Gig advice?

sineadw

I'm heading to my first gig on Friday since going digital. I still only have the kit lens and the pop-up flash, but I'm gonna try my luck. I've been messing around with the flash compensation settings but I'm still not at all used to it.

Anyone got any suggestions on settings for the night? I don't want to spend half the night trying to see the lcd to see how many miles I'm off by. Should I forego the flash altogether? Should I be concentrating more on shutter speed than aperture? I'm thinking I'll have to go high ISO and shutter speed? Any other handy tips?

deaddonkey

depends on your camera, but if it's anything like the 350d kit lens, don't even attempt gig photography with it. just not fast enough.

and flash looks awful, especially at gigs.

Spyral

just ask is flash phootgrapy ok.

Most bands (if they are ameture or not famous) love to have pics taken of them - makes them seem good. But only do it for about 3 songs or so - no one likes haveing a flash burning thier retinas out.

you said "since you went digital" - can you not use your film flash unit on your digicam or is it not SLR ?

pete4130

Sinead,

I've taken a ton of live shoots with film and since turning digital I've found it not to be as versatile as film. In saying that, you do get to see whats working and what isn't working on the night and adapt. Each shoot is different though. Each venue has its own lighting rig and you get to know which ones you like and don't like (The Sugar Club possibly being one of my most hated venues for lighting....and sound).

The last gig I shot was in The Lower Deck in Portobello. It doesn't have great light and it certainly doesnt vary at all!

Alot of the time I'll TRY to shoot without using flash as much as possible, this means using as high ISO as you can get, and even then maybe underexposing by a stop. Definitly shoot on Manual mode. Don't let your camera be fooled by the lights in there. I shot these using my old 15mm fisheye (on 35mm slr its fisheye, on my d200 its about a 22mm).

I found with the light at 3200 ISO I could shoot at 2.8 with a shutter of about 1/30th second up to 1/60th second without flash depending on how much movement there was on stage.

I forgot my flashgun that night, which I usually use off camera (via a cable and set the output manually so not to blow the photo away with too much power) so I had to resort to using the pop up flash. Pop up flash and a wide angle lens are going to leave you with a nasty black semi circle on the bottom of the shot where the flash casts a shadow from the lens. To counteract this, I switched to 100 ISO and set my camera to APERTURE priority (so it will have a long exposure) and flash to front curtain sync (so it fires at the start of the long exposure) to lessen the visibility of the circle the flash created. They seemed to look good on camera.

When I uploaded, the non flash ISO 3200 ones were super grainy, with muted colours and just looked like crap. Easiest thing to do is convert them to mono, you lose the sickly colours, up the contrast, work the levels and you've got a much more striking image.
The flash ISO 100 ones looked ok, I converted these to mono as well (which helps to reduce the visibility of movement and streaking of light a little aroudnd the area the flash fired on) and again edited them to be dark and punchy.

Sorry this is such a drawn out piece of advice. Here are the images to show you what I am waffling about....If you want just PM me about anything and I can send you some more shots and explain what I did.










If you only have the lens kit you got with the camera, its probbaly best to shoot as wide as possibly to keep the apertures as open as possible and just crop in post processing to get tighter shots. Once you start zooming in, not only will your Apertures close down you have to worry about camera shake with the longer focal lengths as well as on stage movement.


Hope this has been some use to you...or someone....

Pete.

Xios

pete4130 wrote:

(The Sugar Club possibly being one of my most hated venues for lighting....and sound).

How bad we talking here? Cause i'm goin in on monday with my cam cam to do a friends gig

440Hz

Xios wrote:

How bad we talking here?

Pretty damn bad

Lovely venue for anything other than photography! Although personally I found Crawdaddys much worse.

Rojo

Those shots are cool, Pete!!


I need some sort of wide angle lens for gig shots!

mervifwdc

Never thought of the fisheye as a gig lens. You must have been right in his face!

Brillaint shot! no, really really brilliant! Love it!

Merv.

Sebzy

Xios wrote:

How bad we talking here? Cause i'm goin in on monday with my cam cam to do a friends gig

It's not that bad what camera are you using and what glass???

Hey drop up before hand and find out who's on the lighting for the night in question and their always happy to up the levels a bit.

How about getting that projector they have to flood the stage with bright visuals.

Sugar club is a crappy place if you arrive there just before and let the VJ have their way.

pete4130

Yeah The sugar club is pretty bad. The lighting is static, its not very bright and photos look uninteresting there. I actually find crawdaddy to be quite good for shooting. I know its a really dark venue but at least they have some sort of lighting system that varies. You can use the black walls and high ceiling to your advantage too by not worrying too much about flash bouncing off back into the shot. If you can, try use a a flash gun off camera maybe with some colour filters. The only other option would be to covert to mono.
Thanks Rojo & Merv, glad you like them. Fisheye does give a ottally different perspective at gigs alright. I think thats why I prefer smaller venues....I can't afford fast long lenses to compete with the pro's.....

Sebzy

sineadw wrote:

I'm heading to my first gig on Friday since going digital. I still only have the kit lens and the pop-up flash, but I'm gonna try my luck. I've been messing around with the flash compensation settings but I'm still not at all used to it.

Making the assumption it's going to be a poorly lit gig

- Leave the camera in aperture priority mode and open up the aperture as far as it goes.
- Up your ISO to lets say 1600

or

- Get a lend of a good body and/or a fast lens.

Xios

Sebzy wrote:

It's not that bad what camera are you using and what glass???

The olypus e-500 kit lens, i had a gig in fibbers last week, but since i lost my charger, i had barely 30 mins of power saving and i haven't had a chance to look at them
I did use a flash, but a weak one, it might've ruined the shots, but i can convert it to mono and then the band should be quite well lit

melekalikimaka

i think kit lens are great to work and start with, i got some of my best shots with a 3.5-5.6.try out as many settings you can in the first few minutes til something works, then work with it til ya want more, then move on, rear sync is quite nice to use and may a piece of paper over the flash to keep some colour in the faces. where ya shootin?

Sebzy

Xios wrote:

The olypus e-500 kit lens

perfect pm me if you want a lend of a 50mmF2 or a 30mmF1.4 for the oly. one of these should get you through the gig.

Sebzy

Just back from the Voodoo Lounge and I must say the lighting was quite crappy tonight half the pots were broken. So I was left with just red static gells.

Will sort out the images in the morning but my fave has to be this little sanp

latchiko

For those who've done gig photography, are there any advantages to shooting in RAW? I was thinking that if you under-exposed by a stop could you get that data back afterwards by pushing the exposure up to +1 in the RAW converter? Would this allow for a quicker shutter speed in low-light or am I completely wrong?!

Oriel

Using a flash kills the atmosphere in any gig photo.

DotOrg

my tips as someone who shoots concerts every week for the past 4 or 5 years

- don't use flash unless you are really good at controlling it
- use as high an iso as is necessary to get a shutter speed that is fast enough to handhold
- don't be afraid to stand right at the stage
- wear good earplugs
- take lots of photos, the only way you learn is by taking lots of bad photos

sineadw

Thanks to all for the advice! I'll have to read this about five times I think for it all to sink in

The gig on Friday is a small one in a nightclub in Tyrone. The lighting is **** but I know the band so I'll have pretty much free reign. There's another one on in the Voodoo next weekend I'll probably bring the camera into as well. Friday is more practice for that one than anything.

I have a 50mm 1.8 to play with thanks to Julie ( ) so hopefully that's a lot faster than the 18-55. It'll be interesting to see what I get.

DrummerBoy

Well without trting to highjack the thread. If anyone wants some experience taking photos at a gig I'm headlining the IMRO showcase gig in The Village on saturday (14th). I've a huge guestlist so if anyone wants to go I'll stick them on it.

Sebzy

DrummerBoy wrote:

Well without trting to highjack the thread. If anyone wants some experience taking photos at a gig I'm headlining the IMRO showcase gig in The Village on saturday (14th). I've a huge guestlist so if anyone wants to go I'll stick them on it.

Please

DotOrg

DrummerBoy wrote:

Well without trting to highjack the thread. If anyone wants some experience taking photos at a gig I'm headlining the IMRO showcase gig in The Village on saturday (14th). I've a huge guestlist so if anyone wants to go I'll stick them on it.:)

is this you drummer boy? photographed by me a couple of months back. i've a few other shots from that gig too if you wanna pm me here

DrummerBoy

That is indeed me. (I look like I'm daydreaming!)

Fenster

I'll be doing my first round of pubs tomorrow. Kit will be a 30D (it's here, won't have it until the morning), 17-85 IS f/4-5.6, 50m f/1.8, 28 f/2.8 and a Sigma EF-500 flashgun.

Any tips?

sineadw

Congrats on the 30D Mark!

I feel immensely stupid not realising you're a drummer Drummerboy (:rolleyes: I know). My other half does it for a living. I might head down to the IMRO thing too. Not sure yet though.

DrummerBoy

Ok got to put submit the guestlist in a few hours for tomorrow night.

Sebastian Dooris any +1's or anything like that.
What me to add you Sinead?

Anybody else?

Sebzy

DrummerBoy wrote:

Ok got to put submit the guestlist in a few hours for tomorrow night.

Sebastian Dooris any +1's or anything like that.
What me to add you Sinead?

Anybody else?

just me on my lonesome and thanks.

sineadw

Don't know if I can make it yet, so leave me off. But thanks

kjt

I'm hoping to head down, I'm on the list already.
BRING ON THE MINUTES!!!!

Sebzy

Stuck up imges from the Voodoo gig

Have a looksey
http://www.sebastiandooris.com/MORTIIS/
http://www.sebastiandooris.com/Deathstars/

Anyone shooting there my advice would be
High ISO fast lens and stake out a spot near the stage before the gig starts.

Sebzy

DrummerBoy great show and thanks for the invite

Just one of many



And the rest

DrummerBoy

Hey Seb, thanks again for coming along. Was nice to meet you and all that jazz. Class work on the photos, the light around me (or lack of really) must have been a nightmare.

Sebzy

DrummerBoy wrote:

Hey Seb, thanks again for coming along. Was nice to meet you and all that jazz. Class work on the photos, the light around me (or lack of really) must have been a nightmare.

Yep went up top and asked fergal to help me out a bit and he brought the light levels up a bit so i got that shot
Something like F2@1S0800 1/60th

Again smashing gig.