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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · How do you handle those led advertising boards ??? | |
Since the club you shoot for bought the advertising panels, and presumably controls them, you might have an option not always available to a sports shooter.
Ask if the intensity/brightness level can be turned down a bit. Work with the person responsible for setting up, turning on, and taking down the boards to find the balance of advertising readability, while reducing the luminance to have a less influential effect on the light balance illuminating the players on the court.
That's what I would try. And in fact, that is what I have done, successfully, in the past. I've shot in some arenas where the arena was rented, and the sport that typically takes place in the arena (say, ice hockey) is entirely different than the sport taking place in the arena on a temporary basis that I'm contracted to shoot. I have successfully tracked down the house technician, and amazingly have gotten results that varied from turning off the panel, to covering the panel with black cloth (done by the arena staff!), to adjusting the brightness levels, to a resounding but polite "No, we can't touch the advertising." And that is the very worst that can happen by asking... is that they will simply say no. In my limited experience, the times where I have been accommodated has made enduring those inevitable "no's" worth the effort.
The second thing I've found with those LED type advertising boards is that I can sometimes use them to an advantage, as a background. This goes contrary to what Paul said above, which was to avoid them at all costs... but depending on the type of panel display, and more importantly, the occasional content of the panel display, I have sometimes found them to make brilliant (pun intended) backgrounds to provide a sense of context, time, team, or place.
For example, in some sports that I shoot, the panels that display advertising also display athlete scores, names, or countries of origin, with flags. These displays make WONDERFUL backgrounds for sportraits in real time. I have framed storytelling headshots of athletes leading the scoreboard whilst their name and score was being displayed on the panel. If you can't beat the displays, enjoin them into the work! In international events, where the flag of the country the athlete is representing is displayed on the panel, including the panel in the background is a sure fire seller. Those shot opportunities have worked well for me, especially for candid sportraits on the fly.
In yet another glass half full point of view, those obnoxiously bright panels can provide a glowing rim light or hair light behind the subject, that can add a specular dynamic to the image.
Therefore, rather than avoiding these panels at all costs, I would rather learn, as the OP requests, "how to handle them" better. How to use them to advantage, and how to expose and white balance around them. When and where exposure and white balance is challenged by them, I aim for a setting that best represents and suffers the least of all evils. I show up early to new venues to allow time for making these settings manually (and to allow time to find and befriend the appropriate staff to negotiate any adjustments, when and where probable or possible, which isn't always.)
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