At Home with Tech

Last time, I shared that I had just finished building out a small and stealth camera kit to bring to our son’s high school play. My little rig featured my new compact Fujifilm X-T30 III APS-C camera paired with a fast TTArtisan 75mm f/2 prime lens.

The plan revolved around my desire to wrap a virtual cloaking field around me. Everything was designed to help me remain invisible in the audience when I quietly look a photo or two.

I activated my Fujifilm’s silent electronic shutter (not as good as using manual shutter but without the clicking sounds). I had also turned on ‘burst mode’ to rapidly capture multiple photos of a moment on stage.

For a month, I had practiced with my new camera in the outdoors. Now, it was time to find out whether any of it worked in the dark.

I sat down in my audience seat. Showtime.

TTArtisan 75mm f.2 Prime Lens Gets It Done!

The key question was whether my 75mm f/2 lens (112mm equivalent) was the right choice.

I also had my new 18-50mm f/2.8 Sigma. But there wouldn’t be an intermission in this show, and I wouldn’t get an opportunity to switch lenses. And no, I wasn’t going to try the swap in the dark. (Maybe next time.)

Happily, the TTArtisan performed like a champ.

As I sat five rows back in the audience, its reach offered me a head-to-toe shot of our son with one or two actors standing nearby.

That said, when the actors were positioned farther downstage, reducing their distance to my lens, the 112mm equivalent framing (due to the 1.5x APS-C crop factor) became a little tighter than I preferred.

And remember, the TTArtisan is a prime lens. So, there’s no zooming out.

But I found the lens’ 75mm focal length successfully worked for most of the shots I took.

On closing night after I had already gathered enough tighter shots from previous performances with the TTArtisan, I came in with my 18-50mm Sigma to get some wider establishing stage shots.

Happy ending, right? Well, not yet…

Look Past the Noise

At this point, I have some caveats to admit to.

I set my Fujifilm to Aperture Priority mode, allowing the max ISO to reach 12,800. (And many photographers will say that’s asking for trouble due to potential noise in the images.)

I also chose to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/250 second to freeze the stage action.

But my camera sensors wanted to slow down the shutter to bring in more light. I ignored that recommendation and forced the shutter to stick to my plan.
(I know that’s also asking for trouble.)

My results… not surprisingly, underexposed photos, even at ISO 12,800. And yes, there was some noticeable noise in the background.

Time to Move to Adobe Lightroom

So, my stage photos directly out of my camera looked… dark and noisy. (Plus, it didn’t help that the show’s moody lighting was particularly dim.)

But my photos had one big advantage going for them. They weren’t blurry. I had, in fact, successfully frozen the action (fight sequences) using the TTArtisan lens’ f/2 aperture.

But that’s not the end of the story. It’s just the beginning…

Next, I brought my photos into Adobe Lightroom. Because I had shot in RAW mode, I was able to perform some impressive magic on my photos.

Lightroom’s ‘denoise’ button instantly erased most of the noise from the dark background, and there was plenty room to brighten up the shots and regain details.

Suddenly, my muddy stage photos looked remarkably… good. (In fact, I think they looked pretty-darned great.)

After months of research, planning and some practice, I brought home some respectable shots of our son in the high school play.

You may ask if the juice was worth the squeeze, and I would say… 100% yes! Plus, I know this exercise was invaluable training for my future creative projects.

How Long a Focal Length Did I Need?

So, I had spent a lot of time in my lens research phase ruminating over the focal length I needed to get the stage shots I wanted. I knew I would be sitting 4-5 rows back, but of course, I didn’t have the exact details on how many feet away my glass would be from the actors.

I expected that my Sigma’s 75mm equivalent reach wouldn’t be quite enough for the tighter shots I wanted, and I was right.

But I was worried that the TTArtisan’s 112mm equivalent fixed focal length wouldn’t be enough either. Happily, that concern was unfounded.

As I’ve mentioned, the TTArtisan successfully framed in one actor at a time or a few standing close together.

For the future, I feel no need to buy a lens with a bigger zoom factor. If I want to get a closer medium shot of an actor (waist up), I can achieve that by cropping in a bit during my photo editing process in Lightroom. (My Fujifilm gives me plenty of pixels to work with.)

Never Forget the Beauty of the Smaller Form Factor

And even if I wanted to consider a more powerful zoom lens for my Fujifilm X-T30 III in future situations, I hope I never forget the original value proposition of the X-mount form factor.

Fujifilm X-mount cameras are small. And generally, the bigger the zoom, the bigger the lens.

It doesn’t make sense to pop on a massive lens on a tiny camera. Sure, you can do it, but then you’re defeating the original goal.

I want to keep things compact and inconspicuous… for both my stage photography and when I’m out and about in the world.

Time to Applaud

So, I’m happy to report… mission accomplished. I was pleased with my theater shots, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t bother anyone along the way.

If anyone really knew the extent of my carefully laid out plan, I might get a standing ovation (yes, only in my imagination).

All my precautionary steps worked. Plus, I was mindful not to take too many photos. (Even raising your camera to your face can be annoying to someone sitting next to you.)

Again, preparation was key. Through that process, I found a few other camera settings I absolutely had to turn off, including all camera sounds and that nasty auto focus illuminator that tries to bounce a bit of light off your subjects.)

And yes, I used certain unconventional photography techniques that some may scoff at:

• The inferior electronic shutter mode to ensure silent operation
• Fast prime glass to reduce my fiddling with zoom choices
• Denoising to fix my pics using Adobe Lightroom

But my creative process worked exactly as I had hoped. (If there are other thoughts on how to best address this type of photography challenge, please share!)

And now that this parent’s theater work is done (for now), I can turn my Fujifilm camera’s attention to the rest of my life and journeys.

How exciting!