Dealing with mostly red lighting on stage.

[New Hobby]

I did a shoot of a band and noticed that they where mostly lit with red lights. When I took a look at the histogram on the camera, red was a stop or more higher then the other colors. When I tried to set the while balance it looked like the temp was less then 2000k so I could not properly set the balance. I'm thinking that one way around this would be to filter the reds out a stop or two. I have done some google searches but I'm not seeing any camera filter that do this so now I'm wondering if this is not the method to deal with reds.

Any thoughts on how to deal with this?

[René Damkot]

Don't clip the red channel.
Shoot Raw, deal with it in PP.

[londonblue007]

Ditto Rene.

[New Hobby]

Tried but could not white balance it was too red.

[AdamGasson]

You can't, welcome to red light hell....

Seriously though red light is a nightmare, it tends to destroy detail and you'll struggle to B&W it even if you try. On top of that red light is very dark.

[londonblue007]

Show a sample... I'd like to see how bad it was and maybe we can help more if we know what you are looking at.

[Milner]

welcome to red light hell....

That pretty much sums it up.

[bsmotril]

I've had some similar shots that came out pretty good when converted to BW with the ACR BW mixer.

[ChrisRabior]

To take a non-editing and anti-PP stand on this, sometimes the easiest solution is the simplest one. Ask the lighting guy to bump the lights up for one or two of their songs.

I've got a working arrangement with two of the venues I regularly shoot at where the lights get bumped up during the higher energy songs, and sometimes for the entire set. Usually helps to know the sound guy, because he's most often also the guy with the lighting controls in the smaller venues. Once the venue sees the difference, it tends to lead to a much better lit stage.

[gregpphoto]

You can't, welcome to red light hell....

Seriously though red light is a nightmare, it tends to destroy detail and you'll struggle to B&W it even if you try. On top of that red light is very dark.

Have you tried Channel Mixer? I can recover photos that were so red you thought.. well I'm not gonna make a reference to menstruation but you get it. Channel Mixer can open up a lot of doors.

[gregpphoto]

To take a non-editing and anti-PP stand on this, sometimes the easiest solution is the simplest one. Ask the lighting guy to bump the lights up for one or two of their songs.

Have fun with that at anywhere outside of the small venues.

[Livinthalife]

I set up strobe to bring in some regular light. That's really all you can do about it. Maybe recommend bands getting some REAL lights too :) Good luck!

[Nouks]

Have fun with that at anywhere outside of the small venues.


I've never seen unworkable red light at bigger venues in my life. Smallest is mostly red-red-red-red-oh and we've got green aswell-lighting over here...

[gregpphoto]

At a large venue, no you wouldnt see it. But at the medium sized venues you will.

[blackshadow]

Don't forget that lovely blue too...

[Nouks]

I've never had to deal with unworkable blue aswell...

@Greg: what do you consider medium sized?

I still think the most crappy lighting (mostly red-red-red-red, sometimes green, (almost) no "neutral" front lighting and not too much light to work with) in the really small pubs and things like that. In all other cases (read: venues) the color of the lighting hasn't been a real problem to me, and certainly not "Tried but could not white balance it was too red.", as far as my experiences go everything could be fixed in PPing. From red-red to green-green or blue-blue.

Most ugly IMO is two of those colors used together with lack of front lighting; doesn't matter what you'll try, will be ugly anyway.

[gregpphoto]

Medium being a venue that isn't well-known outside of the locals, holds between 250-1,000 people give or take, and can still have relatively unknown bands (but still on a label) play there. Starland Ballroom in New Jersey or The Bowery Ballroom and Webster Hall in NYC come to mind.

[narlus]

i think the worst combo is red and blue lighting, which makes for a pukey magenta blech tone.

i guess it depends on the city, but the 'medium' size clubs in boston are about 600 ppl capacity, and routinely book national and international bands (and, their lighting generally sucks (Paradise, Middle East). there is a clear lack of a ~1200-2000 person club, however, ever since Avalon closed.