Need tips on shooting awards ceremony

Hi all,

 

Long-time reader, second-time poster here. I hope this is the appropriate forum

for this question.

 

I've got a small sports awards ceremony coming up where 3rd-6th graders will be

receiving tropies for their performance over the school's first "pee wees"

football/cheerleading season. It involves 54 kids, about half boys and half

girls, where the boys will be wearing khakis and polos, and the girls will be

wearing their Sunday best. The school has asked me to get individual shots of

each of the children receiving their award from the coaches on-stage. (I'm also

doing individual and group portraits after the ceremonies are over, but that's

another thread.)

 

Now, I spent ten years in the US Air Force and was photgraphed in that situation

plenty of times, but I've never been behind the lens for something like this.

Can you think of any last-minute pointers on equipment, timing, posing,

lighting, technique, or anything else pertinent to this kind of event?

 

Here's how it's supposed to go down: The kids will all line up on-stage, each

will approach the coach one at a time, a few words will be said about each one,

and then they'll do some kind of handshake (boys) or hug (girls) and they'll

receive a trophy at that point. Somewhere in there I think they'll turn to me

for a second so I can get the shot. At the end, they'll all approach the front

edge of the stage in 1 or 2 lines to show off their trophies together and the

parents get a minute to applaud.

 

Is there any trick to this? Sure sounds deceptively simple, and that's exactly

the part that worries me. For instance, the football coach is well over 6'

tall, but some of the boys are much shorter. Most of the kids will probably

appear in the background. I can get the podium out of the shot. The ceiling is

black with hanging floods (not mine). And I don't want to block too many

parents' views of their kids.

 

I think I'm covered on equipment. I've got a D200 with D70 for backup, and I'll

probably use my favorite 18-200 VR zoom for the most part. Got the MB-D200

battery pack for the D200 plus another spare battery, and 3 batteries for the

D70. Got two SB-800s and a Quantum Turbo 2x2, plus lots of NiMH AAs just in

case. Got both the cloudy and the clear Fong Dongs too.

 

I've shot school plays in this same room before, but they always seem to come

out dark. The room is mostly beige colored, and my shots seem to be real

orangey or even brown. I'm thinking of using one flash on-camera and the other

remotely or something.

 

For anyone who's done this kind of shoot lately, do you have any pointers you

might be willing to share?

 

Thanks a bunch,

 

Jeff

I haven't shot that particular type of awards ceremony - - - but one I shot a couple of weeks ago probably involved a similar scenario and style of shooting. It involved some politicians, sports stars and dignitaries. The room was very dark and had high ceilings. I have free roam around the stage - but still tried to be as discreet as possible. For the most part I was bouncing my SB800 flash using either the included plastic dome with the head aimed almost straight up or angles off of a wall if one was close by. BTW - while I was the offical paid photogrpaher for the event, there were many press photographers there also and their shooting methods were similar to mine. Here are a few of the shots:

<br /><br />

 

<a href="http://rwoutsidethebox.com/?p=63">www.rwOutsideTheBox.com</a>

 

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Forget an off camera light unless you are using it to light up a broad part of the background (or you have a mobile assistant). You will find that the subjects will drift from the spot they started at. Bouncing off a high, black ceiling will get you nowhere. The best if you can't bounce, is a white card angled forward so the light isn't wasted, or an on-camera softbox. You should drag the shutter a little so you don't end up with black backgrounds, but if your flash tends to underexpose, watch for motion blur and "orange heads", where the tungsten light intrudes upon the scene. You could gel the flash if you wanted. And watch for spotlights that are much brighter than anything else--you have to keep your shutter drag above that EV to stop motion, so if you can find a medium colored to light colored background to provide natural separation, that would be good. Usually, though you have black or dark velvet curtains or something.

 

The best thing to do is to instruct the presenter. If you don't do that, you will not get the shot. You need to get across that right after he starts handing the award over to the kid, he should keep the award in his hand while telling the kid to take the award into his hand, then tell the kid to turn and smile for the camera. The traditional "grip and grin" shot is with the presenter and the recipient having one hand each on the award while their faces are turned to the camera, smiling. If the presenter doesn't do this, you will not be able to catch the right moment as the kid will hurry off stage, mumble, shuffle and turn away from the camera. You might even have to instruct the kid as well as many of them will be spaced out and/or looking at his or her parents who are offstage trying to take a picture. As for the height difference, you might ask the presenter if he can either kneel down for the small kids, or have a chair handy to sit on. This might be good for anchoring them in their spots. When you shoot, don't be self conscious and get right in front of them on the stage. Take your picture and then move away. Next kid comes up, you get back into your shooting spot, take the picture and then move away. Obviously, don't wear anything silly or bright. If you've determined a best background, be sure to clue the presenter in as to the angle you him (and the kid) to be in relation to the background.

 

I take my time when I autofocus as this can be difficult in dim lighting, and I try not use wide angles that distort. You might work everything out so you can use manual flash--keep the same distance away from your subjects. You should also chimp after each shot to be sure you don't have closed eyes. You don't have to stop everything cold, just glance at the LCD right after.

Thanks, Robert, and you got some pretty good shots there. Your workspace is about twice what I've got, but I won't be able to bounce much flash. I'm hoping Gary Fong will come to the rescue there. Maybe one day I'll be in there with the press, too!

Nadine, thanks for the multitude of tips!

 

I will have an assistant for the evening, but two of us up there on stage would surely be too distracting. I'll take your advice and use a single flash, and I'll get in there early and take a few set-up shots too (hopefully with the house lights set as they'll be for the ceremony).

 

The one thing I don't understand about dragging the shutter is what it means for the aperature, given indoor conditions and a diffused flash. I was planning on using shutter priority around 1/30; it's pretty dim for a stage.

 

Your tip on instructing the presenter makes so much sense. I'll try to pull them aside to work out the plan ahead of time. With so many kids to shoot, I'll only get a second or two for each so I'd better get it right the first time. I was going to lay down an "X" on the stage in black electrical tape to try to keep them from drifting much.

 

Thanks for the new term, "chimp". Well, it's new to me anyway. Evidently there's "chimping" and then there's "Stealth Chimping" for the pros. "Street Chimping" seems to be an ice-breaker for kids and their parents too. Here's a good thread:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00DoVl

 

I know I've missed a few shots while chimping. Ha ha, the more I think of that the more I want to read more.

 

Thanks a boatload!

 

Jeff

Quote "but I won't be able to bounce much flash. I'm hoping Gary Fong will come to the rescue there"

 

Using the Gary Fong is bouncing your flash. That is what I did by using the plastic dome over the flash head - it just sprays the light around the sides too for some directional light hitting the subject.

 

Quote "I don't understand about dragging the shutter is what it means for the aperature,"

 

To a flash, all that matters is the aperture setting. The shutter speed controls the abient light only. Using a lower shutter speed (dragging) will allow more of the ambient light to fill the scene for a more natural look. So at a given aperture that the flash has enough power for (example f5.6), the flash output will always be the same and will be provide the same exposure on the subject regardless of the shutter speed. The variable that the shutter speed provides has to do with the amount of ambient light that is included in the exposure. Too fast a shutter speed will create a black or dark background as a result of an underexposed ambient reading - and too slow a shutter speed may allow the ambient light to overpower the proper flash exposure. Depending on the room you are shooting in, distance from the subject or reflective walls, and the Flash Aperture/ISO setting you will be using, 1/30'th second may provide not enough ambient fill to make much difference - or it could over power your flash and blow out your exposure and cause all kinds of light quality issues. As mentioned - that is the beauty of digital - - - you can experiment and check on the screen to see what it looks like.

 

With the Nikon's you could either set the exposure manually (for most a preferred choice with dragging exposure), say f5.6@1/30'th second or slower and all should be fine - - - or you can shoot in Aperture priority by setting the aperture to say f5.6 and then in the Menu set the lowest shutter speed for flash to 1/30'th second or slower. Even if you have a fast f2 or f2.8 lens, you may still want to use f5.6 or smaller aperture settings to keep everyone in focus.

Jeff wrote: "I've shot school plays in this same room before, but they always seem to come out dark. The room is mostly beige colored, and my shots seem to be real orangey or even brown."

 

This sounds like a white balance issue to me. Are you shooting RAW or JPG format? Do you have WhiBal or 18% grey card? If not you'll probably want to pick one up and take shots of it in the room so you can adjust colors during post processing.

I've done this many times, everything from my kids' school to major trade association conventions in New York. Nadine is right -- the MOST crucial thing is to instruct the presenter that he absolutely MUST hold onto the kid and trophy and have them face the camera long enough to get your shot. I would plan on shooting at least two, preferably three frames of every kid to make sure you don't get a blink. That means you'll need the Turbo fully charged and work it out so that your recycling isn't more than one second. And make sure the presenter knows you're going to shoot 2-3 frames.

Jeff, Robert gave you really good info re flash and aperture. I also would not recommend shutter priority. The thing about dragging the shutter is to achieve a balance between the ambient EV and your flash exposure so you can include some of the ambient in the image (no black backgrounds) while correctly exposing your subjects with flash. The flash will freeze subject motion and handholding blur but only if the flash exposure is correct and the ambient is underexposed by at least two stops or so. Any underexposure and you will get blurring. The best way to control shutter drag is to use camera manual mode. You select the aperture you need for best DOF given the subject depth and focal length of the lens you are using. For most of these types of shots, the subjects are on the same plane, so you can get away with the wider apertures, but you should probably have some safety margin plugged in. Without evaluating the actual ambient light, deciding upon 1/30th is arbitrary, plus, what ISO are you going to use?

 

Nikons have that feature where you can limit the shutter speed in aperture priority. That is really nice. Canons don't have this. Normally I wouldn't recommend aperture priority at all for when you are using shutter drag in candid situations. In any case, another thing to watch for is down spotlights, as mentioned above. They can be much brighter than the rest of the stage, and will mess with your calculated shutter drag and also force you to use a faster shutter speed if a subject is in the spotlight, which plunges the rest of the stage into more darkness. I'd keep people out of the spotlights if possible.

Wow, you guys are great!

 

To Robert: Sorry, I was referring to "bouncing flash off the walls or ceiling". The ceiling is high and dark, and the walls are nearby but also a little on the dark side. I'll have to experiment more with dragging the shutter... seems to me changing the shutter from, say, 1/120 to 1/30 or slower would have a dramatic effect on foreground as well as background exposure -- at least it does OUTdoors where there's lots of ambient light. I can see how the situation would be vastly different INdoors where the flash should provide the bulk of the light for close-up subjects but won't reach to, say, the back of the room. I saw a series of step-by-step workshops on another website where all the nuances were explained; probably need to stay up tonight working through those exercises. But I get your point: The flash duration is so much shorter than the shutter speed, the shutter could stay open for quite some time before or after the flash goes off without affecting the exposure much. Meanwhile, the wider the aperature, the more of that flashed light gets through the lens. Two exposures going on at the same time. Right?

 

To Zack: I'm all RAW, all the time (ok, most of the time). I don't have an 18% grey card, but I do have to adjust almost everything in Camera Raw after each indoor session without strobes. Working outdoors usually gets me closer to good white balance. Can you point me to a website that explains how to use and adjust for a grey card?

 

To Craig: Thanks for the seconds... I could tell Nadine was onto something there by her somewhat forceful response. These coaches may have all done this before, but maybe not. I was going to print up all the grip-and-grin shots in 4x6 or so for no cost to the parents, but I'd still hate to have one messed up by a blink I didn't see. It's the group photos and individual portraits afterwards where I'm planning on making some money. And THAT's another thread.

 

To Nadine again: Good point and thanks for spelling it out. The thing that scares me about going manual with a D200 is how its built-in exposure meter always says my shutter is way too slow for whatever (wide) aperature I choose, even with the external flash mounted and powered up. Normally, outdoors anyway, I select an aperature and then adjust shutter speed until the indicator shows neither over- nor under-exposure. If I followed its direction indoors and bumped up the shutter speed with flash, I'd end up with well-exposed subjects but black backgrounds every time. I don't feel comfortable with the meter not just a little bit off-center, but WAY off. Still, that's what it seems to take to get a proper exposure for foreground and background at the same time. It just feels weird -- I think the camera should recognize it's about to be used with a flash, it should read the settings from that flash and the lens, and it should adjust its exposure meter to take all that into account. Rather than telling me I'm 4 or 5 whole stops off, it should indicate something closer to acceptable. (I'm sure it's not broken; I probably just don't know how to use it -- or that its behavior is normal in the first place.)

 

Also, I usually lock in ISO at 100-200. Would you recommend I open it up to "auto ISO", even with a limit of 400 or 800 or something? The D200 goes up to 1600 plus some extended modes beyond that, but I notice a lot of noise when it's that high though it doesn't seem to do much (good or bad) for the WB.

 

Thanks again!

Jeff: I bought my WhiBal card from www.rawworkflow.com. They have a series of video tutorials that explain it way better than I could.

QUOTE "I'm all RAW, all the time (ok, most of the time). I don't have an 18% grey card, but I do have to adjust almost everything in Camera Raw after each indoor session without strobes. Working outdoors usually gets me closer to good white balance. Can you point me to a website that explains how to use and adjust for a grey card?"

 

If you are shooting in RAW format, there is no need to set your White Balance or any other JPEG formatting options that are included in the camera Menu Settings. RAW data is manipulated in the RAW conversion software and White Balance is applied there. RAW DATA is literally the raw information from the camera sensor only and is useless without a program to convert the bits and bytes into a useable form and add any tweaking like WB, custom curves or any other settings that would normally be applied to JPEG files in camera.

Jeff--I would definitely recommend you go ISO 400 at least. Notice that Robert's excellent images are mostly shot at ISO 800. This allows you to let in the ambient light more easily. Shooting at ISO 100 will get you the flashed, black background look, especially since you won't be able to use very wide apertures. Robert obviously has his noise control and post processing down perfectly. Note that underexposure contributes to noisy images.

 

As for manual camera mode, it is the best way to control shutter drag. I get the feeling you aren't too sure about this. We'd all like cameras to read our minds and give us just what we want, but unfortunately, they can't possibly do that, given that each shooting scenario is different. The camera works how it works, so we've just got to understand what it is doing and control it to meet our goals.

 

You don't want to be shooting this kind of event at what the camera's meter tells you, since it will most definitely tell you to use too slow a shutter speed indoors. You won't be able to freeze motion and you will have handholding blur. If you were photographing an event where some motion blur is considered "artistic", you could cheat a little, but since the object of this shoot is to get sharp, well exposed images of the award being presented, you need to control the shutter drag precisely, and that is best done with camera manual mode. It is better to get sharp, well exposed images with dark/black backgrounds than motion-blurred images with lots of background showing (in this case). If you have any doubts at all, the best would be to use ISO 400, Program mode (or aperture priority as Robert suggests), and set the shutter speed limit to 1/30th, 1/60th if you want to be cautious, being careful to get accurate flash exposure on your subjects. Depending on the background ambient light, you may or may not get darker backgrounds than ideal, but the goal, again, is sharp, well exposed people.

 

I remind you about the spotlight pitfall, though, because it is possible that a spotlight may read very close to f5.6 @ 1/30th at ISO 400, in which case, if you were under that spotlight, you will still get motion blur, even with flash, not to mention possible overexposure when you add flash.

Thanks, Robert and Nadine. I visited the location last night and had about half an hour to try different settings. I did have to increase ISO, and also verified the house spotlights are about 20' above the top of the frame (so about the only way I could get one of those lights in the picture would be to lay down and shoot nearly straight up). Thanks for the tip, though; I do see how those lights could easily make a mess of things.

 

With all your tips and advice, I think I'm about as prepared as can be. I'll upload some shots over the weekend for your critiques.