Once again, this is one of those situations where a little advance scouting will do ya' right. Where will you be sitting and what will the lighting be like? Is there a special person in the cast who you simply must get? When will they be on stage and what will the lighting be at that moment?
Spot meter, man. Spot meter. Or get a reading off someone's face way up close and manually lock it in. Just leaving the camera on AE (without spot metering) can really mess you up here. Use print film and let the lab fix the color. I've had good results with 800 speed Agfa Vista or Kodak Supra. This is definitly a situation where a faster prime is very handy. In my experience, pushing film to 3200 is not an adequite strategy to replace a fast lens. With reasonable lighting, a constant 2.8 zoom should do fine too. If you can get reasonably close, a 50/1.7 will do fine. An 85/2 would be wonderful. A 135/2.8 (or better yet 135/2.5) will do well from a little further back in the house. If there's a "big number" in a musical try to get a wide shot covering the entire stage with the 50/1.7 or a wider prime. Use a lens hood. An F4-5.6 zoom (even a constant F4 zoom like my favorite, the 28-70/4 FA) probably won't cut it. You'll probably see exposures like 1/30 to 1/125 @ F1.8 to 2.8 (the extra shutter speed @ 1/125 or faster will be great to give a little "stop action"). Leave the flash at home. It's very rude to set off a flash while young performers are trying to do their thing during a performance. Good luck. Chris L. School Publications Guy Christopher Lillja Publications Coordinator The Pennington School www.pennington.org - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
