We were provided with an excellent opportunity to photograph the Beijing Opera Spring Festival being held by the local Edmonton Beijing Opera Society. My wife and daughter had attended a Chinese Cultural event at the City Hall here in Edmonton, and had photographed the local troupe as they applied makeup and donned their costumes. She gave them some free pictures, and in return she was given front row tickets to their next event at the Jubilee Auditorium, as well as permission to shoot backstage.
We decided that Yuet would do the backstage work while I would photograph from the front row. Yuet used the Nikon 18 – 200mm VR zoom on the D80 while I used the 80 – 400mm VR zoom on the D70. Why this lens for me? I was looking for tight shots rather than general stage shots and this lens was perfect for that. My settings started at ISO 1000, but I soon reduced this to 640 ASA as the shutter speeds were freezing too much of the action! At 640 ASA I risked more camera shake, but it did provide the necessary blur in the actions shots that I required.
The Monkey King
As can be seen in the gallery, even the initial photos of the Monkey King at ISO 1000 are sharp and the colours intense with little sign of noise at regular viewing sizes. I chose to shoot at the tungsten setting for white balance, which gave very natural results.
The only problem I had with the 80 – 400 lens (120 to 600 on the D70) was that front row was actually too close to the action! I think a fourth or fifth row seat would have given me just that bit of extra distance to decrease my angle of sweep for panning with the action shots, and at the same time still give me the ‘in your face’ close-ups I wanted. Our equipment performed without fault, the only problem which arose was when Yuet failed to set the white balance to tungsten when she shot on stage with the flash off, giving us a slight colour cast – something we could repair in Adobe Lightroom because we were shooting RAW. In hind sight she may have been better off using auto white balance. I edited our 700 plus shots down to 289 keepers, then edited this again to place a slide show on Picasa web albums and then selected again to place my best shots at my commercial site.
Generally speaking, it was an exciting evening. We were very pleased with the results, and we hope we are invited again so that we can perfect our approach.
Brothers
Born in Canada, but of Dutch descent, my early life was influenced by travels with a constantly moving family. We moved through Canada and South Africa until I reached the age of 17, when we settled down in Edmonton, Alberta. Over the years I have developed a multitude of interests which I now share by means of photography and blogging.
