Difficult Lighting Conditions

[rpcrowe]

This series was done under very difficult lighting conditions. The overall lighting level was very dramatic and often quite low. Spotlights were frequently pointed towards my camera position causing flare. The aerialists were also moving fairly fast but I tried for the peak of action. I shot at ISO 6400 and even ISO 12800 using my Canon 7D and 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens. Most often, the aerialists were wearing black costumes which further increased the difficulty. Getting a pleasing color balance when shooting under colored lights is also problematic. If I tried for natural skin tones, the image colors went bonkers. Actually, the heavy pinkish light was what the act looked like. I reduced the noise as best I could using NIK Dfine plug-in.
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[Digital]

Richard, the photos look real good.

Bruce

[CNelson]

Shooting in mixed color lighting is difficult and sometimes you just have to go with it. The lighting is for effect and usually there's no good reason to cancel the effect in PP. That said, I've shot bands in live daylight performance when, for some reason, they had red, yellow and blue lights shining on them. The images looked like daylight except for performers standing in a direct red, yellow or blue light....I just tried to fix skin tones. If it had been night the colors would have been very effective and interesting but in daylight it was just weird. You got some interesting shots in difficult lighting.

Chuck
Chuck