Settings Recommendation
 

Hello, all. I have a dance shoot coming up tomorrow evening that will take place in a dark school auditorium, with a well lit stage. I will be shooting from the back, and have never done a shoot in these conditions, so I have no idea what the best settings to use would be. Can someone, or manyone, give any suggestions as to what needs to be done? Audio is not the instructor's main concern, but the visuals he is most worried about.

Thank you in advance!

David Sotar

If you are shooting from behind the well lit stage into a dark audotorium that isn't much you can do to get both places well exposed. Your best shot would be to shoot some of the dance from your position behind the stage, exposing the shot so that you can see the band or whatever is going on the stage. Then move out onto the floor and get dance footage there. I don't know if that is a option or not but that is what I would try to do.

I don't think I need worry about the audience being there at all. Just what is on stage, and the lighting there. I'm supposed to show up 2 hours early to witness the warm-up, but as far as I can tell, that's what he's asking for. And this is hardly a hig-paying gig, but I still want to deliver as good a product as possible.

Imho:
 

I would set my self up once so i don't miss anything and can record the whole time and not have to worry about getting in the way. Maybe at the back in the middle.
If the performance is on stage i'd try to get a riser to bring up the camera to above any standing audience and to get some better shots.
As for sound i would either try to take a audio feed from the sound system (*althought you would lose the amibiant noise and clapping) or even better get a copy of the music track and replace the audio in editiing (then you can have good audio and applause). Preferably the latter, its the best of both worlds.

Hope that helps
Cheers
Ryan

Hey, everyone...well, when I said "settings" I meant camera settings - iris settings, frame rate, etc. Sorry I wasn't clear. I shot at 1/60, at 3.4 iris. It seemed to look really good in my XH G1's viewfinder, but looks a little grainy at full size in Final Cut Pro. Maybe I should have shot at 1/30. I am a bit worried that I can't trust the viewfinder to see any artifacting...is this normal? Something that you just sort of learn by trial and error? Thanks in advance.

From my perspective
 

You definitely need to use Zebras and always shoot in manual mode. Without zebras you can't tell if you are over or under exposing. Using manual allows you to adjust the F stops for each dance which I find necessary.
Using the 1\60 was a good choice. You should also remember that the XH-A1 uses 60i, 30f or 24f. For dance you must use 60i to keep up with the speed during a dance show.

I did use manual mode, yes. I didn't want my exposure getting weird, and I detest autofocus.

I had to downsample for the DVD the instructor wants, and the footage looks better than I had seen in FCP in HD. I still haven't seen the tape footage directly on my TV, so maybe its better than I thought. Overall, things went pretty well.

I appreciate the help, and I'll learn from it.

David, you didn't mention what gain setting you were using. I shoot several dance shows a year. My typical set up is to have one XH A1 at the back of the auditorium framed to capture all of the dancers on stage at anytime. I have an assistant doing basic movements and controlling the zoom. I operate the second camera an XL H1a from the back also but for that camera I'm more focused in on capturing from one to half of the dancers on the stage.

I would disagree with Greg on the frame rate. Dancer's don't move that fast. I shoot 24F so I can get my shutter down to 1/48th and the people love the look. That allows me to set the gain to 0 and to close down the f stop a little more to get a little better depth of field which really helps in the focusing. I honestly couldn't tell you the f stop because I'm constantly riding the iris.

For the XH A1 that's being operated by someone less knowledgeable I set the camera to TV mode and drop the exposure to -1.25 to control the overexposure problem due to the hot lights.

For the XL H1a I'm on I run full manual and use an external lcd screen to help with focus. I run zebras at 100% and as I said I'm constantly adjusting the f stop. On both cameras I set the WB to 3200K and I like the look of the PANALOOK2 preset So I usually use that. I've been contemplating using no presets and doing a lot more color grading in post but it takes me long enough to get the DVD's out so the less post I have to do the better.

As far as the grain and the screen unless you have tons of noise you won't see it on the XH A1's small screen. You're safest bet is to use 0 gain and maybe go up to +3 if you have to but anything beyond that usually just has too much noise IMHO. Downresing to SD will help hide a lot of the noise. DVD's are much more forgiving that HD delivery. I offer both SD DVD's and Blu-Ray HD versions and the first time I did that was an eye opener. My DVD's loooked great but I thought my BR's looked like crap (although all of the people who bought them loved them). Another thing you can do is basically crush the blacks and that will help too.