irish dancing - any ideas how to shoot?

Wookie

Wookie

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Lawrence
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Now I don't normally agree with attending blood sports but The Boss (SWMBO) is dragging me along to the kids' irish dancing competition on sunday, and I'll be expected to get some nice pics for the family album of our darling daughters prancing in their new dresses.

anybody got any experience or thoughts on how to approach this as a subject?

kit is limited to:
400D, 18-55 kit (3.5-5.6), 75-300 USM II (4-5.6), 28-105 USM II (3.5-4.5), on-board flash only, monopod (no tripod yet)

I'm not sure where it is but its probably another dimly lit church hall. I reckon I'm going to be struggling for light with my toys. Looks suspiciously like lots of long exposures of blurring feet and twirling dresses and bright red fuzzy faces.

any inspiration on viable shots ?

Do I set the flash on 1st curtain or 2nd curtain?



. . . or is this my excuse to say "sorry dear, I really do need a 50mm f1.4, 70-200 f2.8 L and 430EX" :clap:
 
oh stuff, looks like its a school stage with possibility of some decent lighting, there goes my excuse for an extended christmas list

Anyway still dont know how to make it look exciting, these things always ends up as red faced sprogs (looking like they're constipated) with an option on blurred feet and twirling dresses

Any inspiration or experience appreciated
 
sorry.i do hate irish dancing.
check on permision . shooting kids , some folks can be realy funny about it.
the 28-105 would prob do the job range wise.
if its a bit dark, up the old iso a bit (400? 800 if pushed?).Tv at around 60 up. so you dont blur the legs too much.
monopod may be a good idea to stop camera shake too.
if the lighting is flourescent, set the white balance accordingly.(see menu screen)
tunsten light tends to give a warm orangy glow to the pics.
if the lighting is a mix you may have to use auto white balance.
unless you can get close , the built in flash wont be much use to you. (not powefull enough).talk to santa, hope for a 580. a 430 would do.
 
that bloody michael flatly wants a good kicking. poncing about in his leather trousers. looking like a big girls blouse. about the most annoyingman in the world ever. i spose he is actualy irish. is he?pillock. went to chatsworth in the summer to see the county fair. loads of kids doing the hands by their sides stuff . then they lifted em up and i realised that was scottish dancing nearly as daft. yup. man flu.
 
apparently Michael Flatulant fans are known as "flatheads"
 
aaaaagggghhhhhhhhhh - the theme tune from captain pugwash is constantly echoing inside my head

for future reference a shotgun is no good, too many and they move too quick, fully automatic is the only way

as expected the lighting was appalling, it was on quite a big school stage with lots of spotlights so there were patches of good lighting surrounded by none, and the dancers hopping & skipping through them.
No backdrop on the stage so whitewashed wall with speaker stands, speaker cable and cable conduits to foul the background, plus the table with the music system and music man.
Looking sideways across the stage from right hand corner the sidewall of the stage area became the background . . . that was painted black with the fire hose reel and the electrical distribution, a perfect background for dancers wearing red & black dresses with black tights.
Looking sideways from the other corner was worse, that was where the kids were assembling for the next dance, and the background on the far side of the stage was the fire door and a stack of ladders.

looking for shots off the stage, most of the lighting had been switched off so dark

ran at ISO 1600 all day, 1/80 or 1/100 sec and the camera objecting because the lens had run out of aperture. Best I could manage on my lens collection was 3.5 but that was the wide end of the 28-105, ended up using the 75-300 a lot, that is f4 at the 75 end, I think I was using the range 75-150 a lot for the stage, with 200-300 for candid across the hall. Wider aperture would have been useful to get rid of the horrible backgrounds too. Anybody wanting to try these events properly should consider taking a 70-200 f2.8

flash was tried a few times out of desparation, the whitewash rear wall made a good shadow screen and the shiny dresses lit up light christmas trees. Not good.

focussing on the dancers was almost impossible, they move around a lot & very fast, including vertically, just tracking them was hard. Tried all the autofocus settings (one shot ai servo & whatever), sometimes the autofocus was not getting a lock on the target (is that an acceptable way to say it?) I suspect because of the gloomy patches, even tried a couple on manual focus which didn't help.

anyway, I filled a whole 4GB card with fuzzy shots, had to delete the worst and switch to jpg to get the last dance. Hopefully I'll find one decent one in there but don't hold much hope for it. I'll let you have a laugh at the results later in the week when I've sorted them.

I suspect that photographing irish dancing could be a whole specialist area in its own right.
Probably some money to be made too, this was a lowly club event with a lot of the girls wearing simple club 'uniform' dresses, but in the open competitions they are paying £2000 for dresses for children, plus makeup, tiaras, WIGS even! . . . anybody who could set up a mini studio in the corner and do portrait shots of the overpriced darlings should be able to make a few bob.
 
AK-47...when you absolutely, positively got to kill every Mother****** in the room...

kalashnikov

0501.jpg


Irish...? Dancing...?

Kill 'em all...Let God sort 'em out...:suspect:
 
Noo you want one of these on a tripwire strapped to the front of the stage.

Gamma_M33.gif


Wookie .. . sounds like you did the best you could considering.
 
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