Does anyone have any suggestions for videoing a stage show to keep the performer from being whited out? I filmed a show and the lighting was white and this made the performer look like a white silhouette. I was told that if he would have worn make up it would not be as bad but I tried that and the same thing happened.

You should be able to compensate by adjusting the iris control, if your camera allows that. You usually find that feature on higher-end cameras, and also check your white balance before you shoot. If you don't have a camera that allows manual control of iris and white balance, try shooting tighter shots. Long shots will be the hardest to balance, so 2/3 shots will look better on tape. Hope this helps!

Hey!!
I just had the same problem. A friend told me that I was using the wrong lights. Can that be it?

Patrick Thomas

I had no control of the lights. It was in a professional theater which had a good lighting setup but for some reason the persons on stage were whited out.

If you ever have control of the lighting, use no-color pink gels instead of all white light for the front lighting. That will help a lot!

What type of camera was being used to film the event?
Did the camera person white balance before the event?

It is a Sony digital camera. I am not sure what model but it is only two years old. It has a lot of bells and whistles which I am now looking into to help fix the problem.

I am not sure what you are asking when you say "Did the camera person white balance before the event?"

Can you explain?

It would be nice to go through the camera's manual.

It will help you find out about how to set the white balance. You will have to set it depending on the lighting conditions. Outdoors or indoors?

Mago Mai

Actually, make-up does makes a person's face pale or white.

A lot of it depends on the lighting.

A White balance is a procedure you should do whenever you shoot under different lighting conditions. Basically, flourescent, incandescent, and sunlight have different colour temperatures.

So you zoom in on something white like a sheet of paper, and press the white balance button. This is you telling the camera that under this light, this is what white looks like.

The problem you descibed sounds more like the automatic iris opening up too much and burning out the persons face. What the automatic iris does is get the light level correct for the majority of the picture. The Levitator is spot on in saying tighter shots will help with this.

Thanks for your help. I am going to go home and play with my camera to see what options it has.

The problem you experienced sounds like the iris on the camera was opened too much. Check the users manual to find out if you can manually control the iris. Also, if you try to white balance and the iris is open too much, the camera will usually tell you in the viewfinder that it can't white balance until the iris is brought down.