How to adjust for red spot light

B

bbsr

New member
Hi, I am a beginner DVX100B user and need some help.

When I shoot events (live concerts etc), the room tends to be dark, and often times the subject will have red spot lights on them.

Whenever this happens, my footage, especially the face of the subject, looks terrible. To some extent, I can fix it with color correction during the post, but not much.

Please advise me on what settings I should adjust, and if there is anything I could do before the event starts to prepare for this situation.

Thank you.
 
The problem with stage lighting is that the gels are so colored that there is very little light passing through in any color but the gels. So for instance, your red faced subjects have very little blue (or any other color) light on them. This is why correcting in post doesn't work very well, it is because there isn't really any information other then the red there to correct. The blue and gree channels are starved.

The best you can do is to become friends with the lighting tech and beg him to throw as much of a un-gelled wash on stage as he can without compromising his job. This way there is at least some room for you to do things in post.

Edit: Also, the DV codec doesn't help the DVX cope with this, but I have the same problems when shooting on cameras several times the price of a DVX (XDcamHD + Varicam). Cameras in general need to be fed a lot of light.
 
Red gel light typically does not shoot well with video. Your best dialing some of the red out in post. Also make sure you are viewing your footage on an NTSC monitor to get an accurate account of what you are filming. Its a bummer, but red is a tough one for video.....film, no problem, but video? I would shoot some tests with an NTSC monitor just to feel your way through.

Good luck!
 
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I remember years ago an engineer telling me something about the color red "exciting" the red chip in the camera, that it was something you have to look out for.

As William said, if the lighting tech can put on some "white" (ungelled tungsten) light, that would help.

You might also want to experiment with your scene file settings- less saturation, maybe a cooler white balance.
If you have some red gel, obviously this would help your testing.

Hope this helps.
 
yeh i shot a dance performance and found that to be true also. the lighting person bathed the stage in red. yuck. but during some parts of the dance he mixed in some white with it was much better....u still have the red effect for perfomance but also u get a decent compromise with ur camera
 
This is all great info. Thanks so much.

At least I know what I need to watch out for.
I will also have to play with the setting suggested above.
If you have any suggestions about different settings I should try, I'd appreciate your input.
 
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