Theatre - WHITE BALANCE ???? OR JUST RAW

I shot a play last night. There were so many different color light how could you even set a with balance?

Then after the play I though it may have been better to shot them in raw.

Just a lot of strange lighting colors.

RAW will give you quite a bit more of adjustment capabilities however, with multiple light sources you just have to do the best you can. There is always going to be a compromise.
Best you can hope is if/when they use a spotlight on the actors to grab a shot of at that time. Generally people are going to be lit by different sources and this is to be expected.

Paul S wrote in post #5272575
I shot a play last night. There were so many different color light how could you even set a with balance?

Set Tungsten, the rest of the colours are meant to be there....
Shooting raw is a very good idea in circumstances like this

Ditto what Rene' said.

Respect the lighting designer's vision, set it on tungsten and call it a day.

These two shots were from the same show.

curtis - nice shots! i was told by a few event photographers to balance for skintone tho (while letting the stage lights add to the whole feel). would setting on tungsen be a better way?

Okay, Devil's advocate time.

What the lighting designer is doing is setting up the stage to look good to the human eye. What looks good to the human eye and the camera are often different things.

When shooting stage musicals, I would normally shoot RAW, then use colour balance to bring skin back towards something that vaguely looks like skin. Not necessarily all the way - you want enough that you can see what the lighting designer has been doing - but you also want people to look something like their natural colour.

Now I have to say that Curtis' shots do look great, but had I shot them I would probably have tried to make them look a little more natural.

regards,
/alan

I'm with Alan on this one.
IMO "pleasing" is more important then "correct" color.

I have my camera set to tungsten mostly, but I use anything between 2000K and 4000K, Tint between -20 to +20 in LR to get the colors like I want it.

Mostly I leave the colors like they were, only a bit less intense / a bit more 'neutral' if needed.

For instance an image in just red stage lighting would get a WB of 2600K and tint -5 or so to start with. Green a bit higher color temp, and tint +5 or so. Blue: Higher color temperature still, tint as needed.

Less extreme images / colors are kept at Tungsten WB however.

Or you could shoot in black and white.

wow, I've got so much to learn.

ThomasOwenM wrote in post #5280686
Or you could shoot in black and white.

I'd prefer to shoot colour and convert to B&W afterwards when needed... B&W sometimes works out really well, but I usually see it as something to do afterwards if colour doesn't work. Besides that, I think you can do a better job converting than your camera does

Just set WB and shoot raw

Thanks for all your comments. I don't shoot Plays often but I had so much fun doing it. I was rough as I turned off my rear display so I couldn't read the histogram. (didn't want to bother anyone with the display light) Next time I will try to shoot the dress rehearsal.

Thanks again, Paul

BTW how do you jump to Theater from the Main menu ? Don't see a sub folder.

You're the final judge. The "correct" WB isn't always the "right" WB. Test. Try all the pre-sets when you shoot a sunset sometime.

This is a good thread--- dont laugh but I shot a cage match fight and they had very heavy red lighting.....I really hate the results and am having a bugger of a time making them look decent.

stathunter wrote in post #5284976
This is a good thread--- dont laugh but I shot a cage match fight and they had very heavy red lighting.....I really hate the results and am having a bugger of a time making them look decent.

Did you shoot RAW ?