| Home >> Ask Olympus: February 2008 |
Question:
I cannot take good pictures in a dark area with a lighted stage. My camera takes good pictures of everything but poor lighted areas. What settings should I use for the best results?
Answer:
Stage lighting may look bright, but this is only because you are in a darkened theatre. Actually, the light levels are somewhat low. You can try using the INDOOR Scene Mode which raises the ISO.
If your camera has some of the following menu options, you can use these settings in the camera’s normal shooting mode:
- Metering: Change the ESP setting to SPOT metering. This will result in more accurate metering of the stage area and not meter on the surrounding darkness as well.
- White Balance (WB): Set the white balance to the tungsten setting.
This will yield more accurate color balance. The colored gels used in stage lighting can skew the auto white balance results.
- ISO: Set the ISO to a higher value such as 400.
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