I'm shooting a talent show tomorrow...any tips? advice?

[paulle]

Well my school is holding a talent show in our gym and it has one of those yellow lights. And as or right now, I only have the 50mm 1.8 lens and 70-200mm f/4 lens. Is there a way I can make the lights a different shade of color in PP or the settings in my camera?

I have no flash..sorry.

[tdodd]

If you shoot in jpeg then set a custom white balance by shooting a sheet of white paper at the start of the event under the gym lighting. Make sure that having set the custom WB you actually use it to shoot the photos. That will get things pretty close for all subsequent photos. If you have a proper WB card then so much the better, but I think a sheet of white A4, or even a white shirt will get you in the right ballpark.

If ou shoot raw then you can do exactly the same as above and/or you can fix or tweak WB further in your raw editor, with no loss of image quality. Highlight all photos at once and use "click" white balance to set the WB for all photos. You can use that sheet of white paper that you first shot, or a white shirt from any of the photos shot during the event. If you want to tweak further, for artistic effect, then you can easily nudge the colour temperature to taste.

Personally, I would shoot raw, with a daylight, or uni-WB setting, and then sort the WB in my raw editor with a click on something white or grey and a nudge to the temperature if I wanted to change the ambience a little.

[AB8ND]

I'm with Tdodd on using a custom white balance and Raw, this will get you close. Make sure that you have a good exposure and shoot the white paper/card in manual so the camera doesn't try to make it gray. If they are using spot lights, you might have to sweet talk someone into letting you on stage before hand to get a WB shoot. Then again shoot raw with Auto WB and fix the photos in Raw editor. Don't be afraid to bump up the iso speed so you can use your 70/200 f/4

Jack

[PhotosGuy]

Then again shoot raw with Auto WB and fix the photos in Raw editor. I'm with you on RAW, but AWB really sucks indoors. Notice that the very last exposure in the 2nd group of tests was of a gray card.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54281
So I'd start with Tungsten WB. If you shoot in jpeg then set a custom white balance by shooting a sheet of white paper at the start of the event under the gym lighting. If you can't do that, maybe use the 70-200 & try to zoom in on a white shirt, or something else white like a bass drumhead.
The Johnny Headband Band (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=372180)

[stathunter]

Shoot in RAW------------crank up the ISO to at least 800 and hope for the best with the 70-200.

[paulle]

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=5662861#post5662861

Let me know how I did!

[tdodd]

Nice job! Exposure and colour balance both look good to me and you were able to keep your shutter speed high enough to avoid blur. Maybe there is just a slightly warm cast to the shots but it's very subtle and could certainly be categorised as artistic choice rather than any kind of error. Personally I think a scene should show evidence of the lighting conditions and not nuke whites to a sterile pure white. I know I normally prefer my "cloudy" shots to be shot with a daylight balance rather than cloudy, as I like the moody blue effect. Rose tinted clouds just looke bloomin' weird to me.

It's a shame the background is so bleurgghh and the lighting lacks any sort of atmosphere but that's certainly not your fault. You did a great job on the group shot - you have everybody's attention and smiles all round so well done on crowd control. You should be very pleased with the job you did.

What was your approach to shooting in the end? How did you set your white balance and what sort of exposure settings did you end up with?

[paulle]

The last shot? As in the group the shot? I basically just shot White Florescent WB using f/4 in AV, since I was caught off-noticed to take the shot.

I then went home, and with shooting RAW, it gave to chance to change the WB. I also did minimum edited with DPP.

[paulle]

Also used ISO 800, but in the end 1600. Forgot to switch it back to 800.

Then when I was editing, the 1600 were really grainy.