Hello all,

I am filming a concert tomorrow night and need some help as to what setting I should use.

I will be approx. 50 feet from the stage on a slight elevation compared to the main target. Target will be dressed in a white jump suit (can anyone guess what I am taping?) and have a spot light on him the entire time. He will be moving around the stage and possible off the stage to the audience (this will most likely happen). He will receive 90 percent of the attention, with the band getting the rest. They will not have spot lights on them except for possible solos, etc. I have filmed things like this in the past, but want to get as good of a picture as possible this time. What settings do you recommend?

My thoughts:
I was playing with the "spotlight" setting last night, which comes out a little dark after capturing to my computer, but that was filming in a normal room with no spotlight. I've never used this setting before and it is the one I was going to attempt to use tomorrow. My main concern is how often the canon goes out of focus with spotlights on a white suit, I am hoping this setting fixes it because I don't want to have to attempt to manually focus (unless there are easy directions for attempting it, such as focus once on the main target and don't refocus.)
I could use full manual, but I am still new to the ideas of what the other two settings do, I know what shutter speed is and where to set it for different lighting and motion scences.

Thanks in advance,
Derrick

Derrick - Is there any way you can get there early and have someone with a white t-shirt and light pants on the stage and have the lighting guy help you experiment with this?

I would think the GL2 could handle the focus on the spotlight setting as it would already be compensating for blowing out the white, but I would sure want to test it along with regular automatic setting first.

I know with all that movement manual focusing would be tough, and if you happen to tape one of the band members with less of a spot on them the spotlight setting may under expose them a bit.

A little practice and experiment before the concert starts would really help in this case.

Thanks Tom!

I can get their early, already planned on it. I'll take an extra white shirt and have someone stand in the spotlight and tape them, but what I am unsure of is what to do when I do this? When taping him before in his white suit the focus would only go in and out once in awhile, but would ruin the whole song for DVD purposes. Is your suggestion to try the automatic setting and have the person with the white shirt on make moves like the singer will to see if the automatic settings can handle the movement with the spot?

I would advise trying to use manual focus. Before starting the record, zoom all the way in to where the subject will be, focus (or put in autofocus then switch back to manual), and you're set. If you're 50 feet away, the depth of field should be pretty far if it's dark. If the subject goes real far away, you can always quickly flip the switch to auto. You'll most likely be shooting with a low f-stop number (f2.8). See if you can keep the exposure/gain off, but if needed, use it.

Toms right about trying to do a test run, or shoot a dress rehearsal. My problem with autofocus is some cameras tend to constatnly be refocusing everytime the subject walks as little as 5 feet. Also, I think I tried the "spotlight" feature on this, if I recall correctly it might only work if the subject truely is lit by a spotlight in otherwise all black. So have a backup plan in case it doesn't look so great.

Also, I may be out of the loop, or not thinking right, but I dunno what you're shooting with a "white jumpsuit"... care to tell?

Good luck,

Thanks Dave!

I was just reading a book, "digital video secrets", and some other user manuals on this site that helped explain the f stop (apeture) and gain. So now I know what that stuff does, finally. I think I will try what you suggested during a test, and also try what tom said too. While recording I will probably do all the different suggestions so I can at least get a good demo tape out of this. But manual zoom (done by using autozoom and then turning it off) low fstop and no gain will probably yield the best results because the other band members are backlite but with out spots so they shouldn't have too bad of a shadow on them.

As for the white jump suit. Who's birthday is today? I wouldn't have known that answer if my step-dad wasn't an impersonator. Hope that makes it a little easier to guess.

This video will be posted on youtube, I'll make sure to put a link up once I get it all edited and rendered.

Well after filming this event, I would suggest the spotlight mode, but only if the spotlight isn't a POS.

I used auto focus to get focused on a certain spot and then put it on manual and reset it every 2 songs or so. Or when I saw a problem from the singer moving too much.

I think this is a working link to the Demo I made from the video I shot. YouTube - Brad Crum & BCT Legend Band January 8, 2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzrQZq5rYzQ)

If it isn't let me know. Thanks.