Exposure for poor lighting

What do you guys who do concert and events regularly do to help nail exposure?

I shot a show last night that had these huge white spot lights hitting the front of the performer and giant lights behind the performer. The lighting was just randomly going between the two and it made it impossible for me to hit proper exposure. One shot would be set to expose light from the front and then that light would go away and they would be back lit. So you quickly change exposure to being back lit and then the front lights come on again. It was just practice for me but it was very frustrating and I left after the 2nd song. In close to 50 shots (not counting doubles or similar poses), I had maybe 5 shots that were exposed properly. Everything else was too far under/overexposed to be saved.

If anyone has any tips, suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them so I can go out and practice.

i would set my exposure manually for one of the two situations and then do burst mode.

it's kind of spray and pray but it worked pretty good for me at the Nine Inch Nails show this summer. otherwise, you can't chase the needle in manual, and if you shoot aperture priority, sometimes the metering will give you a long shutter if it's dark and you'll miss a bunch of good moments. i suppose trying shutter priority could work.

narlus wrote in post #17155371
i would set my exposure manually for one of the two situations and then do burst mode.

it's kind of spray and pray but it worked pretty good for me at the Nine Inch Nails show this summer. otherwise, you can't chase the needle in manual, and if you shoot aperture priority, sometimes the metering will give you a long shutter if it's dark and you'll miss a bunch of good moments. i suppose trying shutter priority could work.

more here:
http://photos.tinnitus​-photography.com/p36361​3523

Thanks narlus. That's a rad shot of Trent too. I did a bit of the spray and pray and I think that's the only reason I got the shots I did. I haven't been taking concert photos that long so I guess it more comes down to practice as well. I guess I was spoiled by the last concert which, even though it had those horrible blue/red lights, at least it was a consistent light and not a random super bright/dark combo.

usually the lights aren't super fast, so this was a last resort... Flaming Lips also had super bright/dark cycling patterns too.

Practice, experience, and shoot a LOT. If your camera has it, use the custom shooting mode or modes - C or C1-C3 on the dial. I've experimented a bit with the semi-auto modes (Tv, Av with a relatively high minimum shutter speed, sometimes auto ISO) but I usually fall back on the manual mode, and manually switch settings on the fly. Turn on the blinkies, expose to the right but DON'T lose any highlights in skin or clothing, and don't be afraid to chimp it.

- With Tv, you've got to set a high ISO for the dark scenes, and in the bright scenes it'll close down your aperture, leaving some ISO on the table (i.e. when it gets bright, the camera shifts to f/8 and ISO6400 instead of f/4 and ISO1600).
- With Av, as noted above, it's tough to keep the minimum shutter speed up, and you get motion blur. And again, sometimes there's ISO left on the table; you don't need 1/1000 and ISO6400 when you could have used 1/250 and ISO1600).
- With Auto ISO, you can fix shutter speed and aperture, but without exposure compensation, you don't know what you're getting.


It takes experience and luck to nail the timing so that the light looks good, the exposure is correct, and (maybe most importantly) the performer looks good. My keeper rate for shows is usually about 20% - though the quality of those keepers continues to improve as I get better.

Look on the bright side: Shooting in crappy venues with terrible lighting, or even in good shows with rapidly-changing lighting, will force you to work really hard to get better fast. Then when you go to a show with good, consistent lighting, it'll be a cakewalk.

the flying moose wrote in post #17153028
What do you guys who do concert and events regularly do to help nail exposure?

I shot a show last night that had these huge white spot lights hitting the front of the performer and giant lights behind the performer. The lighting was just randomly going between the two and it made it impossible for me to hit proper exposure. One shot would be set to expose light from the front and then that light would go away and they would be back lit. So you quickly change exposure to being back lit and then the front lights come on again. It was just practice for me but it was very frustrating and I left after the 2nd song. In close to 50 shots (not counting doubles or similar poses), I had maybe 5 shots that were exposed properly. Everything else was too far under/overexposed to be saved.

If anyone has any tips, suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them so I can go out and practice.

Nothing really you can do about poor lighting on behalf of artists and musicians, especially for those ones who want to be "arty and farty"

nathancarter wrote in post #17160911
Practice, experience, and shoot a LOT. If your camera has it, use the custom shooting mode or modes - C or C1-C3 on the dial. I've experimented a bit with the semi-auto modes (Tv, Av with a relatively high minimum shutter speed, sometimes auto ISO) but I usually fall back on the manual mode, and manually switch settings on the fly. Turn on the blinkies, expose to the right but DON'T lose any highlights in skin or clothing, and don't be afraid to chimp it.

- With Tv, you've got to set a high ISO for the dark scenes, and in the bright scenes it'll close down your aperture, leaving some ISO on the table (i.e. when it gets bright, the camera shifts to f/8 and ISO6400 instead of f/4 and ISO1600).
- With Av, as noted above, it's tough to keep the minimum shutter speed up, and you get motion blur. And again, sometimes there's ISO left on the table; you don't need 1/1000 and ISO6400 when you could have used 1/250 and ISO1600).
- With Auto ISO, you can fix shutter speed and aperture, but without exposure compensation, you don't know what you're getting.


It takes experience and luck to nail the timing so that the light looks good, the exposure is correct, and (maybe most importantly) the performer looks good. My keeper rate for shows is usually about 20% - though the quality of those keepers continues to improve as I get better.

Look on the bright side: Shooting in crappy venues with terrible lighting, or even in good shows with rapidly-changing lighting, will force you to work really hard to get better fast. Then when you go to a show with good, consistent lighting, it'll be a cakewalk.

Thanks for the reply. I'll be practicing as much as I can that's for sure. Doing concert photos is super fun to do.

narlus wrote in post #17155371
i would set my exposure manually for one of the two situations and then do burst mode.

it's kind of spray and pray but it worked pretty good for me at the Nine Inch Nails show this summer. otherwise, you can't chase the needle in manual, and if you shoot aperture priority, sometimes the metering will give you a long shutter if it's dark and you'll miss a bunch of good moments. i suppose trying shutter priority could work.

more here:
http://photos.tinnitus​-photography.com/p36361​3523

Nice gallery narlus!

I always use spot metering slaved to the AF point (with no AE lock) (on Canon 1D - not sure if its possible on other bodies) AV@f2.8, ISO high enough to give good shutter speeds, and use the exposure compensation to adjust for skin tone

most gigs i have shot have fairly static lighting on the front of the act, and the background lighting goes nuts and these can typically be done in manual mode