• Members 84 posts
    April 30, 2023, 9:23 a.m.

    Tomorrow I was at small concert event. I am amateur, hobbyist and try make photo and short video of scene and musicians.
    While process I saw, that exist problem with actor face highlights, because of scenic light scheme. Projectors light moving across scene, change it colors from red to white and highlight actors and musicians faces.
    burning faces.JPG
    As amateur i am usually use wide metering and sometime central zone metering. But it doesn't work good tomorrows.
    I am not pro and try quickly find solutions and improvise with my camera.
    In multi metering mode:
    Try switch on "Face priority on multi" - doesn't help
    Try switch on "Focus point Link" - doesn't help
    I don't use this modes before, so may be I just don't use it appropriately

    Change metering mode to "highlights metering" - doesn't help.
    Set mode to Central zone make things a little better, but zone was much wider than face.
    So next step was set up Central spot metering mode.
    Target actor face, press AEL, change composition and shot.
    Now actors face is OK, but another scenic staff underexposed by at least 2 stops.
    spot mettering.JPG

    But I think, that it's better result, than photo with burning faces.
    But, shoot like this is really hard, because projectors moving around scene and light scheme always change.
    Also this algorithm not convenient for video shorts.

    Now I think, how is better to do in this situation?
    May be just set EV-2 and shoot em'all?

    spot mettering.JPG

    JPG, 92.2 KB, uploaded by AlexeyK77 on April 30, 2023.

    burning faces.JPG

    JPG, 201.2 KB, uploaded by AlexeyK77 on April 30, 2023.

  • Members 13 posts
    April 30, 2023, 7:54 p.m.

    For most cameras, when it meters, it tries to target an average grey. If you look at your first image, it did a good job of that! 😅 The main problem is that it didn't protect the highlights. But when it meters where everything is dark, it's going to try to make it grey. It might be easier to dial in -2EV, as you say, or you can just switch to Manual mode, and set the exposure to what works. The problem I have with that is that if they adjust the lighting, turning spotlights on and off, for example, it can throw everything off, so -2EV in Program mode might be safer (and you still have to monitor the results to ensure that is working ok).

    Whenever I photograph stage with weird lighting, I ALWAYS use RAW. (You can still use RAW+JPEG -- if the JPEG happens to look OK, you still have that for ease of use.) If something weird happens with the lighting, it's easier to fix it from the raw. If the lighting is heavily colored, it can be hard to get best results out of the JPEG, while you have more range to work with color differences in RAW.

    OK, now let's say you have your RAW image where the highlights aren't blown, but everything is a bit dark. That's OK! You have a lot of data to work with, and can carefully brighten the image. Just check out the various options in your RAW editor.

    Also make sure you have DRO turned on -- it'll help with some of the dynamic range and make a more visible image between the dark and light areas.

  • Members 84 posts
    May 2, 2023, 1:06 p.m.

    Most time I am shoot JPEG, and DRO is always ON. But in this situations DRO doesn't help, correct mettering is more important.
    (I am try shoot RAW for usial everyday photo scenes, but in practice DRO+3,4,5 autimatically do what I need).
    Buy now I am understand, that for staging photo RAW and EV-2 (or spot mettering) is must have opions for good stills.

  • Members 16 posts
    May 5, 2023, 5:38 p.m.

    If you are shooting for video, you need to control the highlights and the rest of the scene will fall into place. I suggest using manual exposure mode for this type of exposure. I would never try and use auto exposure, because the camera has no way of knowing what is important and will keep changing all through the concert making viewing and editing difficult. In your case from what you have described, the face of the woman was the brightest lit subject. Expose for that. To set that exposure, use zebras set on your camera at 95 and then just have a smidge of zebra showing in the highlight area and all will be as good as it will get. If you don't have zebras in your camera, then just watch the viewfinder and close down the iris until you just see detail in the face. Shutter speed should not be adjusted but should be set at 1/50 or 1/60 of a second depending on your frame rate and video system used where you are located. 1/60 assumes you are collecting 30 frame per second standard video.