Local band - once in a blue moon shot

[boxofrox]

My husband is in a local band, and since I'm musically inept, the band has dubbed me their "creative" manager (in other words I do all the pictures, I design the album, I Facebook, you get the idea!)

Anyway, our bassist isn't known for getting real crazy (he's amazing though, so no one cares!) However, at one of their recent shows, I was jokingly making kicking motions at him and WHOA he decides to kick the water bottle off the amp mid song! I just happened to catch it, and while I'm extremely thrilled with what I think is a "decent" shot, I can't help but think that with different settings it would have been an amazing shot!

The info:

Pentax k100D (my moms, looking for my own Pentax! )

Focal length: 18 mm f/4.5

White balance was manual (I used the take a picture of a white paper trick)

Metering mode: Spot

Shutter priority setting

ISO 1600 (Camera goes to 3200)

And here's the shot!

[boxofrox]

No thoughts?

[IABoomer]

Did you shoot this at an angle or is it rotated and cropped?

The color seems a bit cool to me, but that could be the stage lighting, too. I could see this being a bit better with a little more exposure, or some fill light in post. Attached is an example.

I used the dropper to select the inside of the drum for white balance. That shifted the skin tone closer to something natural, while still giving off a bit of the stage light. A bump in exposure and fill light brought out more detail to his face. A little contrast added some richness to the drum color.

I'm a fan of Jared Polin's work (FroKnowsPhoto) and he shoots a lot of concerts. His suggestion is to get comfortable shooting in manual mode since the lighting changes quite a bit and a bright spotlight can throw off your meter and keep you from getting the exposure for the subject you want.

Another option when the color gets crazy like this is, convert the image to black and white and embrace some of the noise/grain look when you push the exposure up.

[boxofrox]

I will have to try the shooting in manual mode, I just ordered a Pentax K-x last night (after staring at the buy button for an hour or two going should i....should i.... )

I have gimp right now, but i'm thinking about getting photoshop....maybe....I'm cheap