Please Discuss Your Concert Shooting Experiences

[stevetoney]

I'm new to shooting shows, but currently frustrated.  I'm 0 for 3 in terms of getting any shots that I'm happy with, mainly because the lighting is from behind the stage and there's virtually no lights facing the performer.  I know everyone has been suggesting bigger glass for shows, but seems to me that this lighting situation is probably fairly common, and no glass is gonna fix it.  It's also seems to me that ANY type of flash will completely ruin the ambience of the shot. 

Interested in your thoughts and a little bit more detail on what people's experiences are...at least more than just 'you need f2.8 or faster glass'...although in the end I suppose that may be the only solution.

EDIT TO ADD:  I'm at 3200 ISO with my 50mm f1.8 wide open, and with exposure compensation set two f-stops overexposed.  I'm going shutter priority with shutter speeds set at 1/60th or so...shots are still too dark.  I tried working some photoshop magic, and the dark shots are improved, but way grainy and just not very good.  I'm thinking that probably not much else can be done, although one thought is turning a flash around backwards and diffusing the flash to the max, but I'm afraid that will still wash the scene out. 

Seems to me that the only answer is the give up if there's no 'in front of the stage' lighting.

SECOND EDIT:  Yeah, I know...buy a 5D Mark II that goes to ISO 24000 or whatever and a f1.0 lens.  Pffft. 

[eric.B]

how many frames have you been shooting during a show?

[stevetoney]

how many frames have you been shooting during a show?

  total pictures?  50 - 70 or so...all very dark.

[eric.B]

how many frames have you been shooting during a show?

  total pictures?  50 - 70 or so...all very dark.

just like with taping, if the environment is crap so will your pictures.   Meaning, no matter what equipment you are using if there is not enough light there is little you can do.  Could be the particular venues you are shooting in perhaps where little light is cast down on/towards the performers.  Most times I find that the lights are there, they just arent used all that much which means you have to wait for your opportunity.  I asked how many shots you take at a show to see if you arent getting any good ones for lack of attempts...   I usually shoot +/- 70 pics at a show to get maybe 6 or 7 good ones, but still that is dependent on the lighting.  Still, even with decent lighting, the performers are usually moving which means that with slower shutter speeds (around 1/60) you still might get blur.  I try to shoot many frames when the lighting is at it's best to hope to get a clear focused image.   Also, I dont shoot with the glass wide open either as the DOF is often difficult to "nail".. 

are you shooting in RAW mode?  I find this also helps a great deal when it comes to post..... 

[heikki]

i would buy a nikon, should solve all your problems 

i generally try not to shoot ISO higher than 800, or the lens open more than f/2.  if i can't get a shot with these at a shutter faster than 1/60th or 1/80th then the results are usually too motion-blurry, too noisy or not sharp enough for my taste.  of course, ymmv.

oh yeah, i'm barely even an amateur when it comes to the photog bit.

ISO 800 with the 50 @ f/2:

[Sanjay]

i would buy a nikon, should solve all your problems 

In that case I've got one for you...j/k

I don't use Shutter-Priority that often, but check to ensure your lens is staying at F1.8 and the 40D isn't stopping that up.  I would go full manual if I were you.  What Eric said though, often times you can't control settings and crap is crap only because of the settings.  I've been shooting a band regularly that the only light on them really is ambient and whatever comes from the xmas lights behind them.  Even with my 30mm F1.4 lens and my D300 at ISO 6400 I am not getting satisfactory results. 

Depending on how much room you have you can try a reflector if it is for a shoot.  Otherwise (with the artist permission) you can sometimes use an on camera flash, maybe with a small softbox or diffuser on it to soften the blow for a few shots. 

Often times the light is only behind the subject, in these cases sometimes you have to rely on an alternative method to getting an image such as making a silhouette or something.

I might be able to help with some specific settings in camera  if you can try and identify what kind of light specifically they are using, such as spotlights, tungsten, bare bulbs or what have you behind them and how the light aims be it straight at you or down at the ground.

[Zenith023]

SECOND EDIT:  Yeah, I know...buy a 5D Mark II that goes to ISO 24000 or whatever and a f1.0 lens.  Pffft. 

If those are your settings you're using, and the shots are still coming out too dark then there's pretty much nothing you can do (if you're ruling out a flash). It sounds like you've been shooting in some really dark conditions. I've managed to get some decent shots in (reletively) poor light using my Canon 400D w/f1.4 50mm lens and an ISO of 1600.





I have also managed to get some decent shots with much slower lenses (this was taken with a Sigma 70-300mm lens @ f5/190mm/1/125th)



^ The light at this show was pretty bad, but I managed to get some decent shots with a lot of trial and error. I also agree with Sanjay about shooting in Manual mode - f2 @ 1/50th seemed to do the trick for me. Also, like eric.B says, shooting in RAW also gives you greater scope to edit things later on.

Good luck! Keep plugging away! 

[eric.B]

^ The light at this show was pretty bad, but I managed to get some decent shots with a lot of trial and error. I also agree with Sanjay about shooting in Manual mode - f2 @ 1/50th seemed to do the trick for me. Also, like eric.B says, shooting in RAW also gives you greater scope to edit things later on.

Good luck! Keep plugging away! 

I think that is the key here..   keep trying and learn what works in what conditions..   just because you walk into a venue with high iso's and fast glass doesnt mean you will get good shots every time..

[stevetoney]

Thanks for the tips everyone.  I didn't really expect to solve anything, but your answers did give some thoughts on some finer points.  I've concluded that the bottom line is that each of these three experiences were just bad luck in terms of really low lighting.  

I've provided a couple of the better shots from the other night below, albeit grainy as hell.  

To answer a few questions...

Yes, I'm shooting in RAW, so that's good.

Even though I was shooting in shutter priority mode to get the shutter speed sufficiently up, I was still stopped wide open on the f1.8 so I was way underexposing all of my images.  

What's apparent is that low light photography is the most challenging photography out there...this I already knew, but it's driven home by these experiences.

Thanks again everyone!

Steve

[Zenith023]

^ The light at this show was pretty bad, but I managed to get some decent shots with a lot of trial and error. I also agree with Sanjay about shooting in Manual mode - f2 @ 1/50th seemed to do the trick for me. Also, like eric.B says, shooting in RAW also gives you greater scope to edit things later on.

Good luck! Keep plugging away! 

I think that is the key here..   keep trying and learn what works in what conditions..   just because you walk into a venue with high iso's and fast glass doesnt mean you will get good shots every time..

Oh yeah, for sure. There's a lot more to taking a good shot than just the technical aspect of using a camera.

Also, pay close attention of the EXIF data of the decent shots you do get, and learn from that. DSLR's make life a hell of a lot easier in that respect - gone are the days of having to write down settings in a notebook after every shot.

tonedeaf, what shutter speed were you using for those shots?

[Sanjay]

Those don't look too awful all things considered, they are in focus and well composed.  The great thing about concert photography is that in these two cases you can turn them both to B&W and maybe apply Noiseware or Noise Ninja and come out with a perfectly usable image.  Awful lighting is often corrected in B&W. 

Example: http://flickr.com/photos/sanjaysuchak/2674377308/  This was a horrid image with the lighting but making it B&W in raw and noiseware gave me enough wiggle room to make it a nice image and salvage mr. Lesh's fantastic expression.  This is how most of the lighting was before: http://flickr.com/photos/sanjaysuchak/2673557867/

Other advice would be to make your AF point small and focus on the face, right when that corner of the face pops into the light or a reflection hit the picture.  Make sure it's set however to meter for the entire frame and it might help.  Focusing on the whole subject or using Auto AF selection will slow the ability to lock into the best chance you might get to find a clear frame.  Finally digital sensors HATE red lighting, so wait until you can try and get blue or some other shade besides red.  I'm sure most of those things you're doing but if you can just fine tune a few small things it might make your success rate in a shitty situation muchbetter.

[Zenith023]

Awful lighting is often corrected in B&W. 

Too true. Also, high amounts of noise/grain can also add atmosphere to a B&W shot thus killing two birds with one stone.

[flipp]

Though I don't shoot many concerts anymore I did in years past with film. When scanning some of my slides and negatives many were very dark. Despite various editing programs, I was never happy with the results. Later I ran across a program that had better results out of the box than what I had done manually. It may not be what you are looking for but it will only take a little time to see if it brings out more detail in some of your images.

http://www.tommesani.com/AltaLux.html

[stevetoney]

Finally digital sensors HATE red lighting, so wait until you can try and get blue or some other shade besides red. 

This subtle point makes sense now that you've pointed it out.  I've done some concert video taping from back a ways (I'm not a press pass guy YET like you Sanjay, but with all these great tips, you better watch your back...LOL) and RED totally f***s up the video camera.  If I happened to have forgotten to switch autofocus off on the video camera (for concert video, I'm always far enough away that I never have to worry about autofocus, so use manual override) but if I forget and the camera is on autofocus, I'll be reminded of that fact the FIRST time the lights go red because the camera will lose focus.

[stevetoney]

Though I don't shoot many concerts anymore I did in years past with film. When scanning some of my slides and negatives many were very dark. Despite various editing programs, I was never happy with the results. Later I ran across a program that had better results out of the box than what I had done manually. It may not be what you are looking for but it will only take a little time to see if it brings out more detail in some of your images.

http://www.tommesani.com/AltaLux.html

OK, I'll probably be talking out my a** here, but from what I've read, one of the great thing about the Canon 40D is that it captures images in 14bit depth.  Those two pictures that I posted earlier were almost totally dark when I took the pics and looked at them in my cameras display.

So, even though the image was nearly black to the eye, the 14 bit depth still provides significant resolution in terms of color gradation, since 14 bit provides such a large range of colors between pure black and pure white.  This enables you to use some of the tools in photoshop, like the exposure, shadow, highlight, contrast, and lighten tools to 'save' an image.  That's what I did with these two images.  Not that they're good, but they actually were salvage from something that was literally almost black to the naked eye.

I guess what I'm driving at Flipp is that the software you link to seems to be pretty much similar to the highlight and shadow tools in Photoshop, if I'm not mistaken.  I know that I've used those two tools to really lighten and add detail to the otherwise completely dark shadow areas of some of my images.

Regardless, thanks for the tips and I'd be curious to know others' takes on my comments above...whether or not you agree.