Photography

[nyquillyn]

MF and Zeb. Both you guys have taken great concert shots. What settings have you used? I'm shooting my friend's punk band in a couple of weeks and don't wanna be surprised when I get back. I shot 5 pics at the Tegan and Sara show I just went to at 1/250 at f 3.5 and 1600 iso. While not happy with the artistic qualities of the images, I was fairly happy with the image quality. I think I froze the action enough at 1/250 and 1600 didn't add a ton of garbage, but I'll be closer to the stage at my buddy's show at the same venue. I'm assuming I'll need to be at f 5 or 5.6. Does that sound right? I'll be using my RX-100 and probably post-processing it as a supercontrasty black and white like below. Online tutorials seem to vary wildly and assume you'll be taking a $3,000 camera.

Spoiler: show

[zeb]

The RX doesn't have any issues with 1600, you could probably even push it a little more.

The closer you get the more on-point you'll need to be with your shutter speed. Aperture should be as wide open as possible, 3.5 sounds reasonable to me but even wider would be good. Of course this depends on what sort of depth of field you're trying to work with.

My best advice would be to make sure that you shoot the opening band (if there is one) in order to sort out your settings ahead of time.

[nyquillyn]

[zeb]

Good set, particularly 1 and 2. Is the first one a long exposure?

[nyquillyn]

No. It was 1/30 at 1.8. I was really just shooting the clouds and lamp post, then got lucky with the lightning flash.

[mf]

MF and Zeb. Both you guys have taken great concert shots. What settings have you used? I'm shooting my friend's punk band in a couple of weeks and don't wanna be surprised when I get back. I shot 5 pics at the Tegan and Sara show I just went to at 1/250 at f 3.5 and 1600 iso. While not happy with the artistic qualities of the images, I was fairly happy with the image quality. I think I froze the action enough at 1/250 and 1600 didn't add a ton of garbage, but I'll be closer to the stage at my buddy's show at the same venue. I'm assuming I'll need to be at f 5 or 5.6. Does that sound right? I'll be using my RX-100 and probably post-processing it as a supercontrasty black and white like below. Online tutorials seem to vary wildly and assume you'll be taking a $3,000 camera.

Spoiler: show

I'm not really familiar with the RX100 or its low light performance (though I understand it does great in low light) but when I do concert shots I typically shoot with the widest aperture possible. Though that has a lot to do with my main wide angle lens as it's lowest f stop is 3.5. Where the RX100 can do 1.8 you may be able to back off of that somewhat so 3.5 might be ideal for you.

From there it's just a matter of technique and timing. You want to get the band when they're doing something interesting but not moving too much, and of course get a feel for the lighting and time your shots for a point in the song that will be well lit. But really it all depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to freeze the action and get a clear and crisp shot, then you'll need to do everything you can to get the faster shutter speed possible without affecting the image quality. If you want to get creative you can do longer shutter speed to capture movement and motion. For this technique you'll ideally want to fire a flash either at the beginning or end of the exposure (usually called front and rear curtain sync flash) but then you'll be that guy who's firing his flash off. I usually only do that at small club shows when I know the band personally.

Based on the shots you posted and the settings used, i don't think you'll have any problems. You'll probably find that you need to adjust your settings quite a bit on the fly to match the ever-changing lighting, but I don't see you having any trouble.

But as far as advice goes, this is what I would say:

-Get as close as possible and shoot at the shortest focal length. You'll get less blur when your lens is wide open, zoomed in everything will get exaggerated. Is the lens on the RX-100 a fixed aperture? If not then you'll need to be aware of how the aperture changes when zoomed in as well.

-Shoot in RAW (or whatever digital negative format Sony uses). Boosting exposure and contrast settings is a lot easier in RAW and has saved a lot of underexposed shots for me. I assume you already do this, but it's good practice.

-Mind your shutter speed in relation to the focal length you are shooting. A handy rule for shutter speed is to never go below your focal length. For instance, if you are shooting at 50mm, then don't go below 1/50th of a second. That's your absolute minimum though, ideally you'd want to probably aim for 2X the focal length. Anything below 1/50 is going to get blurry anyways unless you have a real steady hand. Sometimes I can get away with 1/20th or so if I have something to rest my camera on.

-Adobe Bridge is quite effective at removing noise from high ISO shots, so often times I will shoot at 3200 knowing that I can remove a lot of that grain later. I've found it a lot more useful that the noise removal tool in Photoshop. Also noise isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it can look pretty cool in certain black and white live shots, as long as you are able to remove it from the darker shadow areas I say leave it in.

-Like zeb said, shoot the opening band and work out any issues there.

Good luck!

[mf]

Damn, that was a long post and you probably already know most of that. I'm bored at work today

[nyquillyn]

Holy shit, Mike! Tons of good advice and info in that post. In particular, the focal length/shutter speed rule. I also didn't know about using Bridge to remove ISO noise.

My friend's band is the first act in a "local showcase", but to be honest, the place will be pretty dead while they are on stage. I'll probably be able to take a few shots, then make adjustments on the fly. I doubt I'll have to worry about losing a decent spot by the stage.

Thanks, fellas!

[zeb]

I'll just echo Mike's comment on high ISO grain, too. I like grain.

[nyquillyn]

[nyquillyn]

[nyquillyn]

[nyquillyn]

[nyquillyn]

[zeb]

[mf]

great shots as always guys. i'm sure 99% of the end result is what you guys put into it, but still i can't help but think that you've got some fantastic source material to work with

[mf]

i got access to a really cool room a few weeks ago...an abandoned newspaper press. all of the processing to add the 'grime' was done by hand in Photoshop (no scripts, add-ons or filters) - http://mjfphoto.ca/blog/2014/12/6/press-room

[zeb]

great shots as always guys. i'm sure 99% of the end result is what you guys put into it, but still i can't help but think that you've got some fantastic source material to work with

There's definitely an element of truth to that.

[zeb]

all of the processing to add the 'grime' was done by hand in Photoshop (no scripts, add-ons or filters) - http://mjfphoto.ca/blog/2014/12/6/press-room

That's rad, Mike. Can you elaborate on your process?

[zeb]