Concert Photography

C

CenterStageAudio

Freshman
Jan 14, 2011
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Sterling Va
I own a Nikon d60 dslr with a 15-55mm and a 55-200mm lens.



I'm not the best photographer, nor do I own the ''best'' equipment. So, I want to see what I can do with what I have. Just wanted to start a feed for anyone with tips and tricks for concert photography.



Feel free to share what gear you own/post pics.



-B
 
Re: Concert Photography

Billy Ferguson wrote on Wed said:
I own a Nikon d60 dslr with a 15-55mm and a 55-200mm lens.



I'm not the best photographer, nor do I own the ''best'' equipment. So, I want to see what I can do with what I have. Just wanted to start a feed for anyone with tips and tricks for concert photography.



Feel free to share what gear you own/post pics.



-B
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Billy,



Concert photography indoors under normal stage light or outdoors at night can be very challenging. The difficult part is dealing with low light situations where the subjects are moving around quite a bit. I'd recommend investing in some fast glass, i.e. lenses with an aperture of f/2.8 or smaller (smaller number = bigger hole). I shoot with three lenses primarily. An f/2.8 50-135mm, f/2.8 11-16mm, and an f/1.8 50mm for particularly dark environments. Typically I don't shoot with any flash.



I'm familiar with the two lenses you've listed and they are f/3.5-5.6 meaning on the short end of the zoom the are f/3.5 and go up gradually to 5.6 on the long end. This will be fine for outdoor daytime shoots or indoors under bright lighting, but somewhere between painful to useless for night/indoors low light. The D60 won't help much either as it's not a particularly spectacular low light shooter. If you do get serious about conerts, I'd look for a camera like the D7000 that can shoot ISO 3200 or 6400 no problem.



Skip VR or IS (vibe reduction/image stabilization) lenses for this purpose, they will not help you if your subject is moving.



I know this isn't what you asked for, but you are going to have an uphill battle.



A couple of tips for what you have:



If you are shooting moving subjects in low light, and your shutter speed is longer than 1/125s then try to catch the subject as they hit an apex in their movement, i.e. where they slow to a stop to change directions.



Get close and shoot wide. Motion blur is less noticeable on wide angle shots.



If using a zoom over 80-100mm put the camera on a monopod if your shutter speeds are slower than 1/125.



To get good color under gelled par cans, you'll likely have to play with the whitebalance. While par bulbs have a tungsten filament, I find that choosing tungsten or AutoWB on my camera doesn't result in the best looking most vibrant color. Take some sample shots during a sound or lighting check to help dial in your settings.



Good luck.



Here are some of my favorite shots...



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Re: Concert Photography

Ryan Lantzy wrote on Wed said:
To get good color under gelled par cans, you'll likely have to play with the whitebalance. While par bulbs have a tungsten filament, I find that choosing tungsten or AutoWB on my camera doesn't result in the best looking most vibrant color. Take some sample shots during a sound or lighting check to help dial in your settings.
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Or shoot RAW. I find that RAW mode covers a multitude of sins.



In addition to Ryan's other good advice, you will want to also look at the camera's exposure settings. Brightly lit subjects on a very dark background aren't always handled very well by auto exposure algorithms. The camera often cranks up the brightness of the picture since there's so much black that the faces and hands are blown out. This also makes motion blur worse, because the camera slows the shutter to over-expose the frame.
 
Re: Concert Photography

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah, I'm not sure if my d60 is the best fit at all for low light situations. I keep a small tripod at my foh position every so often and I've had a few ''good'' shots (imo), but obviously there's so much room for improvement with my ''good'' photos
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. I'll see if I can find them to post.



I just repaired my father's canon ae-1. I haven't used it, but I'm thinking about taking it out for a spin. I've never experimented with film slr, so I'm quite interested.



-B

 
Re: Concert Photography

personally, I get the best results with fast primes. My personal favorite is my 50mm f1.7 My A500 can shoot at high ISO with low noise which helps quite a bit. Generally i'm shooting at ISO 3200 and get shots like this. Though recently I've been so busy at shows that i don't have much time do do much besides shoot a few before the show starts.



_DSC9080-1.jpg






with my old a100 anything over ISO400 became very noisy, so it was much more difficult to get decent shots. Having a monopod or tripod can give you several more stops of leeway in low light shooting. Here the shutter speed was too slow to prevent the motion blur of his hand.

_DSC8773.jpg




Also, for a larger show, if you aren't working, call the venue ahead of time (at least a week or 2) and see if you can get credentials for the show so that you can move about freely. Sometimes asking can get you places you didn't think you could get access to. Like for instance the top of the pressbox

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Re: Concert Photography

TJ Cornish wrote on Wed said:
Or shoot RAW. I find that RAW mode covers a multitude of sins.
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The one problem with raw is finding software that is compatible with the format. And compatible doesn't just mean ''it can read the file.''



The issue is that only the original camera knows the correct correction curves to apply given the ambient light at that time. I'm not saying don't do it, it's just a caveat you have to deal with. Different models of the same manufacturer often use differnt RAW formats and some aren't supported by some versions of their own software. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and even Google Picasa (to an extent) support RAW, but you are relying on someone else to calculate the color correction for you. Sure, you can do it all manually but eeks... sometimes I come home with 400-600 photos. Plus you then have to convert them all to JPG, blah blah blah... it really slows down the workflow. The best option is to shoot JPG+RAW I suppose, as newer cameras allow you to store both formats and then you can tweak the ones that need it and process the rest that are acceptable as JPG.



Here's a good write up on JPG vs RAW. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm Most photographer's whose time is worth a lot, won't bother with RAW. It's just too cumbersome when you get back to the office.

 
Re: Concert Photography

I've had great luck with both Bibble and Adobe Camera Raw (Photoshop) - better than Canon's tool (I shoot a 5DII). My results after basic RAW tweaking are vastly better than JPGs out of the camera.



Though it certainly takes a little bit more processing time to do the actual conversion, I don't find it adds much to my workflow - I need to look through them all anyway, rate them, and do basic edits, whether they are JPG or RAW. The extra 2 stops of dynamic range I get from the RAW file and easier white balance adjustments more than make up for the 1/2 second per shot time it takes to batch them to JPG on my 2009 MacBook Pro.



Arguably the bigger downside is the larger file size necessitating larger memory cards and more time to transfer from card to computer.



I've done it both ways, and I'm not going back.
 
Re: Concert Photography

TJ Cornish wrote on Wed said:
I've had great luck with both Bibble and Adobe Camera Raw (Photoshop) - better than Canon's tool (I shoot a 5DII). My results after basic RAW tweaking are vastly better than JPGs out of the camera.



...



The extra 2 stops of dynamic range I get from the RAW file...
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And there it is. That is the farce of processing RAW. JPG files use non-linear bit representation.



The Interwebs have been arguing RAW vs. JPG forever and I agree you get a little fudge factor back with RAW (2 stops is a strech because of sensor noise though). My position is that if you can't get the exposure right you have no business behind the camera.





 
Re: Concert Photography

Not awesome, but I like what our photographer is getting here; he also shoots video with his camera (D90) and comes out OK, not great, but better than an iPhone.

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Love the angle and juxtaposition of the beer to kick drum.

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Re: Concert Photography

Billy Ferguson wrote on Wed said:
I own a Nikon d60 dslr with a 15-55mm and a 55-200mm lens...
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The D60 was my first DSLR and I was proud to own it. I now own a D80 and find it a HUGE improvement upgrade in EVERY way! Also... I find your lenses the WORST possible lens combination (IMO) Having to constantly switch lenses because each one stops at the most common zoom point is terrible! It was a lens kit gimick to boost sales... but neither is very good.



There is no ''one fits all''... since everthing has a compromise. What's important to you? Low light, wide angle, size, weight, zoom range, value, etc, etc. I purchased numerous lenses... and found for my general shooting needs, the 18-135 Nikon D80 kit lens is ideal! But that is what works for me.



I get good ''general'' low light results shooting 1600 ISO as well as a few other tweaks.
 
Re: Concert Photography

Scott Smith wrote on Thu said:
Billy Ferguson wrote on Wed said:
I own a Nikon d60 dslr with a 15-55mm and a 55-200mm lens...
Click to expand...

The D60 was my first DSLR and I was proud to own it. I now own a D80 and find it a HUGE improvement upgrade in EVERY way! Also... I find your lenses the WORST possible lens combination (IMO) Having to constantly switch lenses because each one stops at the most common zoom point is terrible! It was a lens kit gimick to boost sales... but neither is very good.



There is no ''one fits all''... since everthing has a compromise. What's important to you? Low light, wide angle, size, weight, zoom range, value, etc, etc. I purchased numerous lenses... and found for my general shooting needs, the 18-135 Nikon D80 kit lens is ideal! But that is what works for me.



I get good ''general'' low light results shooting 1600 ISO as well as a few other tweaks.
Click to expand...



I'm not sure how the D80 could be a huge improvement over the D80. While the D80 was amazing when it was released, the D60 is just a D80 in smaller packaging, released well after the D80 at a lower price point. Same LCD screen, same 10MP sensor.



There's no gimmick about the 18-55mm. The 18-55 is one of Nikon's sharpest. It's cheap, sharp, and light... and focuses like a bat out of hell. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18-55-ii.htm It's no f/2.8 70-200 but no lens made approches what the 18-55 can do for that price.



 
Re: Concert Photography

I'm a Canon guy. I've got a t1i, with a 16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses. All are f/2.8. I paid a pretty penny for them, but they all do great in low light.





16-35mm:

fireworks.jpg








24-70mm:

show2.jpg




IMG_8998.png








70-200mm: (From about 135' away)

blink.jpg






One thing to always remember, is that as you crank down the f stop, the pictures will become less sharp overall, and the field of depth will become very shallow. It's always tradeoffs. At concerts, I normally shoot, ISO 800, f/2.8 - 4, 1/50 - 1/125 shutter.





Evan
 
Re: Concert Photography

Billy Ferguson wrote on Wed said:
I own a Nikon d60 dslr with a 15-55mm and a 55-200mm lens.



I'm not the best photographer, nor do I own the ''best'' equipment. So, I want to see what I can do with what I have. Just wanted to start a feed for anyone with tips and tricks for concert photography.



Feel free to share what gear you own/post pics.



-B
Click to expand...



I think picking up one of these might help:



http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-35mm-AF-S-Digital-Cameras/dp/B001S2PPT0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295572263&sr=8-1



35mm should look ''normal'' on a DX (cropped sensor) camera like the D70.



It's equivalent to a 50mm on a FX (full frame) camera, which is the lens that best approximates the field of attentive human vision.



The lens is also fast enough that you should be able to get some good images without jacking up the ISO- try ISO 400 and do some noise reduction in photoshop.
 
Re: Concert Photography

Ryan Lantzy wrote on Thu said:
I'm not sure how the D80 could be a huge improvement over the D80.
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Ooops.. my bad! I upgraded to D80 from a D70 (not D60). You are correct about the similarities between D60 & D80. The D60 is a very capable camera... with appropriate lenses.



For ''general'' shooting though.. a 18-55 lens just doesn't have enough practical zoom range.. and swapping lenses all the time is impractical.



But camera nerds usually don't mind carrying around a bunch of extra lenses. It just depends on your needs. Certainly, better (and more appropriate) glass will be needed for this type of ''concert photography'' ..
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Re: Concert Photography

Here's a lucky shot with a very basic point and shoot digital camera. It helps when the bass player doesn't bounce around too much, although there is still some blurring on the image.



I bought a Sony Alpha SLR about a year. It worked out a good bit less expensive than the Canon / Nikon alternatives came well recommended. Still struggling to get to grips with proper grown up photography techniques though.



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Edit: Photo is right way up on my computer, but appears on its side when uploaded - interesting...
 
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