Josh Ritter (C&C)

[Julesie]

My first foray into the world of concert photography....

I got in touch with Josh's guys a couple of months back and was very excited when they gave me permission to bring my gear into last night's concert in Whelans.

He was playing his album the Animal Years last night accompanied by The Love Canon Band. It was a really fantastic concert, here are a couple of shots I took with my nifty fifty and 80-200mm.

Any advice on how they might be improved is always appreciated.

[Ballyman]

I like the second last one. You could maybe crop a little off the right of it as there is a little dead space there.

The rest of them are not properly in focus or suffer from motion blur. What settings did you use?

[kjt]

Love the second last shot, really good!! Hope you enjoyed the gig, I was there on Wednesday. Brilliance!!!!

[theocn]

mispost

[Julesie]

Originally Posted by Ballyman

The rest of them are not properly in focus or suffer from motion blur. What settings did you use?

Thanks for the feedback Ballyman, not to dismiss your point but is the first thing you see when looking at say the 3rd image for instance is "that is out of focus" because to my eyes it looks fine.

Also with regards to the motion blur I was using it to convey a sense of motion in the shot (e.g. 3rd last). Now I may have failed miserably and obviously all of these things are subjective but it is generally felt that concert pics have to be tack sharp to be considered good.

I hope the above doesn't sound defensive, I'm just trying to understand how and why certain things work/don't work.

In relation to settings it was a bit of a mixed bag depending on the ever changing lighting. Here is the info for a couple of the shots, the EXIF data should still be present if you want to know the settings for the others.

Photo 1: ISO 1250 f2.8 1/640
Photo 3: ISO 800 f1.8 1/1600
Photo 6: ISO 800 f2.2 1/200

[sineadw]

I don't think your motion blur is working tbh. There's not enough. They *do* just look very soft to me apart from that second last one. You're shooting too fast - if I'm going for motion blur I bring the shutter speed down to about 1/20 or so on the 50 (that's full frame..). Are you shooting with manual or auto focus? Your point of focus looks a bit off..

(sorry)

[Julesie]

Thanks Sinead, no need to apologise. Like I say these were my first attempt at gig photography so I wasn't expecting miracles.

I was using auto focus trying to focus on the face avoiding the mic stand. Would you use manual focus in low light environments or trust the autofocus to do the job?

[AnimalRights]

Manual focus is damned hard to use, I've never bothered with it.
Plenty of AF point modes to get a good shot, centre point springs to mind with maybe spot metering or centre weighted.

[Ballyman]

Originally Posted by Julesie

Thanks for the feedback Ballyman, not to dismiss your point but is the first thing you see when looking at say the 3rd image for instance is "that is out of focus" because to my eyes it looks fine.

Not so much the 3rd image but the rest, to my eyes, are out of focus or suffer from motion blur.

If thats what you set out to get then obviously they are a success as they are exactly that. If it were me though, I'd delete them.

I know criticism of what you conceive to be excellent is difficult to take sometimes. I sometimes wonder if someone criticising my stuff is actually on drugs when looking at my photos as I think they are great. However when I look back at them a week later I realise that they were in actual fact right and the photo was junk. I still find it hard to be able to effectively critique my own stuff as everyone thinks their own stuff is great which unfortunately, in my case anyway, is definitely not the case.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that jazz But at the end of the day, if you're happy with something then thats all that matters.

[sineadw]

I find manual focus much easier to be honest - the amount of times I've missed shots trying to get it to auto focus just got too annoying. AF needs quite good light to work well. Depends though - sometimes it works fine If you're using AF then I'd COMPLETELY recommend using the centre point, lock the focus (hold the shutter button half way down) and then reframe it. Centre spot is usually MUCH stronger than any of the other points.

You're shooting at very high speeds by the look of the exif you posted above? I'm guessing you're shooting in aperture priority? You could try shooting in shutter priority and get a wider DoF? You're really pushing your optics to their limit shoting wide open, and the shots can suffer because of it.

I love using motion blur to get a sense of the action. This one:


was in my Hard Working Class Heroes set this year. A bit extreme, but I love it It was f14, 1/20 sec at 70mm. Hee hee

So did you catch the gig photography bug then?

[Julesie]

Thanks for the tips Sinead!

I was actually shooting in manual mode (like to make things difficult for myself!) but I'll take on board the advice about using a greater DoF.

It's all a big learning curve so I guess it will just take time and practice to find the sweet spot my gear in different lighting conditions.

Definitely caught the bug though, looking forward to doing a Bell X1 gig over here in London in a couple of weeks.

[AnimalRights]

There's Manual focus and Manual mode just in case.
I shoot Manual mode but Auto focus. (centre spot/weighted mostly)

[jjoconnor]

aside from some of them being out of focus, i think they are excellent shots for a first timer, or even for someone who's done a few gigs.