shooting theater lit with red lights?

[fishyone]

I will be shooting a play tonight and one scene is lit entirely with red lights. I shot the dress rehearsal in M but really struggled with getting the right settings dialed in. Thought about trying AV with spot metering. Any ideas? Here is a sample shot. ISO 1600 1/50 and 3.2. Shot with a 40d and 70-200 2.8

http://creationspraise.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p672954494-4.jpg

[midnight_rider]

Content is protected by owner.
Is this linked from a locked gallery?

[fishyone]

Oops. I think I fixed it.

[midnight_rider]

I still can not see the image on here. Perhaps relink it.
I did see an image on your site of a lady on the stage almost knelt down to one knee.
If that is the one that you are talking about then I would try
1. I would no doubt shoot this in Raw. Stage lights chage often and I would not trust AWB in this setting. There is also no time to set a CWB.
2. How close can you get? IMO this is the type of photography where Primes take the lead. If this is just not something that you shoot often and you have to use the 70-200 then I would say open it up. It is easier to sharpen an image than to try and unblur one:D On the sample image I saw there si motion throughout the frame. Although I think it is very nice on some images, all of them may not work well with the blur.
3. 3200 can be used on a 40D. It is not pretty but it can be cleaned.
4. I would go AV or TV mode here. There is no real need to shoot M in this situation. As for the metering mode, That is a scene per scene choice. If you want to expose for the entire stage use evaluative, If you just want the actor/actress exposed correctly then spot will work best.

[fishyone]

I'll try this again. I am using the 70-200 so I can focus on individuals and groups. I always shoot in RAW and I know I can shoot at 3200 but really hate to. That would be a last resort.

http://creationspraise.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p672954494-4.jpg

[narlus]

it's really oversaturated, so instead of going to 1600 increase yr shutter speed to 1/125 or higher. the downside is that you lose shadow detail. welcome to shooting performances!

you could set yr white balance to something like 2200K for the red scene, and switch back to AWB for the other scenes. reds do tend to get overblown faster, so check the histogram (sRGB, not brightness) and watch for clipping in the reds.