Tips for taking pictures on stage.

[xtra12]

Okay, so I'm new to my DSLR and I'm still learning everything. I love taking pictures everywhere, and normally I do pretty good. However, every time I take pictures of performers on a stage they come out severely over-exposed like the picture attached. I can usually take the raw photo in photoshop and bring it back some, but I would love to know how to fix this as I take it.
I've got a 17-50mm F2.8 lens, so low light is usually not a problem.

How is the best way to take these pictures? (Sorry if the question is too basic.)

 

[vintagesnaps]

It looks like the exposure was off, do you know how you had the camera set? It looks too like the lettering at the front of the stage is sharper than the performer - maybe it's how it was focused?

 

[ac12]

The camera is trying to lighten up the dark area outside of the spot light, so the subject in the spot light gets over exposed.

Set meter to spot metering mode and put the center (where the spot metering is) on the subject.

BTW stage shooting can be a royal PiA; lighting level and color.
Some times I have to experiment to find the correct exposure and then switch to manual and lock it in, so that the camera is not confused by the background of the different color costume.

 

[jcdeboever]

Spot meter

 

[Designer]

How is the best way to take these pictures? (Sorry if the question is too basic.)

Don't apologize!

Your camera has several metering modes. The default mode is one that "averages" the scene to try to hit a happy medium of exposure, even if some parts are too dark and some too light.

The metering mode called "spot metering" selects a small part of the scene to measure the light, so you go into your menu and find that, set it to "spot" and then the camera will ignore anything outside the small selection area.

In this type of shot, the photographer needs to consider what part is the most important, and how he wants it exposed. In your example, the performer is the most important, so that is where you meter the exposure. Yes, some parts will be way too dark, but I think you can let them go, as they're not very important anyway.

 

[dunfly]

There are several way to do it. Spot metering is one, but can be a pain if you subject is moving. If I were doing it, I would adjust exposure compensation down about 2 stops and take some test shots, then make some adjustments if needed.

 

[xtra12]

Thanks, everyone! To be honest, I was using the Auto settings. I've been learning more and more about the exposure triangle, but I'm just not quick enough to compensate for things yet.

I guess manual is the way to go for things like these. I'll research Spot Metering. Thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction!

 

[ac12]

It depends.
IF the light level is static, manual will work.
IF the light level jumps up and down, auto with spot will probably work better.

This is why I said stage photography is a PiA.
You NEED to know how the light level on the subject behaves, static or changing.

Take out your camera and set it to spot metering and shoot pix around your house where you have a subject in one light level and surrounding in a different light level, to simulate the spot light. The more you play with it, the more you learn how spot behaves on your camera.

If you don't know/understand exposure, you need to study up on it, before you fuss with manual. It isn't difficult to learn. But without understanding exposure, you are working blind.

gud luk

And we have not gotten into colored lights yet

 

[Designer]

I guess manual is the way to go for things like these.

Only if you're accustomed to using full manual. If the action is something that you wish to emphasize, (i.e. dancing, etc.) you can use shutter priority and either freeze the action or shoot it blurry, depending. In the case of a performer mostly standing still, it wouldn't matter much which mode.

If the situation suggests aperture priority, then use aperture priority. This might be low light or subject needing isolation, for instance.

For your example, I would probably choose aperture priority. You can set your ISO to "auto". So now you're in aperture priority at around f/4 or so, and your shutter speed is around 1/100, and you're using good camera-holding technique, you should be able to get a good shot. Spot meter for your subject or just estimate the amount of exposure compensation to give it, and bang away.

 

[TCampbell]

This is a difficult problem for the camera ... and it's a situation where you have to take over.

Here's the histogram:

(the advert is because my EXIF view is moderately transparent... thats' the ad in right side of the page on TPF)

The histogram provides a graph of the light distribution for your image. The left edge represents completely black pixels, the right edge represents completely white pixels. And of course every level of tonality in between. The height at each level of tonality indicates how many pixels in your image are at that particular level of tonality.

Notice the "bathtub" histogram... data jammed up against the left wall.... jammed up against the right wall... and flat in the middle. This indicates there were lots of completely black pixels... as well as some completely white pixels ... but not a lot of mid-tones.

Usually when you see the graph data jammed to either left or right walls it means there was more data "beyond" what the graph can represent... because there was more tonality beyond what the camera could record.

The camera was doing it's best to try to get as much data as it could... unfortunately it was more dynamic range than possible.

In this situation, we really only care about the light not the performer... ignore everything else. We can see how bright the performer is and when we look at the graph, we can recognize that the data which is near the right edge of the graph represents the pixels in the spotlighted area.

Since the performer happens to be in the middle, spot metering (which only meters the middle and ignores the rest) would work. The camera wont care what the exposure is for anything outside the metering area ... so it'll just find a good exposure for the area you ARE metering and ignore the rest ... so that'll be extremely dark (nearly black) -- but that's ok.

If the subject moves around (isn't necessarily in the middle ... or if it were say a band and they were all over the stage, you could use evaluative/matrix metering (same idea... just a different name depending on the camera brand) and then use exposure compensation to tell the camera to deliberately under-expose by a bit (probably 1 to 1.5 stops). I play with this a bit at different concerts ... sometimes it's nearly 2 stops. Sometimes it's only 2/3rds of a stop.

Get the exposure on what you care about and just let the rest clip.

This was a dimly lit theater ... I hit this with a small curves adjustment and slightly desaturated a magenta theatrical light on him, but otherwise this is pretty much how it looked live.

That was using spot metering AND -1.3 stops of exposure compensation.

But notice everything else is pretty much just completely black.

 

[beagle100]

I agree with the others, photo is way overexposed, next time use spot metering

 

[ac12]

Let me give you a more complicated version of your shot.
Imagine if the curtain behind the performer was open about 6-10 feet. And it is BLACK behind the open curtain.
Even the spot meter may not be able to get just the performer (if it is not tight enough, which mine wasn't), and will get some of the black background, and thus get a bad reading on the performer.
That is where you have to shoot a the test shot, and adjust in manual to get the correct exposure of the performer.

This is what I had to deal with at my local high school.
That black open curtain just drove the meter nuts, because the exposure would change based on how much of that black open curtain was affecting the meter. IOW, the exposure would change as I panned across the stage, from full curtain in the back to black opening and back to full curtain. The stage light was constant, only the background was changing. My spot was not tight enough to ignore the background.
I finally went to full manual, so that the open curtain would not affect the exposure.

That was one more lesson learned, for next year.

 

[jamescooper18]

Use "S" or shutter priority mood and centre weighted metering tends. Work with color temperature range of between 2900ºK and 3600ºK. you will get more consistent results.