Digital Camera for lighting work

[Freddie]

As is DCResource

[Martin]

You won't be disappointed with any of the DSLR's mentioned above. In the end it comes down to which one you prefer in your hand, and where all the buttons are. So try them out in the shop. When I bought my Nikon D70 over a year ago, I chose it instead of the Canon 350d purely because it fitted in my hands better, there was very little else between them, despite the Canon having an extra 2 megapixels. 6 megapixels is plenty if you're not planning to print bigger than A4.

 

The difference between a DSLR and compact digital camera is huge especially in terms of image quality. My 6mp DSLR produces much better images than my 8mp compact digital camera. This is mainly due to the sensor size, the size of each pixel is more important than the quantity of them.

 

A compact digital camera's ISO range (sensor sensitivity or gain) is usually 50-400, but anything above 100 and the image gets very noisy (think grain in film terms). Most DSLRs start at ISO 100 and go up to 1600, some even 3200. My DSLR has less noise at 1600 than my compact digital camera has at 200! When I'm shooting in a theatre I usually use ISO 1600 with the largest aperture on the lens (think iris wide open) to let as much light into the camera as possible. Even then I often get blurred images with fast moving subjects. Theatre is very demanding in terms of photography.

 

It is worth getting 'fast' lenses, as these let more light in. Problem is, they are usually much more expensive than the standard 'kit' lenses that come with the camera. It's definitely worth getting something like a 50mm f/1.8 though, as these are relatively cheap at around £80 brand new and are very fast and sharp. This is because they are optically simple compared to a zoom lens. Just the same as a fixed angle profile lantern will generally be cheaper, lighter, brighter and better for gobo projection compared to a zoom profile. A DSLR 'kit' zoom lens will often have a maximum aperture of f/3.5, which is relatively slow (the smaller the number the larger the aperture). You much less likely to get blurred images with a fast lens. Auto focus also works faster if you give it more light with a faster lens.

 

Much of what you are paying for in a more expensive DSLR over a budget model, is build and advanced features that most people will never use. The more expensive DSLRs are heavier, more durable and usually buit using more metal, where the budget ones are mostly plastic. Spend the money in the lenses.

 

The DSLR is the way to go, forget the 'bridge' cameras that are half way between a DSLR and a compact.

 

Edit: Remember to buy a tripod too. Helps massivly with camera shake in a dark theatre. Then it's just the peformers moving that you've got to worry about! :)

[woody74]

I'll add: something that does bracketing. Really handy with low light.

 

-w

[bjkered]

Again any of the models but as some people have said. Buy a Body only and then look for a FAST lens I.e down to f2.8 The independent manufacturers sigma and Tamron have some cracking lenses. Other wise you will be a bit frustrated by the longer exposure times from stock lens that come from the kits

 

I have seen some great Bargain's on the Canon 350 out there

[frazer]

hi guys,

 

just been out and bought myself the Canon 350D and tried it out at a concert at college, got some great photos however, probably will need another lens as the one that came supplied is very slow. Detail on faces seem to blurred, is that due to the speed of the lens?

 

Is ebay the best place to pick up cheap, quality lenses or is there another (more specialised) place to buy them?

 

Are there any secrets to taking good photos in the theatre, or is it a case of tinkering with the settings?

 

Lots of questions :)

 

again thanks for your help

 

frazer

[Tomo]

I find the "Shutter Priority" setting the most useful - let the camera figure out a suitable aperture, with you choosing the shutter speed.

 

1/40sec is about the slowest you can get away with when hand-held - 1/50sec or 1/60sec would be better if your lens has a wide enough aperture.

[Martin]

just been out and bought myself the Canon 350D and tried it out at a concert at college, got some great photos however, probably will need another lens as the one that came supplied is very slow. Detail on faces seem to blurred, is that due to the speed of the lens?

Yes, this will have much to do with it. As mentioned above, try something like a 50mm f/1.8 lens.

 

Is ebay the best place to pick up cheap, quality lenses or is there another (more specialised) place to buy them?

There are some bargains to be had on ebay, but do check out your local camera shop as they will also have used stock, and you may be able to bargain with them.

 

Are there any secrets to taking good photos in the theatre, or is it a case of tinkering with the settings?

Stage photography is demanding due to the relatively low light conditions, and it helps to have an understanding of basic photography techniques. But there aren't realy any 'secrets', just take note of some of the tips posted above and get some practice <_< enjoy!

 

I find the "Shutter Priority" setting the most useful - let the camera figure out a suitable aperture, with you choosing the shutter speed.

Personally I always use 'Aperture Priority' and set it to the widest available aperture (smallest number). This way the camera works out what the fastest shutter speed you can use is.

 

1/40sec is about the slowest you can get away with when hand-held - 1/50sec or 1/60sec would be better if your lens has a wide enough aperture.

This is true, but it does depend on the focal length of the lens. A good rule of thumb for hand holding is if you are using a 50mm lens then you should be shooting with a shutter speed of 1/50sec or faster. If you are using a longer lens like a 200mm you will need a faster shutter speed such as 1/200sec or faster, which can often be a challenge! So a tripod is a good idea for longer lenses.

[agermich]

Hi there

 

I'm gonna add a vote in for the Nikon D50. I've had some great pictures out of my one. To be honest I knew nothing about SLR photography before getting the camera, I have just learnt from playing with it. Every other digital camera that I'd tried to take pictures with in the theatre before moving onto an SLR just wasn't up to the job. What you've got to think about when taking pictures in the theatre is how the settings that you adjust on the camera will create a picture that is either similar or completely different to what we see with our eyes. The first time I used it I spent far too much time playing with the shutter speed so ended up with lots of blurred pictures because obviously (well not to me at the time!!) the cast moved around a lot. I have now come to the conclusion that in the theatre ISO adjustment is your friend. With a higher ISO setting you can end up with a slightly grainier picture but you will often get a much truer representation is the lighting and personally that's what I prefer to have. Shutter priority and aperture priority modes can be useful in some situations but most of the time I have gone for using full manual settings. When you buy the camera it's also good to get a couple of lenses to give you some flexibility. I have sigma 18-50mm and sigma 55-200mm, while these are a far shot from the best lenses on the market they still do a good enough job for me. I also got cheap jessops UV filters to put on the lenses - they're great at protecting the lenses from knocks and scratches (one of my UV filters got a big chip taken out of it when the lens cap got jammed in the front after taking a bit of a bash, but at least it was that that got chipped and not the lens). Also don't forget to get a decent size memory card. I have a 1gb card and can easily fill that up with high res JPEG's when I'm snapping away without regard! The camera wasn't cheap but I don't regret buying it at all.

 

After writing all of that I do have to say that I'm no a photographer but I have got many a good picture by just playing with the camera and figuring out what settings will give me that perfect picture. I've read some photography books but I learn by doing and I think that thats the best way to go about it - photography books tell you naff all about how to take pictures in the theatre anyway!

 

It's late - I should have gone to sleep by now

 

Mike

[NM13]

I use a Fujifilm finepix S7000 and save the pics in RAW format, rather than JPEGS, that way I can tinker with the exposure, image size (Over 20 megapixels in photoshop!) and whitebalance plus loads of other features, The files are very large and I usually use two 512 mb memory cards and can get 40 RAW images on each (Two cards so if one dies I have one left,)but I have been producing posters up to A1 size of reasonably good quality including stills from theatre shows. Capturing in RAW I have found that I can concentrate on just taking a good image and worry about the other things like colour, additional blur, sharpness, levels etc afterwards, especially as I am relatively new to photography.

[paulears]

I've just been having a play with a D70 - Linda Lusardi has one. She's always been involved with photography and realised that after being on the receiving end, she could recognise good and bad photgraphers quite easily. She's turned a hobby into proper commissioned sessions and has had a D70 for a while. She can't speak highly enough of it. All I did was ask, as a result of this thread, and I now know quite a few things I didn't!

 

it does make a fairly heavy mirror chunk, though.

[Andrew C]

Linda Lusardi has one.

How the h3ll did you come by that info? I'll bet 50% of the membership, and all of the young shavers have no idea who she is. Don't Google her while at school!

[gareth]

My guess is that she's lkeeping Paul company in Plymouth over the festive season ... <_<

[sparkyweb]

I have owned a Kodak compact camera for a few years and whilst please with it, found that with the birth of our first child I wanted a camera that was a little better. As funds were quite limited and whilst a DSLR would have been great, I knew that I would not be able to afford a fairly good quality one.

I went and purchased a Canon S3 IS Powershot, which is one of the bridge cameras that one of the previous posters said don't buy. I cannot fault this camera, for £300 including case, 1gig memory card (Sandisk UltraII) and battery charger you can't go wrong.

All I need to do is learn this new language that the camera world uses.

 

If money is limited and you cannot afford a DSLR this camera is well worth looking at

[woody74]

Don't Google her while at school!

 

Or at work...oops!

[paulears]

Now I've been having a play with a 'real' camera, it makes my little fuji fnepix seem rather poor. I still have my old 35mm pentax and a decent bundle of glass, but not been used for quite a few years - I've just seen in Jessops a Pentax K100 which can take my old lenses, obviously without autofocus, power zoom etc, but seems pretty good as I can use my old kit. One point - do the focal lengths match - so what I know as a 50mm lense on my old system give the same ield of view on a dslr? With video that I'm familiar with, using old lenses on smaller CCD chip cameras makes everything far more telephoto - does this happen on still kit? I see lots of 18-50mm lenses. I'm guessing I'd recognise them as 50-200mm zooms - is this right?

 

Paul