December 27, 2006

Flash

Last Saturday night I was watching Gary's show at KAPT. The man sitting next to me was taking photos of every scene with his camera. I took a peep and saw him zooming in on the lead performers. It looked quite clear. The stage was very bright. But he was using the flash. Necessary or not? Then we were sitting about 15 rows away from the stage. Is the flash effective so far away? Anyone knows?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Necessary since he is sitting so far away. But one shouldn't use flash to take stage performances, he should use shutter priority instead.
Maybe his flash-light caused lots of uncomfort to you?

Victor said...

I estimate that 15 rows of seats is at least 30 metres away. If he was using a portable digicam that comes with a tiny built-in flash, then the flash light definitely cannot reach that far. Only wasting battery power and distracting the actors/actresses. But if he used a camera with a mounted flash then it is a totally different matter. Some mount-on flashlights have very powerful directed beams that can shoot very far.

When using flash, most cameras have a shutter speed of 1/60 sec(which is quite slow). Hence even though the flash light could not reach the subject on the stage, the slow shutter speed would have allowed enough light from the bright stage to make the photo quite clear. In other words, even if he had not used flash, the camera would have chosen an auto shutter speed of around 1/60 sec since there was enough light.

I hope you are still with me, Frannxis?

fr said...

Thanks Anonymous and Victor, I gained much from your information.

Ya, Vic, I follow you and also impressed by your good knowledge of photography.

By the way he was using the ordinary compact camera with the built-in flash. And he was not the only one - I think another two or three persons sitting nearer front were also taking pictures judging by the flashes in the darkness.

No, the flashes did not make me uncomfortable, just some distraction.

Actually it was announced before the show that any recording and photography were not allowed.