RE: [Leica] Summarex question - now theatre shooting (not Ted's kind tho)

[Simon Pulman-Jones <spulmanjones@lbs.ac.uk>]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----Original Message-----
From:	Roland Smith [SMTP:roland@dnai.com]
Sent:	06 January 2000 14:36
To:	leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject:	Re: [Leica] Summarex question

I have been curious about theater shots and have not been sure where
to start with 3200 film.   What film speed and exposure did you use?<<<<<<<


Roland,

My experience of shooting theatre shows is as an amateur - as a proud 
Gypsy-like "theatrical mother" (sing out Louise!) taking pictures of my 
wife on stage - so I'm care-free and trial and error rather than 
professional.

I was using Fujicolor Press 800, shooting at f 1.5 and 2 at between 125th 
and 500th.  I find that my main problem is overexposure due to 
underestimating the brightness of the spot-lit areas - so light levels are 
less of a problem than you might think - in my experience, only the 
gloomiest of productions would need 3200 iso film.  Grain on 10x8's was no 
problem at all with the Fuji 800.  The show that I was shooting was a 
 Christmas pantomime - I'm not sure whether these shows exist much outside 
Britain - they are a combination of comic variety show and fairy tale - 
aimed at both adults and children, with a mixture of slapstick and 
sometimes very adult humour.  There was a lot of dancing and dashing 
around, which is why I went with the 800 iso film to allow shutter speeds 
fast enough to stop movement - otherwise I would have preferred a slower 
tungsten balanced film - though the colour of the lighting was so variable 
that I'm not sure how much point there would have been in trying to balance 
for it in camera.  I would have thought that you would be fine with medium 
speed b&w - which should mean far higher quality than the 3200.

FWIW I found that the 85mm focal length was ideal from about fifty feet - 
covering an area just over half the width of a medium sized theatre stage, 
with adequate depth of field even at f 1.5 and 2, allowing shots of pairs 
or groups of characters interacting and still giving a large enough image 
of single characters for cropping and enlarging.  An 80 - 200 zoom would be 
wonderful - but with a maximum aperture of 2.8 the film speed/quality 
trade-off starts to look very different, especially with the shutter speeds 
needed at the longer ends - you're probably better off cropping from a 
larger, higher quality image.

What sort of theatre work are you thinking of?  Best of luck.  I'd be very 
interested to hear from anyone else with experience of getting the best out 
of theatre shooting - especially given that it's work to which Leica M's 
are so well suited.

Simon.