Oly 75 1.8 at the theatre (warning: 29 images)

Tom Caldwell wrote:

You did well - nice to see a more enlightened attitude to recording cinema. But with some users not knowing how to turn off their flash units and other distracting functions I cannot blame them.

Theatre shots do take a bit of working out but they are straight forward enough with a bit of intelligent effort. The stage lighting helps - a nice bright consistently lit stage is great.

I have not had the opportunity to try out my 75/1.8 for stage yet as I have previously used Canon EF gear. But hope to make sea-change in time. The 75/1.8 is really still a bit "far away" but once you get to 100mm+ it all starts to happen.

"recording cinema" should be "theatre/circus" - some sort of freudian slip.

Of course "you did" but it needs to be emphasised that the focus assist light should be always off when at a live perfomance lest you get ejected as this would be probably even more distracting (to performers at least) than flash units firing.  In fact I set my focus assist light (with all sounds) off by rote on all my cameras as one of a group twee "helping" devices that does more to advertise that you are taking photographs than they supply in practical help.  I tend to take my chances in getting AF without it even if I sometimes have to try harder and repeat the perfomance until satisfied.  After all the delay in the focus assist light is just another log to be hurdled in capturing the image and doubtfully faster if you are in a hurry.

Furthermore stage lighting can make or break this sort of imaging depending where it is directed at any given time.  Where it is perfect for the purpose it shows up extremely well and on a few images where the stage lighting has not caught the actors faces to advantage this shows just as inevitably.

Ideally a second advantage of a very long fast lens in this type of work is that it helps isolate the lighting effect into smaller areas and therefore makes metering more reliable.  I also have found brightly lit full stage easier to handle than a more subdued spotlit type lighting (with dark surrounding areas).  Also the EV usually has to be adjusted to perfection on the day and changed if the lighting varies.