Dancing with one lens on the camera

This sequence of dance photos were all taken with one camera, a Nikon D750, and one lens, the Nikon 24-120mm f/4 zoom. I find that this lens -- very similar in convenience to the Fuji 18-135mm but with a fixed aperture instead --  gives me all the flexibility I need for working on seamless with strobes where the aperture is usually set to f/8 or f/11 so the f/4 maximum doesn't matter.

All images were taken on either gray or black seamless.  Two studio strobes with strip banks were set up directly to the right and left of the dancers. One other light was suspended overhead from a boom and shined on the background. In every case the models were clipped out of the photo and the background enhanced or, in most cases, completely replaced.

For these stage light simulations several tungsten lamps were set up in the background and pointed directly into the camera lens so they would flare. Further enhancement in post-processing was used to flare the lights even more.  The dancers were photographed on black seamless and the wood flooring was added later where necessary.

Both this tango image and the one below were taken on solid black seamless. Clipping paths were drawn around the models later so they and the background could be dealt with separately later in Photoshop. A strobe from a boom provided a light on the background to provide a hard silhouette of the models from the black seamless to make it easier to strip them out of the scene later.

Even though the models were photographed against black or gray seamless, they were still stripped out of the background so the background could be completely replaced later. This was easier than dealing with retouching the imperfections  in the seamless paper.