Dealing with harsh lights, help

I recently did a dance recital and I was wondering how to deal with the areas of darkness with out blowing out the lighted areas. Example here. I had my white balance set to Flouresent, (didnt know it was tungsten) and I only had the onboard flash, I have a strobe, but I was set up in the middle of a high school gym and didnt think it would be approipriate. Help for next years recital. I am keeping a list of all things to do diffrent next year.

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getting full stage shots crisp and clear is very difficult, and you usually need a good amount of quality lighting. there's no EXIF in the shot, so it's tough to critique yr camera settings, but i would suggest the following:

zoom in
spot meter off a face or arm
set the camera to those values, using manual exposure
take a test shot, and chimp.

Exposure seems good. Only problem (exposure wise) is the left person...
Not much you can do (since flash is a no-no IMHO in most cases), apart from shooting RAW and develop twice: Once with Exposure set to '0' for the whole stage, once exposure = +1 for the person in the dark...

In your particular shot, your camera will more than likely always overexpose if you let the camera think for you.

Half of your shot is dark compared to what you want to expose for.

Experience will help with this.

As Rene said, you don't want to use your flash unless there is NO alternative, and is probably not allowed anyhow.

Were you designated shooter for this, or just a Jo in the crowd?

Rob

Exposure compensation is required. Review your histogram often and look for the "blinkies" on your LCD image. This thread might help.

narlus wrote in post #3296388
there's no EXIF in the shot.

I was able to extract the EXIF data with Opanda (thanks Dwight).
18mm
1/30"
F3.5
Manual WB
ISO 200
+/-0 EV

Michael1116 wrote in post #3304117
I was able to extract the EXIF data with Opanda (thanks Dwight).
18mm
1/30"
F3.5
Manual WB
ISO 200
+/-0 EV

i must have been napping..i see it now too.

# Metering Mode = pattern / multi-segment (5)