Camera Recommendations

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Permalink Reply by David McCall on December 29, 2010 at 9:42am

I decided to buy a video camera instead of a still camera. The reason for this choice were many. Video cameras usually have longer zoom range. Since I usually wind up shooting from the booth which is 100' from the stage, a long telephoto lens really helps a lot at that distance. Those actors are always moving about, and too many of my stills wind up blurry.

With a high definition video camera, I can just shoot a bit of video, and then load it into an editing program and pick the best frame. Of course it also gives the option of taking a video of the whole show to keep as a personal record of the show. Most modern video cameras have megapixel chips so the camera can often take very good stills as well as video.

Many video cameras now use SD Memory cards making it very easy to put the video or stills into the computer. This may not be the best choice for a professional photographer, but it has served me pretty well. You will need a video program that can read the files from your camera (usually AVCHD these days).

I use a Sony program called Vegas (PC only) and it works well for me, but it would be overkill for most people. I believe there is a scaled down version called Movie Studio that would be fine for most folks. there are most likely many other options available.

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Permalink Reply by Steven on January 3, 2011 at 9:55am

Gina, I can only tell you what I have and my experience using photography in theatre. I hope your not taking pictures during a performance. A rehearsal is better because if the cast, crew and stage manager can approve, the lights can be tweaked up for your shoot.

I use a Nikon SLR. But, the reason I mention this is because these type of cameras have adjustments that can improve your photos. One is the ISO. ISO allows the camera to capture light (low light) by enlarging the pixel map. A side affect of this is what is called 'noise'. Noise appears as grains of sand in the photo. 2) White balance. if you cannot adjust white balance you will want to do this afterwards using some sort of photo editing software. the colors you see will not match what you capture.

Those 2 things I would look in to carefully and make sure you understand them and how they are controlled in the camera.

Then you can look at lens ability. As David suggested longer focal lengths are handy to get closer, but beware the longer the length the shakier the image becomes. Now added tripod or image stabilization becomes necessary.

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Permalink Reply by David McCall on January 3, 2011 at 11:40am

The long focal length is especially important to me because I m so far away. I do find a tripod to be very helpful at that distance. Once you get into the decent video cameras, you do get a lot of options for ISO sensitivity, iris, white balance, etc.. I paid around a grand for my camera.

A big Nikon is technically a much better camera than a video camera at that price point would be. In either case you are right about getting pictures at a rehearsal where you can move around, but you still have the problem with those pesky actors moving around and causing you to get a blurry image. I like being able to pick a shot. Of course most digital SLRs will do a burst of shots or even video as well, but I still have the issue of focal length. I'm usually too busy doing my job during rehearsal to be taking pictures.

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Permalink Reply by Gina Harrison on January 3, 2011 at 11:46am

Thanks guys for your insights. I do usually have the benefit of being at many rehearsals and can sometimes even wrangle a photo session. I've just found it very helpful to have something small enough to keep with me all the time but realize it's not just a matter of how many megapixels a camera will capture. And not all cameras do all things. So helping me pay attention to the important factors is helpful. It's been a long time since my Physics 45 [photography] class in college. ;-)

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