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Music Gig photography critique

jordygreen

jordygreen

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 26, 2006
493
128
London, UK
Hey i was doing a photo shoot for my photography project based around the identity of music.

I went to a gig on friday night at a local live music venue and took these photos of a band called Kubichek!

Well I'm wondering what you think of my first tries at it, most of them unfortunately came out a bit too blurred, sadly because I totally forgot to bump up the ISO and kept them in 200, stupid me!

2187722144_b53891a4b8.jpg


2186935849_691c5bbf3c.jpg


2185837921_547459aea4.jpg


Kubichek! Escobar, Wakefield 11/1/08

Thanks for any critique and comments given.
 
I was using:

ISO 200
f/ 1.8 @ 50mm
then usually about 6/1 but other wise it would have been too blurred.

I may add it was pretty bad lighting in the venue also.
 
jordygreen said:
I was using:

ISO 200
f/ 1.8 @ 50mm
then usually about 6/1 but other wise it would have been too blurred.

I may add it was pretty bad lighting in the venue also.
Click to expand...

Do you mean your shutter speed was 6/1 = 6 seconds :eek:? Even if it's 1/6 that's way to slow to get consistent hand-held shots. You need to be aiming for 1/50!

Did you shoot RAW? If so you could try and recover data from the shadows to give the focal points of the images (the band) a bit more detail...
 
robbieduncan said:
Do you mean your shutter speed was 6/1 = 6 seconds :eek:? Even if it's 1/6 that's way to slow to get consistent hand-held shots. You need to be aiming for 1/50!

Did you shoot RAW? If so you could try and recover data from the shadows to give the focal points of the images (the band) a bit more detail...
Click to expand...

Sorry yea i meant 1/6 it was handheld as well just otherwise it would have super way tooo dark. Yea i was shooting RAW, how would i go about getting the shadows from the images, I use lightroom?
 
You need to raise the ISO. Don't worry about noise, just raise it. The images are too dark but more importantly they are a bit bland. In Lightroom you will have to use the curves adjustment to get shadow detail back but since they are so dark you might not be able to pull out that much.

RAW isn't the issue at all, just raise the ISO.

When it comes to concert photography, you have to remember to get those interesting angles. Composition is by far the most important aspect, because anyone standing near you can get the same shot. So remember it's all about composition, and getting the FEEL of the music and band in the image, or at least a taste of what kind of music they are playing or what kind of band they are.
 
Don't be afraid of a little noise from shooting at high ISO. Just convert the images to black & white and it looks like film grain. Obviously you don't want that look for everything, but I think it would work really well with shooting a band.

I like the first shot, but I'd say get in there really tight on the hand tuning the bass. When taking a detail shot like that, you want it to fill the frame.
 
ISO 200?


Go back, shoot at ISO 1600, and try this again. You're (extremely) lucky that your shots, taken at 1/6th seconds, aren't blurry.

And your last photo doesn't look like it was shot at f/1.8. I guess it could be if you were shooting from far away, and that shot is a crop. It would also be nice to see his hand. I don't mind if you don't show his hand in a photo, but if you're going to chop off the shot at/near his wrist, you may as well just include the hand.
 
Yea i think I will have to go to another gig because i totally forgot about my ISO i put it down to 200 one time when i was outside doing long exposures and wanted a dark photo.

I will also try the whole black and white with "film grain" noise effect.

Thanks.
 
what camera do you have? any recent SLR handles at least 800iso without too much noise. At 1600 you are asking for it, but even for a small print it will do, depending on the camera of course (assuming it's an SLR) or even a G7/G9.
 
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