Help with my 'game' plan

mrcoons

Event to be covered: a Jazz concert on a well lit (including spotlights) stage. In the past my problems came from the subjects that were in the spotlight being over exposed (Glowing). Subjects will be dressed in white shirts with black slacks.

I have given the past problems some thought and here is my plan with the equipment I have available to use.

Equipment and plan:
Canon Rebel XT - will shoot RAW format, Program mode. White Balance to Auto and will take a WhiBal shot. I will lower the Exposure Compensation to try to reduce the spotlight glare and use center weighted metering.

Here are the lenses I will use in the order that I will try them:
Sigma 20-40mm f/2.8 DG
Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8
Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC

Will take but most likely not use my Canon Speedlite 420EX, as the stage light will be more than enough.

Suggestions? Comments? Any words of wisdom? :dunno

Shay Stephens

• White balance to incandescent will give more consistant results.
• I would be most likely to use shutter priority to control motion blur if I wanted to follow the action.
• Reference the histogram to make sure you are on the right track through the show.
• Center weighted metering sounds like a good choice.
• I would opt for higher ISO rather than use an ungeled flash.

If the semi auto exposure modes are not working right, then switch to manual and figure out what the exposure is for spot light and non-spotlight shots and switch accordingly as needed.

Another approach to using manual mode in a dynamic situation like this is to shoot spotlight for a while, then switch to non-spotlight areas for a while. Don't try to follow the action, let the action come to your pre-exposed scene and capture it when it gets there. When you exhaust that scene, switch to a new one and set the exposure just right and then wait for the action to happen.

mrcoons

Thanks for the words of wisdom folks. As is often found with most plans it doesn't always stand up to the heat of battle.


The venue was not as well lit as I expected which gave me a few challenges. I was going to shoot a third of the performance in manual and forgot!

erich6

Check out the tutorials in the "People" forum to see how to correct color casts on skin. Everyone looks a little pale here.

Also, work the crops so you can make the subjects stand out.

Cheers,

Erich

mrcoons

erich6 wrote:

Check out the tutorials in the "People" forum to see how to correct color casts on skin. Everyone looks a little pale here.

Also, work the crops so you can make the subjects stand out.

Cheers,

Erich

Oww. What a difference a day makes. I do not understand why I thought these were ok yesterday. The original images were processed with RawShooter Premium. Here are the same raw photos processed with ACDSee Pro:










FYI: The gentleman in the 3rd picture is the band director. He was demonstrating how to use the 2 objects he was holding to make the sound of an old fashion telephone bell. This was for the song "Pennsylvania 6-5000".


While these are probably far from perfect they certainly are better than my first efforts were. What do you think?