Advice on washed out faces.
 

I am shooting a musical tonight and was there for the rehearsal to test my cameras. There is a balcony that would be ideal to shoot from but the lighting is too harsh and if I do a wide shot I loose the faces. They wash out because of the bright lights. Any ideas on how to be able to shoot this wide and still retain the face detail?

Anybody? I am leaving in 30 minutes so if you have any ideas.

does your camera have a spotlight button - it's either that or ride the exposure.

If you can, set your zebra to 60% and aim to keep zebra from showing. It's possible that the dynamic range of the scene is just too great, in which case you can try to bring out the shadow detail in post, but, DON"T overexpose the specular reflections on faces. You'lll NEVER recover that.

Well the shoot was a semi success. Apparently the exposure was the least of my worries. I ended up riding the exposure button and on the other cam just left it to one setting. The audio is what got me. One camera down below to pick up band second cam on balcony tied it to the sound board. I left that cam on the sound board for about 20 minutes but with all the dancing going on I was picking up a lot of clothes rubbing on the mics so decided to disconnect and just capture through the mic. All the while thinking that my other camera was picking everthing up as it should. Well during intermission I went down stairs to check with my wife and just happened to check the mic and to my dismay, I left if on input from the last shoot instead of mic! So the first hour of shooting on that cam will not have any audio and my other cam was only picking up the singers not the band. Almost a total nighmare. I haven't had time to check it because as soon as I left there I had to go to work for the rest of the night. Will check it tomorrow and luckily they have another show that night. I have to work so my wife will have to shoot on her own and she was already exhausted from working all day then coming home to go help me. But I really need to get that audio from the first set. One good thing was that their lighting kept messing up so some of the performers were asking if we were coming back on Saturday to reshoot the first act. The director even said he would pay me extra to come out again and re shoot that act. The lights were a blessing in disguise. It will have to be a single cam shoot since I have to work.
Anyways, thanks for the input.