A confession

I have a confession to make.

I'm going to be boring you silly asking for advice about shooting people on stage...not with a gun, although the thought had occurred.

Y'see I accidentally befriended Mitch Benn...well, his wife, in truth. He's the geezer on Radio 4 on The Now Show, and on Youtube. He started a musical comedy club called The Distraction Club in London, and although it costs me a fortune to get there, I go every month. If you're in London it costs about 8 quid to get in, and well worth it.

And I take lots of photographs of the turns. LOTS of photographs. And some are okay:




Some are okay:





Some are happy accidents:




and some are dire:




And I want to improve. I've already up-specc'd the camera...what I did have was a Sony A200 and a cameraphone. What I have now is the A57, the kit lens, a Tamron 70-300 F4, a Sony 75-300 F4.5 and a decent (but manual) strobe.

How would you tackle this challenge. Please give me a lot of ideas, I go every month. Obviously I want to KEEP being allowed to go, so I don't want to be intrusive, but as you can see the turns pretty much mix with the crowd (you can see more if you have a look at The DIstraction Club channel on Youtube...worth a look anyway as it is V. funny, but also V. sweary in places...)

Serious advice, suggestions, critique really gratefully accepted. The shots I've got have been entirely to me making up the rules as I go along.

If possible, high ISO (as high as you can let it go comfortably) and a fast lens - f2.8 or faster if possible. This will help you to shoot in the available light, which is better for atmosphere, and you can always convert to mono, so the grain/noise isn't so much of an issue, and often actually adds to a shot.

I have to say, the shot you posted that you said was dire, would be one of my favourites. I think many of the others are too close, chins chopped off etc - bring the lens out a bit

Hope that helps?

xx

Maybe be he answer is to have a word with the club owner and acts to see if you can get some photos under normal lighting conditions first. The only other answer is use your own lighting but that would upset everyone I suspect. Something like this

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acC1r...eature=related

Bazza

What Zoundz said - high ISO and/or a very fast lens. Get saving - those lens aint cheap

editing can help from this

Bazza

I'm afraid *ain't cheap* in my line of work means *ain't happening* We're talking a budget of beans here...the kit I have is the kit I've got. I do think Bazza has a point...I've been focussed on getting the good shot *in the camera* and I've not really considered post-processing...so many people from The Olden Days (when I were a lad, like....) frown upon anything other than straight images straight out of the lens onto the film that in all honesty I'd not considered post processing except for cropping.

I may be an idiot...

Just a week to go until I get another crack at it

There you go Gaz wonders of modern science. next thing I bet is we will do away with two tin cans and a bit of string as a means of communication.

Watch this space

Bazza

I've been lucky with some (well, quite a few, to be honest) of them...on a couple of occasions the performers have wanted to use the shots for their Edinburgh Fringe advertising blurb, such as Christian Reilly here:



So I intend to put to good use your advice next week, especially as my friend Jess (the lass who Bazza post-processed so smartly) is leaving The Segue Sisters for a few months after this next show, as she's got the starring rolé in the touring production of Little Voice.

I have some very talented friends

So different from me then, I applied to go to idiot school, but I failed the entrance exam

Bazza

Silly factette...my brother went, just three weeks ago, to sit a test for MENSA. He turned up on the wrong day...