marco asks:

My apologies for the technical flaws of these Meetup photos. There was hardly any room lighting, the speakers’ faces were completely dark, and and they were backlit by a giant bright projection screen. I had to be wide open at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 to get a reasonable speed, and I often had to overexpose by +1 or +2 EV just to get the speakers’ faces to have any definition at all. And I was sitting right in front of them.

Any advice from pro photographers, besides using flashes or expensive f/1.2 primes?

yeah. it’s called film, and you can push or pull it as per ansell adam’s zone system for just about any exposure range (from 3 to 15 stops between minimum desired definitions of shadows and highlights, now go buy yourself a 5° spot-meter) when coupled with biased development of both the negative and the print. or you could just move and change your chosen angle or framing or distance from the subject. also: increasing the gain on a digital camera always makes shit look like a turd. and even photoshop can’t polish a turd, so keep it at 0dB or less and bring it up in post while you futz with it. you’ll be surprised what’s lurking in them shadows (spoiler alert: an equally shitty snr! but at least you can rest easy whilst snapping away as you chant inside your head: “i’ll fix it in post. i’ll fix it in post. i’ll fix it in post…), and what you can coax out of a dense field.