My turn...HELP!!! Auditorium...low light

[JSPhoto]

WIDE OPEN ., HIGH ISO, RAW+JPEG, TRIPOD..... cross your fingers!

I had to shoot a similiar sceen last wednesday.... the only thing that saved the day was opening up the shadows in CS2 ;)

Thanks Paul. A bit different than shooting birds eh? This is going to be really odd for me, and I know the folks at the school will expect the staff photog, I hope no one faints when I walk in

JS

[paulnj]

I was invited to a thank you dinner for volunteers(I am a unpaid hawk migration volunteer, though I charge to document it). I got a call 2 hours before arriving "BRING YOUR CAMERA TOO".

I get there and blast a few images here and there of people( and my images projected 12 feet wide on a screen.... cool). OUT OF NOWHERE I hear the speaker say" OK everyone, our photographer Paul is going to climb this ladder and get a group image"

OMG!!! There I am in a dark building at night with a 1D/28-70 F2.8 and a 550EX. I needed 80 feet of focus, so even ISO 3200 wasn't giving me fast enough without flash!!! FLASH AS MAIN , ISO 800, F8, 1/20TH

This is just a quick "adjust shadows 25" resized tiny at low res of a soon to be recycled image to show you what I mean. The original is very dark for the back half due to light fall off!

SHADOWS OPEN and ORIGINAL JPEG(no raw conversions here)

The EDITED images are quite nice at full res considering the gear ;)

[JSPhoto]

Yup, they got you eh! Ouch! Looks like you came out OK though. I think I'll sneak through this OK, I'll probably try a couple shots with each lens and see what I get. It is one time I wish I had a 1.4 or 1.8 wide angle lens though....hmmm, maybe I'll rent one tomorrow from Roberts downtown.

JS

[Speed]

Yup, they got you eh! Ouch! Looks like you came out OK though. I think I'll sneak through this OK, I'll probably try a couple shots with each lens and see what I get. It is one time I wish I had a 1.4 or 1.8 wide angle lens though....hmmm, maybe I'll rent one tomorrow from Roberts downtown.

JS

I love my 50mm f1.4. I'd love to have an 85mm f1.4 as well.

Renting a faster lens may be the way to go...

[JSPhoto]

Yeah, I'd just buy a 50mm but certain people need to pay me first....waiting on around a grand they owe.....and waiting...... I'll probably get both checks Saturday after the bank closes

JS

[Sebastian]

You're press, they should let you use flash. But if they don't, relax, auditoriums are not bad. And they're singing, so slow shutter speeds will work, unlike sports. You will be fine with the IS. My only concern would be white balance, as some auditoriums have terrible quality of light. My suggestion is leave it on auto white balance and do any cleanup in post. If they have 60hz lamps nothing you can do will guarantee the right colors anyways.

[JSPhoto]

You're press, they should let you use flash. But if they don't, relax, auditoriums are not bad. And they're singing, so slow shutter speeds will work, unlike sports. You will be fine with the IS. My only concern would be white balance, as some auditoriums have terrible quality of light. My suggestion is leave it on auto white balance and do any cleanup in post. If they have 60hz lamps nothing you can do will guarantee the right colors anyways.

Thanks Sebastian....my hope is that since it is a newer school the lighting will be descent. And a thought just occured to see of the staff shooter has shot there and whether he will give me any settings he used...I doubt it though, he thinks I'm after his job.

JS

[Sebastian]

You should be fine especially since it's a newer school. Don't bother getting his settings, just go and treat it like any other situation. I have comfortably shot inside dim auditoriums with 1/50 and up speeds at ISO 400 and up. The IS helps you stay steady, but won't stop any subject blur.

[masdog]

I was invited to a thank you dinner for volunteers(I am a unpaid hawk migration volunteer, though I charge to document it). I got a call 2 hours before arriving "BRING YOUR CAMERA TOO".

Usually when someone says that to me on short notice, I tend to "forget" my camera or an important accessory (battery, memory card) at home. I had to do that with my Fraternity a couple of times because they couldn't pay me and, despite knowing about events weeks (or months) in advance, they wouldn't think to have anyone document it until the night before. And this was after I told them that I would refuse to do any photography for them unless I had two weeks notice.

I suppose its different when you're a paying member of an organization that wants you to work the event as well as photograph it.

[paulnj]

Well , I can't refuse ANY work from them! If I do... I don't get any more jobs(atleast that's my fear)

Imagine getting called to DOCUMENT a bird and make $$ , that's what I do mostly. It takes me 5 minutes to get there and 15 to shoot. I bill 2 HOURS!

[JSPhoto]

Well I want to thank everyone for their help with this today! I got there and to my surprise it wasn't an auditorium after all, but a gym and they had all the lights on!
When I walked in though I thought to myself "glad I didn't listen to the staff photog!". His advice was take my 19-35mm and my 70-200, but I also took the 28-300 (it was already on the camera anyway). The way things were set up I had to use the 28-300! They wanted some crowd shots as well as the kids so in order to do it I had to go with both ends of the 28-300 and it was more than bright enough to use it too. I couldn't get around the front of the kids without being in everyones way so I had to to do some snipping in order to get what I needed.

Heres a couple from the job. As you can see in the bottom shot it's not laid out well for photos and moving around. No matter where I'd go I would get in someones way. In this case the assistant principle (perfect for me...I spent a lot of time in the principles office as a kid!)

Thanks again!
JS

[paulnj]

Not too shaby

HMMMM .... I think I will go to the sports shooter forum(for the first time.... SHHHH) and see your sports images too ;)

[JSPhoto]

LOL, thanks Paul, I just wonder what the paper will think! These were all shot with a 28-300....I think it did rather well considering the conditions.

JS

[Peter_AUS]

I just got a WhiBal from http://www.rawworkflow.com/ that you might actual find helpful for white balance, you hold it in front of the lens as if you were shoting a shot in the lighting conditions take a shot and use that shot for when you do the white balancing afterwards. As I only just received it and it going to be a Xmas present to me from the children I haven't had a chance yet to try it out. But from watching the videos about it online, seems to work well. You can get studio sizes as well which I did as a package. Have a look, no harm in doing that.

Inside auditoriums is sort of hard to get the lighting right, the floor being the colour it is and the cast that you often get.

I see a couple of hot spots on the centre of a couple of images, especially the last one.

Did you bracket at all.

[JSPhoto]

Yeah, but it was strange, betweeen reflections off the floor in some places and the different wall colors it really made things interesting. I didn't bother to clean these up at all as the paper wants the staff photog to do that. In the top they would just crop that out anyway so it's no biggy. These are actually being used in a free paper this week and I got half a page to fill up.

Normally, when I go to a different location I use something white ad set the WB off it.... there is ALWAYS a kid in a white T-shirt who will let you use them as a target . Anyway, once I get home I write all the shot settings I want for that location in a notebook that goes with me on every job. Once I have the settings in there I just look up that track, school, football field etc. and set the camera before even leaving home.
Now I have a new book for the 1D MKII N as it is a lot different and has some additional settings the old 1D didn't have.

JS