the auto white balance, it could over-correct for lights that are supposed to change the color, so you lose a major effect of the show.

I can't suggest anything for focus, since my experience is with things that don't move too much.
 
If I know all the lights are are incandescent, I use the 3.2k preset (not auto). I have almost never gotten a good white balance from a stage... and if I did, it would look the same as the 3.2k preset. Plus, if there's going to be multiple cameras, at least this gives more or less the exact same white balance in case something needs to be fixed in post... but that's honestly never been the case.

And as Cassius points out, I don't want to over correct for a color change (which is part of the show). Even getting a manual white before sometimes made that difficult. The 3.2k preset preserves the "look" that the lighting person was going for.
 
Stage (and similar) productions can often give you fits, regarding lighting. While my new HMC-150 won't be here until Wednesday, I've shot many stage productions using my old XL-1.

For white balance, prior to the performance, I typically have the light techs give me their whitest setting, then do a white balance to a whiteboard on-stage. Generally, the lighting designer is going for a desired effect (mood), and running auto would really confuse that, as well as creating much more work in post (As Mike alludes to.). In my experience, only minor work in post was required.

The XL-1 auto focus is also prone to "hunt" during dark, and responding slowly once the lights come back up. So, I always used MF, as well. As was previously mentioned, zoom-in, focus, then zoom out, as needed. Unless you're very close to the talent, it should stay in-focus. If refocus is needed, the ability of the HMC-150 to use the focus aid while recording is a nice feature. (On my venerable XL-1, it was just a simple matter of over-riding the manual using the auto-focus push button. HD is less forgiving.)

-vic
 
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I have done dance recitals now for two seasons with HMC150. I usually ask the stage manager to put on their normal "all lights on" before the show, and shoot a white card in the average stage light and store that white balance in the "B" position. Then I go back to the tripod and look to see what Preset3.2k looks like, and unless there is something strange looking in the Preset3.2k, that is what I use. I still have the stored white balance "B" setting as a fall back, although I have yet to need or use it.

I always use manual focus. Before the show starts, I very carefully focus on something near the "front", the "middle", and the "back" of the stage Keeping carfeul note of the manual focus numbers displayed for each of those focal distances. Since we typically shoot from a "long" distance from the stage, the depth of field is big enough that may only have to make minor focus adjustments when the cameras are zoomed to Z99. Your wide shots will be spot on when you use the "middle stage" focal setting.

I don't like to use auto focus, because at some of our recitals, audience ettiquette has deteriorated to the point where people will get up and walk around the auditorium during the dances. Some of them don't even mind walking in front of our cameras..... At least with manual focus you don't also have the distraction created by the auto-focus pulling to the rude behavior.
 
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Shooting stage productions I set white balance to 3200k, the ungelled color temp of the lights at full on, and leave it there. Let the gels and dimmers do their work and determine the scene color. You can make some corrections in post if a particular hue of gel creates a problem or low dim color temp shift creates a problem.
Manual focus and manual exposure for me most of the time, especially if I can attend a tech rehearsal and get some incident meter readings on the scene settings.
 
Generally speaking I have found that spots / follow spots used on the subject/s can vary. As they are the subject that's what I WB to. But generally speaking they use tungsten par cans or similar, but as I said depends where you are and what the stage size is. Usually a few questions to a stage tech and I know where Im at.

I dont care what BG lighting they use, or if they bring up blue for a particular component. I want that to show as Blue. I dont concern myself with house lighting at all.

FWIW I havent done a single cam stage shoot in a very long time, usually 3 cam min.
 
I actually just finished a shoot with the exact same conditions you mentioned. I stuck to auto WB and the results were perfect for me. I had to adjust the exposure a few times when someone with a paler complexion went into the "hot" spots which became a bit tricky when making sure the audio levels were good while following the subject and trying to keep everything smooth. Also, I would suggest keeping it on manual focus on a fixed spot since the lights seem to throw off the auto focus (that's just from my own experiences). This would be a problem if you were closer to the stage however.
 
auto everything is asking for trouble.
as already mentioned, pick and set your WB then leave it. you can always CC in post for a specific shot.
auto focus in lowlight will always be a pain. learn to manual focus, its very easy and more accurate. and if you're zoomed out wide, pretty much everything will be in focus anyway. as 'highdriver' mentioned, you'll quickly get used to checking the approximate focal distance (if you enable that display on your lcd) and find that just being in the ballpark or fairly close is going to be better than what auto focus will give you. i've found that auto focus really prefers infinity and if you're zoomed in at all you know how bad that can be!
 
There is a lot of good advice in this thread, so I will just add my formula for dealing with the amateur lighting directors of the world.

White Balance: Never on auto, I ask the tech crew to turn on their idea of maximum white light, place a grey card on the stage, and individually white balance all of the cameras. This provides great color, and eliminates color matching the cameras.

Exposure: Shooting classical ballet on auto exposure with uneven lighting is an invitation to a video of a bunch of dancing light bulbs. I set up the HMC150 LCD to show the waveform monitor full time, and frame the video with an external Small HD monitor. During the shot, I shoot manual exposure (f stop) and control it with a varizoom remote control as I watch the waveform. This way I use the full dynamic range of the camera, and prevent blowing out the whites.

Focus: I started with the fixed manual focus approach, but there are limits to depth of field and I ended up with soft video at the stage edge. I now shoot autofocus and rely on the camera. Blackouts between segments can drive some cameras nuts, but the HMC 150 responds well and just works… no focus hunts. A Canon XHA1 works almost as well, and the HMC 40 seems to focus hunt a lot, probably due to the lower light sensitivity.

Someday I am looking forward to shooting a video where I can control the light… someday.
 
Another problem rearing its ugly head for dance concerts here in Melbourne this year is the popularity of smoke machines!

I have just done two concerts where the smoke machine was basically left on all night. Wonderful look for the audience but I had to explain to both dance teachers that they were forcing the camera to look through fog!

I hope that craze doesn't catch on for the rest of you guys!

One trick with the old Sony cameras was to flick the focus button on the wide camera from AUTO to INFINITY in the black between items so it would always come out of black in focus, but then you had to remember to do it.
Manual set to front/middle of stage is best, especially in fog!!!!

Cheers,

Vaughan
 
Manually set white balance with an on-stage white card or just choose a 3200k preset. Use a large enough (20") hdmi or rgb monitor so you can really see focus. Manually adjust focus using a spot on the floor to get an idea where most dancers or actors will be and fine tune from there, or just use the "Push" auto focus using the monitor as a double check. You're never going to get perfect colors throughout the performance because of gels and lighting effects. Expose for the spotlight, but consider the other action on stage as well. What does the viewer want to see?
 
dance recital image capture advice as related to WB

dance recital image capture advice as related to WB

I shoot a lot of contemporary dance using the Panny dvx-100a, the hvx-200, and soon the hmc-150. I have had great success using 3.2K preset in combination with fixed MF. Generally, speaking the focus is done pre-show on a object or person about 1/3 the distance upstage from the lip (or more accurately whatever point a dancer will be closes to the camera, this could actually be different from the lip).

Auto Focus for most live performances is nearly always a "no go," because the light changes and gel colors drive the camera focus system wild. This results in a constantly changing focus point and a very bad picture.

Some assumptions
A single camera shoot.

Your camera position is reasonably far from the stage, like 30 plus feet.

That all lights are tungsten balanced stage instruments, usually lighting around the 3.2K mark.

Finally, I strongly suggest using manual iris and riding this according to the light changes. Depending on the performance style this could mean a lot of iris adjustment, e.g., modern dance or might be a little, if by chance it is a simpler show with a general wash. But, more often then not its lots of iris adjustment.
 
One gig I did for a band I had the opportunity to talk to the lighting guy and I asked him to set the lights he would normally set to 100% to something like 75%, so the strong HMI lights fell under the camera DR.

It would have looked pretty bad otherwise.

Also find out the underexposure limit that you can bring back in post without looking muddy.
 
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