Looking for help with low light settings to improve exposure...

[Kevin Kimmell]

I'm working on pulling and posting an example clip but I've been tapped to shoot the play at the local catholic school. Last night was a dress rehearsal so i setup two cameras and left them on auto mode to see what problems might crop up. I'm waaaay out of practice as you'd see if you compare this post date to the last one :)

Anyhow, my little canon HF20 does fine but I'm mounting a second camera off to the side and up in the air shooting down and it's auto setting can't handle the light on the actors faces. They are washed out and over-saturated. The camera is an LG V20 which has some very good manual controls. It's my only option at this point so I'm hoping to get the setting dialed in better by Saturday's performance.

I'll follow up briefly once I get some footage posted to share but what setting should I be futzing with in general here?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Okay... video of some obvious baddies here:

YouTube (Short URL)

I'm also wondering if, once the manual adjustments are set, I should shoot this in 4k so that I can crop it down to 1920x1080 with little to no loss to remove most of the audience and other stuff.

Thanks,
KK

p.s. Should note in case it's not obvious, I can't really zoom with the LG as it would be digital zoom so shooting 4k and cropping would hopefully be the better option. Other camera will do 1920x1080 at 30fps so I could shoot full 4K @ 30 fps if that is a good match.

[Kevin Kimmell]

And I understand that this is all sub-optimal and that I shouldn't use the LG in a perfect world. But... I found out last night 60 minutes before the dress rehearsal. I no longer have a second camera.

I'm simply trying to make the best of this situation with three more of them to shoot. I will likely end up moving the "good" camera around for a couple of the performances and mixing in some different views but would love ideas to get better out of the V20 for the majority of the video. The lighting will look like the sample above for 90% of the play. There are a few spotlight bits and there are lights going up and down, but it's a Jr. HS production so nothing crazy with lighting.

[Phil Goetz]

You have a tripod and a good position. That's half the battle. Too bad you can't zoom in. The "something is better than nothing" saying should come into play here.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

Personally I would be bold and ask for a center isle set about six rows back. This will gets you a centered shot and closer. Be there early, anyone has a problem seeing behind you should be able move before the show starts. I've done this with symphony and concert events. If the video is important, then those involved should understand the importance of this. Most people don't seem to mind, however expect one, theres always one.

Looking at your exposure and position I would try and expose for the highlights. Keep the white shirts from clipping, under expose by -0.5 or -1.0 stops. You can always adjust exposure in your editing program, if information is lost due to over exposure all is lost.

If you need another camera, would have the MC or announcer of the event ask if theres any parents out there that may have a camera to borrow. When starting out, actually had a lawyer offer up his own GoPro for another angle.

Just a thought.

[Kevin Kimmell]

Thanks for the comments... I was able to survive the weekend shoots :)

I moved the v20 up much closer for an angled shot of the stage for two of the performances and ran someone's DSLr for one of them while moving my main camera a couple of times too.

I'm sure I'll have plenty of good enough bits to clip together a nice representation.

[Paul R Johnson]

While highlight blowout is quite common and pretty difficult to resolve without a: manual exposure control, and b: decent lighting.

In this example the lighting is simply appalling! If you look carefully, the entire lighting seems to come from two out front light sources - possibly even followspots on wide. I suspect that nothing you could have done would have fixed the problem. Poorly lit stages are totally impossible to make look nice. The frontal light washes out the faces, removes shadows and is just not up to it. In this case, the beam even lights up the audience - indicating that it's not even a profile or Fresnel with barn doors - but a circular beam.No top light, side light or back light. What you got is probably the best it could be on almost any camera. I do theatre work as part of my job - and even with a VERY expensive camera with manual control, the pictures would still look like actors caught in a car headlight.

[Kevin Kimmell]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

While highlight blowout is quite common and pretty difficult to resolve without a: manual exposure control, and b: decent lighting.

In this example the lighting is simply appalling! If you look carefully, the entire lighting seems to come from two out front light sources - possibly even followspots on wide. I suspect that nothing you could have done would have fixed the problem. Poorly lit stages are totally impossible to make look nice. The frontal light washes out the faces, removes shadows and is just not up to it. In this case, the beam even lights up the audience - indicating that it's not even a profile or Fresnel with barn doors - but a circular beam.No top light, side light or back light. What you got is probably the best it could be on almost any camera. I do theatre work as part of my job - and even with a VERY expensive camera with manual control, the pictures would still look like actors caught in a car headlight.

That was some good guesswork... the v20 was actually mounted to the top of one of those two light trees and they were simply four lights on each tree with no filters on them pointing at various points and controlled on a simple dimmer.

I will say though that the v20 was def. part of the problem as I mounted the hf20 there for two of the showings and it did quite a bit better. I'll use a lot of that angle and footage in the mix for sure. But with the same lighting the v20 did quite well placed on a speaker at front stage left that will give another fun angle.

While I don't think I'll get these Music Man songs out of my head anytime soon after the 5 viewings, it did give me plenty of chances to get angles and settings dialed in. Now for the 5-10 hours of editing for more of those blasted songs...