I shot this ballet put on by a small local dance studio. It's a combination of the Nutcracker and the Nightmare Before Christmas. The director wanted it very dark. At times the only lighting used in the whole theater were from 4 black lights placed on the stage.

The Nightmare After the Nutcracker - Trailers on Vimeo

Shot with an EX3 and nanoFlash. Stock lens and max of 6db gain. I mostly tried to keep it at 0db or +3db.

-Garrett

I feel for you, i've done a number of ballet shows in the past and there is no worse lighting conditions. One second it can be black light and the next the full house lights come on and you have to rack the exposure down as quickly as you can then it goes back to black light, its a nightmare. I work alone when i do them so i have a second camera locked off for the wide shot and i have to just pick a happy medium with exposure.

I'll be pleased if I can achieve the same when the time comes.

when the time comes.

A bit of advice, dont tell the dance director you can edit the video differently, the one i worked with didn't know the edit could be changed because the previous videographer just gave her the finnished product no questions asked, stupidly i said "are you happy with it because i can re edit parts".....well that spelled two months of her sitting next to me editing it to the way she wanted , seriously she wanted the wide shot for a certain leg movement then back to the close up etc etc.

Moral of the story , keep your mouth shut and just hand in the dvd.

It is work situations like this that really eliminate a lot of the new era of HD cameras from being a good choice for use/purchase. As a live event shooter one really needs 2/3" SD like light gathering abilities to survive in all shooting environments.

In my opinion even though the lighting is low on purpose, people do not want to see dark video. This is a tough situation to make everybody happy.