settings for stage lighting

D

dkphotos

Member
Hi all,

Does anybody have any favorite camera settings that might work well for stage lighting? I expect the house lighting to be contrasty, so I'd like to flatten out the picture a little to preserve information in the mids & shadows (and hopefully reduce noise there, too) and cut down any intense highlights.

Needless to say, I wouldn't want to do anything radical that might compromise the film look of the picture.

Any recommendations appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

Use cine-gamma, to get the widest lattitude possible. Also, maybe lift your master ped to 0, so that you retain as much shadow detail as possible. Stage lighting tends to be very high contrast, so you want all the dynamic range possible.
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

Also, whitebalance off a 3200k source, so the theatrical jells will be as the lighting director intended.

-j
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

whitebalance off a 3200k source


how do i whitebalance off a 3200k source?
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

The easiest way is to put your camera in "preset" mode (set the white balance switch to PRST) and then toggle the white balance setting (switch on the front of the camera) until it says "P3.2K".
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

I'm doing a Nutcracker performance (actually four performances edited into one filnal show from a couple of different angles), and at the rehersal last weekend, I just white balanced on the stage in un-gelled light prior to the show getting started and it came out quite well.

The best thing to do would be to talk to the lighting or technical person and simply ask if he or she would be so kind as to bring up a few lights before the performance and give you a moment to white balance.......although setting it to the 3200K preset will work, manually white balancing would be the most accurate. Just remember to white balance on un-gelled lights and not on gelled ones.

Also, attend the dress rehersal and run through the process to make sure you can get it right......it wouldn't hurt to shoot the rehersal in it's entirety so that you get to know the show better; you can practice shooting and you'll have time to watch it at home so that you have a better idea of what action happens when.

Regarding what settings to use, for the rehersal I shot over the weekend, I used cine-gamma and cine-matrix, about -3 on the sharpness and pretty much left everything else alone and it was breathtaking. Theatrical stuff really brings out the best in this camera I think.
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

I do a lot of stage and agree totaly with Matt. My only concern would be distance.

Tahl
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

Tahl, by distance do you mean trying to white balance from farther away from the stage or is it something else?

If the former; what I did was just picked the camera up off of the tripod and physically got up on the stage with it and stood directly in the lights to get my white balance......primarily because the DVX only has a 10x lens and you have to be fairly close (or use a giant white object) in order to completely fill the frame in order to white balance properly.

Alternatively, if you mean distance with regard to being closer to get better images then I'd have to agree.....in my view, the farther one is away from one's subject the worse the image gets; this camera is by far better when you can get in close.
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

I'd say the 3200K preset would be perfectly fine to use for colour balance - the lights they're using are most likely regular Tungsten lamps, so you shouldn't have a real problem with the colours being right.

You can always colour time in post if you absolutely have to, but it should be close enough with the preset that you won't notice any problems.
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

With all due respect Mike, why would you recommend not manually white balancing (if possible obviously) and then correcting in post, when the most straight-forward and dependable way would be to do it yourself and to not rely on hoping that the camera gets it right?
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

Simplicity reasons - if you're shooting on different nights, and there's anything different about the conditions in which you're white balancing, you can have slightly different variations in colour temperature.
Using the preset will guarantee that any colour offsets are consistent at least on the camera's end between shows.
 
Re: settings for stage lighting

Makes sense, though personally I'd rather get a more accurate balance, if all things are equal.

I was just curious as to your reasoning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top