Concert Photography

bland

Need thoughts and suggestions?

BEFORE



AFTER


@Darkslide I shot at 1/160 this evening and it worked great, thanks!

[Deleted User]

@bland - great! As to the shot above, I have to say I prefer the 'After' - next time, if there are spots like the one in the middle at the top, try to move round to the right a little - the effect of the light through the guitarists hat/hair is very nice!

Try to selectively 'lighten' the face - it looks like you've increased the exposure in post and lightened everything which tends to make his jeans much brighter and they distract a little (in my opinion!!)

[Deleted User]

And it doesn't hurt to get in close too...

[Deleted User]

It might be worth playing around with how your camera takes it's meter reading - mine is set to the centre spot, then I aim at what I want to have 'perfectly' exposed, lightly press the shutter button to 'lock' the exposure and then frame the shot. It looks to me as if your camera has metered the whole scene, which is why the guitarists face is darker than it 'should' be - when I took the photo of Neal Black I aimed at his eye, blocked the exposure then moved the camera down to frame the shot - that way his eye was both perfectly exposed (to my liking) and perfectly sharp.

Msmoto

This was the nightmare of a set up outside in which the performers had almost no lighting....all done in post processing...

D4, 16-35mm f/4 VR Nikkor, 26mm, f/4 1/30 sec, +2 ev, ISO 1100

bland

@Darkslide ...... thanks, I do spot meter but in that case I was metering off his shirt because I didn't have time to shift. I did get some closeups spotted correctly. Nice shot of Neal, that Texas boy has rhythm.

@Msmoto ..... nice 1/30 shot, my old hands could never hold it that still.

Msmoto

16-35mm f/4 VR!

bland

D800 NIKKOR 24-70(fl 24mm) F/2.8 1/160 ISO/640

This is my favorite from last night.

For someone reason my LR4 went bonkers trying to edit these, it was mixing all the colors like a neon sign exploding, weird. Had to use ViewNX and Elements, which worked fine.

[Deleted User]

What WB setting did you use in-camera?

bland

Auto but I was shooting in RAW and when I was editing I tried to change it, but the auto hit it the best. There was a blue light on the bass player and I was shooting through smoke.

Here's the same WB setting under the white light.

[Deleted User]

What's wrong with that? I think this works great - it's interesting that at 1/160s all but the fastest movement (his right hand) is frozen - DOF is perfect - good shot! (Of course, "IMHO")

bland

Thanks Darkslide! I'm still blown away how at 1/160 it freezes almost everything and the picture quality is 100 times better than before. And what it doesn't freeze, gives it a touch of motion that brings the picture alive.

Swame_sp

So I was covering an event where kids were performing dance and music etc... It was at a community town hall here in Boston suburbs...

The lighting was so poor that the stage lights created shadow on the backscreen (It's simple back screen about less than 2 feet from the kid on the stage).... I tried with 70-200 f2.8 standing far end of the hall. Without flash it was so horrible as I feared pushing ISO above 500 (this is on D7000). Now with the flash, I couldn't bounce flash as I was about 30-40 feet from the stage and the ceiling was high, no way would have reached the subject on stage.

With straight flash, playing with the power, I mostly had 3 kinds of photos,
- with a soft shadow of the subject on the screen (Screen was pretty close)
- flash power was less so the images were dark (not that much of lighting on stage)
- others with harsh shadow of the subject, horrible images.

What would have been the best way to go on these situations? I'll post sample photos when I get back home. I had only 12-24 f/4, 35mm f1.8 and N70-200f2.8 + D7000. Any suggestions on how to go about this, is highly appreciated.

bland

@Swame_sp Your D7000 will shot great at ISO 1600, ISO 3200 is when the heavy noise kicks in.

Your going to have and use the 70-200 2.8 and the 35mm 1.8 will work great if you can get close enough. Try using auto iso.

When shooting with flash try shooting in P Mode and set your ISO to auto, it'll work great.

Msmoto

Where is muh pictures? Eh, here is a link in case they don't show up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93826782@N08/

bland

I just saw this on Facebook, if this isn't the truth! LOL

bland

http://platformphoto.org/2013/08/29/the-life-of-a-music-photographer-q-a-with-christie-goodwin/

I just read the above of article where Christie Goodwin was interviewed, this should be the Holy Grail for concert photography, as should her photographic genius in shooting concerts.

kyoshinikon

I do plenty of concerts a year. Fun but challenging.... Last Concert I did was George Thoroughgood...

bland

I do plenty of concerts a year. Fun but challenging.... Last Concert I did was George Thoroughgood...

I'd really enjoy the opportunity to shoot George, one of my all time favorites!

kyoshinikon

Wasnt bad. His performance was great but his photo limitations while understandable were a bit challenging.