using flash, faces overexposing

[hammy]

Alright. New to these forums.
I recently shot a small outdoor concert, at night. Yet there was adequate stage lighting, so I could focus well. Anyways, I shot mainly in black and white (C41 b&w though), but my main problem is that on many of the shots the subjects' faces are kind of blinded or drowned out. They're really bright, doesn't look natural. What am I doing wrong?
Is there a trick to getting more natural looking skin/face tones using flash with black and white? Any help would be much appreciated... Hammy

[Franglais]

Alright. New to these forums.
I recently shot a small outdoor concert, at night. Yet there was adequate stage lighting, so I could focus well. Anyways, I shot mainly in black and white (C41 b&w though), but my main problem is that on many of the shots the subjects' faces are kind of blinded or drowned out. They're really bright, doesn't look natural. What am I doing wrong?
Is there a trick to getting more natural looking skin/face tones using flash with black and white? Any help would be much appreciated... Hammy

You don't specify what camera/flash/lens combination you're using so I'll have to guess at this.

Supposing you're using a standard (non TTL) flash with a telephoto lens. The flash is metering the whole scene and tries to expose for the performer + background. As the performer is closer to the flash than the background he/she is overexposed. As you're using a telephoto lens you're picking out that one part of the scene and making it cruelly obvious that the performer is overexposed.

Second problem is that you're using direct flash from a distance which flattens out all the shadows - with black-and-white film which by its very nature needs contrast and shadow to make the subject look interesting.

Charles

[another view]

I'm guessing it's more the lab than anything. The person's face is a small part of the whole shot, and I've heard that many places set their machines to take an average reading of the overall shot. Since the person's face is probably the brightest part of the scene, it gets blown out.

Stage lighting is really contrasty, and that's why the person's face is brighter than the rest of their body. It doesn't look much brighter with your eye, but film sees different than our eyes do. Film (negative film) actually makes it a lot easier than digital here too.

Options? If this were the case, you could scan the negs yourself and if you're handy with Photoshop get pretty good results. You could also take the negs to another lab (try a custom lab) and see what they can do. They can look at the neg and see if it is possible to get more out of it or if your exposure needs to be different next time.