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

[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

[another view]

I was thinking of doing it in RAW, which would leave me some room for error.

Maybe not - what tends to happen in a situation like this is that the light is very contrasty. You can easily wind up with both blown highlights and completely dark shadows. In a situation like this, flash can help (fill flash, basically) because the stage lighting will be from above and a little bit in front. Flash on camera will fill in some of the shadows caused by the stage lighting but that also presents another problem. Stage lighting will be somewhere around 3000K, plus or minus possibly about 200K. Electronic flash is around 5500K, maybe a little higher even. I'd probably make sure that the flash is a pretty low output in comparison to the stage lighting so it's not so much of a problem, but do some experimenting.

BTW - all electrical stuff in North America is 60hz. Theatrical lighting is incandescent, and probably halogen (which is a type of incandescent source). Halogen sources are usually 3000 to 3200K. If you shoot without flash, either go with raw and/or a custom WB and you should be fine. It will take ISO800 or higher - probably higher at f2.8 - although that VR will help a lot here. If you have any possibility of using a monopod, it might not be a bad thing to bring with too.

[Sebastian]

White balance, with overhead lighting in auditoriums and gyms, is a waste of time. The light varies a HUGE amount over the 60hz cycle just as Another View said. Not only in color temp, but also in brightness. I have a set of frames from last night's basketball game where every shot is half a stop off from the one before it, and every single one has a different color cast, yet all were shot on manual at the same exposure. Like I said earlier in my previous post, don't waste your time on white balance settings. Leave it on auto and fix it in post.

As for stage lighting for theatrical performances, I never use a flash. besides being incredibly distracting, it completely destroys the ambience created by the light.
Use the strong directional light to enhance the image, don't try to fight it.

[JSPhoto]

Thanks everyone,
We got it, and the photos looked great according to the staff photog and the editor. Kind of shocked the photog when he realized I did use my 28-300 after all.
Fotunately he did crop out the blownout areas as I figured he would.

JS

[another view]

where every shot is half a stop off from the one before it, and every single one has a different color cast, yet all were shot on manual at the same exposure.

I'm a commercial/industrial lighting geek by trade. Just plain 'ol geek other than that. ;)

Some light sources you'll see used in gyms will color shift plus or minus a few hundred degrees as they age. They'll also put out a lot less light, so if someone changes a couple of lamps (called light bulbs by normal people) then you can literally have a difference of 100% as they're running down the court. That's pretty much a nightmare for digital photographers already trying to deal with action and low light. NBA/NFL, etc don't have these kind of problems because their maintenance programs and light levels are a little different...

[Sebastian]

NBA/NFL, etc don't have these kind of problems because their maintenance programs and light levels are a little different...

Actually, it's because the NFL throws so much light at the field that there is barely a difference between that and daylight. And the NBA, well, they just have about a hundred strobes mounted from the rafters in every arena. Hence the remotes on every camera.

[JSPhoto]

I'm a commercial/industrial lighting geek by trade. Just plain 'ol geek other than that. ;)

Some light sources you'll see used in gyms will color shift plus or minus a few hundred degrees as they age. They'll also put out a lot less light, so if someone changes a couple of lamps (called light bulbs by normal people) then you can literally have a difference of 100% as they're running down the court. That's pretty much a nightmare for digital photographers already trying to deal with action and low light. NBA/NFL, etc don't have these kind of problems because their maintenance programs and light levels are a little different...

Add to the mix, many, if not most high school gyms are painted with the school colors which add to photographers nightmares in the lighting. Painted walls can steal a bunch of light. Even the flooring color and sealer can steal light.
The gym nearest my home is one of the worst. It's so dark when you walk in that you really know it, then put the viewfinder to your eye and it's like being in a dimly lit cave. If ONE light goes out you lose two stops! No joke, that happened last week, even the players noticed when the thing went out!
Very few schools use common sense when it comes to lighting in gyms and athletic fields. One school has the best lit tennis courts and baseball field in the state, but the worst football field, soccer field and gym lighting in the state...and no one plays tennis matches at night except kids playing around...go figure.

JS

[JSPhoto]

Actually, it's because the NFL throws so much light at the field that there is barely a difference between that and daylight. And the NBA, well, they just have about a hundred strobes mounted from the rafters in every arena. Hence the remotes on every camera.

Having shot at the RCA Dome the lighting there changes depending on where you are. The NFL does have suggested amount of lighting but it isn't mandatory.
Conseco Field House, home of the Pacers is great to shoot in, and you do not need strobes, but they are nice to have. You can shoot there without them though and get perfectly good results.

JS

[another view]

Very few schools use common sense when it comes to lighting in gyms and athletic fields.

A lot of this has to do with their budget. The maintenance budget is only part of why pro sports have better lit stadiums - they can afford to put in the best systems at extremely high light levels, hire the best designers and replace their lamps regularly. Simply replacing the lamps has a lot more to do with this than you might think...

Public schools wouldn't even have the budget for the electric bill to power the systems used in pro sports - at least here! Usually with schools, an architect is involved and they have a consulting engineer that does the lighting layout so I haven't done many of them. The few HS gyms I've been involved on tend to be really bad (which is why they eventually upgrade) and the budget is pretty low in comparison. I would imagine that if schools have to choose between text books and upgraded gym lighting, the choice is easy (not wanting to start that OT topic...).

[JSPhoto]

The schools I shoot at most waste more money painting the walls every year than they spend in lights for the gyms. Especially the two badly lit gyms, both of which use tungstien bulbs which are expensive and not very bright. Add the dark yellowish paint and you get a dark gym.
The funny thing is they constantly complain we don't go to those schools enough and we keep telling them we would if the gyms weren't dungeons. I have repeatedly told the AD's the lights, floor and paint are the problems. Both gyms also have dark wood stain on the floors that adds to the problem.
They just redid the one floor and they "forgot" to lighten it up, so it's still dark...argh!
Replacing the tungstein lights would save them a ton of money. The lights are on from the opening of school each day through 10 or 11 at night and just the electric savings would be worth the upgrade.
One of the schools is trying to build a new gym as part of an upgrade to the building but their plan was shot down by voters as it also meant tearing out a three year old tennis court...cost...1 million dollars to destroy and rebuild the tennis couirt and bus garage. Total project cost was to be 130 million! My property taxes would have tripled to $700 a half!

JS

[another view]

Replacing the tungstein lights would save them a ton of money. The lights are on from the opening of school each day through 10 or 11 at night and just the electric savings would be worth the upgrade.

You could wind up with twice the light level and still pay off the cost of new fixtures and their installation in a year or two, which is pretty amazing seeing as few situations like that (blatant waste of energy) exist anymore. Too bad it's out of my territory or maybe we could both benefit...

You've got it pretty good on the property taxes, let me tell you! Our house is close to but below the median value in the county and we're still in the $3k range per year.

[JSPhoto]

You could wind up with twice the light level and still pay off the cost of new fixtures and their installation in a year or two, which is pretty amazing seeing as few situations like that (blatant waste of energy) exist anymore. Too bad it's out of my territory or maybe we could both benefit...

You've got it pretty good on the property taxes, let me tell you! Our house is close to but below the median value in the county and we're still in the $3k range per year.

lol, Rockford isn't that far away..... One of my cousins used to teach there...she's now teaching at a college in Il. but I forget the name of it. Near Hoffman Estates I think.

JS