CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

If you're fighting Light, you have to use light to fight back. Reduce S & A and use the flash.

BillFeffer Loc: Adolphus, KY

Here is about 3 minutes work in LR (6.14). I'll start by saying that shooting RAW would give you MUCH greater latitude for adjustment of all parameters. Pulled the Highlights slider all the way down to deal with the windows. Also reduced the Luminance of the trees and sky slightly in HSL the panel. Added a touch of exposure and Shadows. A little Noise Reduction was performed. I adjusted the White Balance using the lower left sheet music and had to shift the Hue toward Green a little the I also pulled down the Orange saturation in the HSL pane to deal with the color cast on the Sax player from the interior lighting.

I encourage you to play with LR. There are lots of excellent basic tutorials on the web for free.

(Download)

dcearls Loc: Long Island, NY

Thanks.
I am shooting raw but my Lightroom skills have a way to go
I appreciate your input.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Lightroom can't do anything about the basic problem, lousy lighting. The faces are too dark because they are facing away from the window. Some bounced flash could solve that problem.

BillFeffer Loc: Adolphus, KY

Don't get discouraged. There is a lot to learn. Lousy lighting conditions are tough but you don't always have control of them and often can't use a flash. Keep learning and experimenting with it and with the camera as well. The D750 is a very capable camera in tough lighting. I took some after sunset family Party shots at ISO 12000 this weekend. Perfect? No, but usable.

Bill P

I have had the pleasure of knowing some high end commercial pros. I know that each would have draped the outside of the windows with black Visqueen and brought along the studio strobes.

Don't know how B&N would feel about that, but those guys wouldn't have asked.

SMPhotography Loc: Pawleys Island, SC

I much prefer using available light over flash if possible. Flash can give an "artificial" look to the shot, unless it is perfectly balanced and if only using one light instead of multiple lights at different differences to provide uniform light, you are at the mercy of the inverse square law (light falls off as the square of the distance), which in several of these images could be a factor.

There is an easy way to work around this but you will have to go to that "dreaded" (at least for some) manual mode. The best way is to use a hand held meter and take a reading in the incident mode and then manually transfer the exposure to the camera or, as we used to do in the good old days of film, in a pinch if we did not have one handy, hold your hand up in front of you, meter off your palm and open up one stop. Most Caucasian palms have a meter value of roughly Zone VI, one EV step above Zone V (18% gray) and since meters try to get an exposure averaging 18% gray, opening up 1 stop will compensate and give an average exposure that is not affected by large areas of bright or dark in the image.

Or of course you could use fill flash, but that might ruin the "mood" of the image and could be distracting to the subject and has the drawback already mentioned. In some cases using flash is even prohibited so it is not even an option.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

You seem to be ignoring bounce flash. It softens the light greatly and gives very natural looking light.

SMPhotography Loc: Pawleys Island, SC

I did not ignore it, I just did not bother to mention it. As I stated, using flash can be sometimes distracting to the subject and in some cases it is not permitted. The biggest problem with bounce flash is the surface you bounce it off of has to be white or neutral in color otherwise you can introduce a color cast into the image which might be difficult to remove without throwing off the entire color balance. I also stated that I prefer using available light to flash.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Bounce flash isn't directed towards the subjects, so it usually isn't very distracting. If it is permitted, and it results in better lighting, my preference would be better lighting.

SMPhotography Loc: Pawleys Island, SC

I am well aware of what bounce flash is and the pros and cons of using it. But are you saying that the subjects will not see the strobe flash if it is bounced? Think about that for a minute.......unless you are bouncing off of something behind you, which would have little to no value, they will still see it. From someone who has been a musician for over 40 years, when you are reading off of sheet music, you do not want any distractions.

The main goal of any courteous photographer during any kind of performance, is to be invisible and not distracting to either the performers or the audience. Go to a symphony and take photos with a flash, bounced or otherwise. It will not be long before you are most likely asked to either turn off the flash or leave.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I didn't say they wouldn't see the flash, but with the amount of natural lighting in the situation, it would be barely noticeable. I am a retired professional who shot many events, and nobody ever complained about using bounce flash. My clients didn't care what my preferences were as long as I delivered the best possible images. This is hardly a symphony performance, it is a youth group playing in a store. I would use bounce flash, and if they complained I would do my best without it.

SMPhotography Loc: Pawleys Island, SC

I am not exactly new to this game either. I have been doing photography since 1972 at both an amateur and professional level. To each their own. I would go with natural light and would have positioned myself so that window was not in the background. And courteous is courteous, whether it is in this situation or a formal symphony.

Electric Gnome Loc: Norwich UK

There is a solution to this which has been mentioned. Balanced flash technique which I would imagine is available to see somewhere on youtube, I was taught this during the good old days of film. Out of interest my Nikon d7100 would do this automatically if I set the scene mode to portrait and was outside in daylight, it balanced the flash perfectly.

dcearls Loc: Long Island, NY

Thanks