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01-16-2011, 12:42 AM - 3 Likes   #1
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Lighting a Small Stage: An Example

I recently accompanied my dancing girls on a trip to a local elder daycare center where they put on a performance to entertain the folks there. The center has a very small stage, which is a far cry from the much larger stage where they hold their annual recital and other large stages where they perform at cultural festivals. As we often have posts from people interested in taking photos of performances such as school plays and the like I thought that perhaps some people might find a few example shots of interest.

The stage is only a few meters wide and probably not quite three meters deep. In the past I have lighted this stage from behind the audience, but that resulted in sharp shadows on the nearby rear wall, which can only be kept out of frame by carefully shooting only from the edges of the stage...very limiting with such a small stage and with the area immediately in front of the stage filled with wheelchair-bound seniors. This time I decided to go with two flashes, one on either side of the stage, with both ceiling bounced to prevent any shadows on the rear wall and allowing me greater leeway in shooting position.

I placed a Pentax AF200T ($10) on my travel tripod to the right of the stage and a National PE-3057 ($10) on a light stand just off the stage to the left, with both as low as I could get them in order to maximize the area they covered on the ceiling. Both were fired with Flash Waves radio triggers.

The flashes as set up:








An uninteresting shot from off stage to the right, standing next to the National PE-3057. I took this shot specifically for the purpose of showing the effect of the two flashes bouncing off the ceiling. As you can see, they turn the entire ceiling into a giant softbox. Nothing special or exciting, but the setup served the purpose well enough:





And a couple of shots showing the effect of the flash setup during the performance:








All
Pentax K20D
Tamron 17-50/2.8


The end result: An adequately lighted stage and photos that don't look like they were done with flash at all (I hope that's how they look, anyway), done with simple techniques and inexpensive gear both within the reach of any of our friends here on Pentax Forums.

01-16-2011, 11:21 AM   #2
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Great examples, Mike! Thanks for posting. The lighting is very good indeed. The young lady's face in the second to last image is a bit dark where the hair causes a shadow, but I am certain a bit of localized lightening in post processing would have made it perfect. I'll keep this method in mind. It certainly makes direct flash a crude lighting method.
01-16-2011, 12:04 PM   #3
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Thanks for sharing Mike! Reputation for you!
01-18-2011, 01:25 PM   #4
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Great info. Thanks! I even have an AF200T already!

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