Concerts and lighting

[nikos]

Greetings!

A couple of days ago, I took my camera (20D w/ 70-300 IS lens) to a Greek concert in Atlantic City, NJ and I was initially frustrated trying to get the correct exposure. I had the camera set to center-weighted metering and anything close to the 0 E.V. mark would result in badly blown highlights.

I actually had to shoot about 2 stops to the left in order to get a decently exposed picture of the performers. I'm assuming it was because of the spotlights that were aimed at them.

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm looking forward to taking pics at another concert. Any comments, criticism and pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nikos


My settings:
Exposure mode - Manual
ISO - 1600
Metering - Center Weighted
Flash - Off
Lens - 70-300 (4.0 - 5.6)
Format: RAW
Image were post processed.
Distance - about 50' away from the performers

Here's the gallery:
http://nikos.smugmug.com/gallery/1348752/1/63640255


Here are a couple of samples:

http://nikos.smugmug.com/photos/63639959-L.jpg


http://nikos.smugmug.com/photos/63640344-L.jpg

[wxwax]

That second one really works for me.

Imagine that, a concert where there's too much light!

[swintonphoto]

I am not sure, but I imagine your problems came because there was sooo much light on the individual and nothing everywhere else. The camera could not figure it out. I would recommend spot metering (if your camera can do that) on the subject. That could give you a more correct exposure.

[nikos]

Imagine that, a concert where there's too much light!
Haha, I actually can't. I've been to many concerts but since I never brought a camera with me, I never payed attention to the lighting so I figured that this would have been common. Guess I was lucky to have such lighting at my first concert shoot.

I am not sure, but I imagine your problems came because there was sooo much light on the individual and nothing everywhere else. The camera could not figure it out. I would recommend spot metering (if your camera can do that) on the subject. That could give you a more correct exposure.

After looking over my photos again I came to the same conclusion. Unfortunately, the 20D doesn't have the luxury of spot metering -- it only has evaluative, center weighted avg and partial. At least shooting RAW helped give me the extra headroom needed to save and tweak the marginal photos.

Nikos