Light Staff: ImaKoKode

This guy makes his own props - and knows pretty well how to use them! This was in a theatre, so he used light staffs, outside he'd be playing with fire (don't try this at home kids! ).

Taken during the show of the Circus Festival Ireland.

A litte dark and the contrast seems a little off.

What was your setup?

What do you mean by 'off', and 'setup'?

Thanks.

The contrast is just not quite right. If you look at the top of the staff you can see rings of light. That is caused by the contrast being a little high.

By setup I mean, What camerea, lens and settings.

Thanks for the advice on contrast, I don't know what needed attention. I know what you're talking about and had noticed it myself. That might be partly due to recovering highlights too, I wonder, as I played about with it for a while but this is the best I could muster at the time (LR user). [edit: it's also 80% quality jpg - looked a lot worse at 60%, my usual post] You reckon bring down the contrast?

Equipment wise it's a 40D, 24-70 f/2.8 L
Settings ISO 800 at f/2.8, 1/50sec and 70mm.
(EXIF is present in the posted image)

I think this image has some potential, feedback on trying to bring it out would be welcome.

I might give it a go in DPP too, as I've never been able to emulate the same sharpness/clarity in LR, but then highlights handling is crap.