Starpower dance competition

Last weekend was one of the hardest of my life, ever, not just photography. Over 500 dance acts with around 15 photos of each, starting Friday night and finishing on Sunday night... 36 hrs in total. The requirements were quite exacting, jpg files only, 400th shutter min, f2.8 to f4, no flash, keep tight on the action. It was physically demanding with a lot of shots being taken with my 70-200, the rest with a 24-70, all but the first three acts using my old faithful d300, the focus tracking and focus array on a 610 isn't up to the job despite it being superior in every other way. fps was irrelevant, it was all single shots with no burst option. Focus tracking needed to be watched carefully - the nikon uses its knowledge of colour to follow an object, and with such a busy background it could easily be fooled by colour similarities or dances wearing black.



I took on the job as I always enjoy shooting the dancing at a wedding reception. This job proved to be as far removed as possible. At a wedding disco I'll be shooting at f11 to 14, shutter speed from 1/2 to 60th sec, bounced flash iso around 800 and using an ultrawide zoom. I used to use my 17-35 on ff, but now use a siggy 12-24 getting right in there with the action.



On Friday night I set my camera fully manual, but later realised that the uneven illumination of the stage meant exposure variation was way too large and I can't keep up with manual changes. On Saturday I switched to auto iso with far better results. -0.3 EV worked well or most setups, but for darker costumes -0.7 gave better results.



Focus tracking on light costumes like these was 100%. White costumes were best from my point of view, they bumped down the iso, making the background much darker. The front wings were also good areas of the stage as the backdrops were plain curtains.

Lessons learned:

• keep both eyes open to reduce strain
• put the camera down at every single opportunity, even if only for a few seconds
• support the camera and lens well - either elbow on knee or wedged into midriff
• have a good stretch out whenever possible, don't wait for the pain to set it!
• rotate any tripod collars out of your way to improve hand comfort
• be prepared to move around to get the best view, switching my location was essential for some routines
• get with the beat, but don't rely on it as dancers don't always hit it perfectly - nobody hears the music when they are looking at the shots!
• as with a wedding, drink regularly and eat throughout a long day
• if possible, don't run a battery flat, keep topping them up regularly. I took 4 batteries along for each camera, but stuck with one camera and two batteries. After initially letting a battery run down completely I realised the recharge time made me anxious, so far better to change them in good time and reduce the recharge time - better for the battery condition too.

So hard work, but a lot of fun. Note that the above shots were all from my 610. I was constantly handing cards to the organisers, they read them into their system then deleted all files and handed them back to me so I didn't need to reformat. Great for continuity, but it means I only have the ones from the first card at present. I'm looking forward to seeing some from my d300. The shots were constantly being updated on a set of ipads that the dancers and families could view and make their orders, so I was able to check up on how they were looking during the food breaks - invaluable, it is so hard to give yourself the feedback required by flicking through the camera LCD during the seconds between acts!

A wedding tomorrow. It will have its moments of panic I'm sure, but compared to last weekend it will be a stroll in the park!

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Wedding and fine art photographer based in the Lake District, UK

Good work. Try to keep up the pace.

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These are nice enough records (though the highlights on the first image look too hot on my screen), but the hideous background graphics are screamingly distracting and keep these from connecting to the real energy of the dance. Unfortunate.

I would think that one has to count one's blessings when a weekend of photographing a dance event rises to be amongst the hardest few days of one's life.

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Terrific opportunity and work.

I changed my Nikon bodies in the past year to include a D700 and a D7200. Both have the very strong focus quality that was lacking in the D7000, and I suspect is also true for the D610.

Maybe you commented, but I'm wondering if you use the Back button focus approach for such events? That is so helpful to me with the D700. I shot some gymnastics in very poor light a while back and it was essential for that to be successful.

Very interesting post and photos. Thanks for posting.

in all these the subject is front and center which as a series gives me a very good idea of what the audience is seeing. The down side of this approach is it also puts your very active subjects in a very static setting. Just for the fun of it see if you can crop or otherwise change the framing to get a more dynamic feel

LifeIsAVerb said:

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These are nice enough records (though the highlights on the first image look too hot on my screen), but the hideous background graphics are screamingly distracting and keep these from connecting to the real energy of the dance. Unfortunate.

Click to expand...

Yup, I had a custom white balance for those first shots and it was way too warm. I had no reference shots to go from until the first dancers took to the stage. Later shots had far better colour and exposure, though the DR was so variable across the stage and caused a lot of probs. I'm yet to see the later files on anything but the organiser's ipads, but will hopefully get my hands on some at a later date.

The background is what the event was all about and a part of the occasion for the young dancers and their records of it - while it would likely make my bottom 10 of background given the choice, I really don't mind it in this context.

LifeIsAVerb said:

I would think that one has to count one's blessings when a weekend of photographing a dance event rises to be amongst the hardest few days of one's life.

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Blessings duly counted. Yup, I've had a sheltered life. I've had way harder single days, but nothing so demanding mentally and physically for so many hours with so little sleep.

Wensel said:

Terrific opportunity and work.

I changed my Nikon bodies in the past year to include a D700 and a D7200. Both have the very strong focus quality that was lacking in the D7000, and I suspect is also true for the D610.

Click to expand...

The focus array on the 610 is tiny in the viewfinder and the tracking isn't reliable in my experience.

Wensel said:

Maybe you commented, but I'm wondering if you use the Back button focus approach for such events? That is so helpful to me with the D700. I shot some gymnastics in very poor light a while back and it was essential for that to be successful.

Click to expand...

Yup, back button for everything, it is impossible to understand why anyone would use any other method.

Wensel said:

Very interesting post and photos. Thanks for posting.

Click to expand...

Thanks

It was all the nature of the brief - no cropping was possible for the files handed to the clients, so all needed to be composed tightly on the fly. Without that restriction it would have been far easier to back off the zoom and crop in post, but a lot more time. The budget for this type of shoot doesn't make that a practical proposition though the results would be far superior.

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Wedding and fine art photographer based in the Lake District, UK