Help please! Taking photos at gigs...

snickerpuss

Hello!

Some friends of mine have asked me to take pics of their band, I love doing this and used to do it but generally my pictures came out like so...

Blurry and a bit mad. This was on my lovely Minolta SLR, 400 film, no flash and without me fiddling with the settings.

I recently got a digital and my pics now generally look like so...

Taken in b&w with a flash which i hate doing but otherwise its just a total blur. It is still quite blurry and noisy as I have the ISO up to 1600

I think I'll go back to my SLR but I'll really need to start messing with the shutter speed and such but I have no idea where to start. I usually get 400 film but thats about the extent of it.

So... any ideas?
Thank you in advance!

mathias

In which case this will be a great book for you , and cheap too ,

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-Photographs-Digital-Updated/dp/0817463003

Its a quick read , magazine type pages , and shows how to use all those buttons on the camera youve probably never touched. ( Easily the best camera book I ever read anyway ..)

In relation to your photos , obviously you cannot get a shutter speed fast enough at the correct exposure to do the job. ( without a flash )

In which case a faster lens is probably what you need , try and get your hands on a 50mm 1.8 lens , these are available for most SLR models for around the 100 euro mark. They are usually very sharp and the wider aperature is great for low light.

sineadw

Yep yep yep - you need a fast lens. Its bloody hard to get decent stuff without one. You can be lucky though - it depends on the lighting. I've found if you're shooting the main band you get a much better chance as most places up the light level quite dramatically for the headliners. What I do (NOT necessarily good advice! :rolleyes: ) is to use AV and go right to the largest aperture. Try shooting wide and crop later if you're using a zoom as this will give you more light without having to resort to a flash, although I *do* like framing in the camera. You can use the monitors or anything else at the front of the stage as a makeshift prop for the camera, although watch as sometimes you get bad vibrations if the bass is loud which will blur your shots anyway, and give you buzzing teeth Are you just using a pop-up or do you have a gun that you can point and bounce? I've had to shoot at 1600 iso using the zoom, but I'd rather get in close and try to catch the ambient light than use the pop-up. Get right up to the front of the stage. If you're waving a big SLR about people usually give you a bit of space Shutter speed of about 60-100 is nice as it captures movement, say a hand on a guitar or drumsticks, but you should get the performer frozen..

Shooting film would just have been too expensive a lesson for me as I use a lot of trial and error, depending on the place, the engineer etc. Too many variables not to be able to see what I'm doing. Maybe when I've got the hang of it I'll go back though.

familyguy

Question is: when you say you recently got a digital, is it a digital SLR or compact type. If it's not a dSLR, there's no getting a faster lens

snickerpuss

Its only a compact digital, you can faff about with settings on it (its a Fuji F30) but it's no DSLR. Which is why I was gonna go back to my film SLR.

Sinead - When I do use flash (on SLR) it's usually just the pop up and it whites out everything and probably freaks out my mates on stage!

Thanks for the help!

mathias

Get a fast lens , that means a small aperture number like 1.8 ( i say 1.8 cos thats cheap , they go lower but they are very expensive ) maybe you can borrow one.

Just in case you dont know , Sony bought out Konica Minolta and the lenses , these are now called the Sony @ and the lenses available for that should fit a standard Konica mount ( Maxxum/AF).

Ive been looking and can only find a 50mm 1.4 for the Maxxum/AF mount , its about 300 dollars but maybe you can rent one in conns !!
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/439160-REG/Sony_SAL50F14_SAL_50F14_50mm_f_1_4_Autofocus.html
That would definitely do the job nicely ,

Set the camera to manual mode , Go to aperture priorty , set the camera to 1.8 ( or the lowest aperture it has ) , point this at your target and adjust shutter speed until your meter indicates a correct exposure , on a canon thats with the arrow in the middle , ( dont know how it works on a Konica but it will be something similar), and then shoot , as long as the shutter speed comes in at better than 1/ 50 you should be OK , although a steady hand is needed for that particular speed. With a 1.8 (or lower ) aperture most shutter speeds should come in at a lever fine to handhold.

If you are still using a kit lens , then the aperture on it is probably 3.5 - 4 going up to 5 at zoom , this wont do for gigs , you'll have to get a lower aperture (or faster ... faster means low aperture ! ) lens .

thebaz

sineadw wrote:

What I do (NOT necessarily good advice! :rolleyes: ) is to use AV and go right to the largest aperture. .

sinead -- what f stop would you consider a large aperature ? --

a bit confused as Mathias is saying use a low aperature !

cheers

pete4130

What I used to do was get some ilford Delta 3200, push it 2 stops to ISO 12800 andover process it by about 1/3 to 1/2 extra time for every stop pushed cumulatively. It definitly removes the need for flash if you time your shots right to coincide with any flashing lights. you can still underexpose a little too when trying to keep your shutter speeds up.
Just be prepared for what LOOKS like a completly unexposed roll of negs when you look at them!
If your not brave enough tp ush it to ISO 12800 its ok to push to ISO 6400 too. You might get away with it at ISO 3200 if the lighting is ok and you have a fast lens.

This shot was either taken on Kodak 3200 (which doesnt push very well!) or delta 3200 (possibly pushed?), I can't remember. I'm guessing from the grain it was ilford Delta at ISO 3200. I timed the shot to coincide with some lighting that was going on.

Roen

Small Number = Big Hole, Big Number = Small Hole.

I'm afraid this is one of the things that only money or hard work and money will solve.
Will elucidate upon 'could be arsedness'

mathias

Sorry about the confusion there , the numbers for aperture are inversely proportional to size of the opening , so the lower the number the wider or bigger the hole for the light ,
or as I was saying earlier , the lowest aperture ( number ) is the same as largest aperture opening.
Also when you hear people mention fast in terms of a lens they usually mean it has a bigger or wider aperture or opening, so for instance a F1.8 lens is faster than an F2.8 lens which is faster than a F4 lens and so on ,

For low light , like gigs for instance , the bigger the opening the better , so you want a lens with a low F number , like 1.8 etc.

Have a look at this webpage , its all explained near the bottom ,

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm

pippatee

Another option, rather than a fast lens, is to "Bounce" a flash off the ceiling or wall....you need a flashgun for that but it may work out better than getting new lenses etc.

thebaz

mathias wrote:

Sorry about the confusion there , the numbers for aperture are inversely proportional to size of the opening , so the lower the number the wider or bigger the hole for the light ,
or as I was saying earlier , the lowest aperture ( number ) is the same as largest aperture opening.
Also when you hear people mention fast in terms of a lens they usually mean it has a bigger or wider aperture or opening, so for instance a F1.8 lens is faster than an F2.8 lens which is faster than a F4 lens and so on ,

For low light , like gigs for instance , the bigger the opening the better , so you want a lens with a low F number , like 1.8 etc.

Have a look at this webpage , its all explained near the bottom ,

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm

thanks for clarifying Mathias --
one issue i always have when I open the aperature fully (lowest f stop number ) , my photos nearly always appear either blurry or under exposed , i find i need to go up 2 stops from max opening , at least .. is this common ?

melekalikimaka

or as faijita told me many moons ago when i was just getting started, a piece of paper over the flash diffuses it, keeping colours intact better.

sineadw

Does paper over a pop-up work?

Baz - when you go to a large aperture you have a much narrower depth of field, so maybe that's why you're getting blurry shots? In low light especially the autofocus can struggle so I go manual when I can. Or you could buy a Canon

Fast, expensive lenses aren't always necessary though. I got some fairly ok stuff first time I tried with the kit lens. This was 5.6, 1600iso so not bad considering:

mathias

one issue i always have when I open the aperature fully (lowest f stop number ) , my photos nearly always appear either blurry or under exposed , i find i need to go up 2 stops from max opening , at least .. is this common ?

It is common but only until you understand the relationship of the settings on the camera , once you get this then its possible to set the camera up for a correct exposure every time ,

The reason you get blurry shots is probably because with a smaller aperature ( higher number ) in low light , the camera will try and set a shutter speed thats too slow for the shot ( while handheld that is ), a wider opening will allow for a faster shutter speed which should take care of the blurriness.

In daylight or bright light a smaller aperture works better , which is probably why you get better shots with a smaller aperture in these cases.

With the camera in manual ( or aperture priority / shutter priority ) you should be able to get a correct exposure once you know how to adjust the settings.

Keep and eye on the shutter speed and aperture when you are taking shots , if you focus and the shutter speed comes up slower than 1/ focal length ( while handholding ) you will probably get a blurred shot , thats why for gig photography a faster lens is essential.

daramunn

I'm pretty much just re-saying what already been said... it's nearly all down to aperture. A fast lens (the 50mm f/1.8 is a steal), creative use of lights on the stage and a steady hand mean you should get at least a few. I find a handy feature with the digitals is continuous shutter speed. For every shot I take at a gig, I'll usually snap off 10 or so, and then choose the best/sharpest 1. I usually have my camera set to under expose by one stop and I leave it in AV with aperture wide open. Sometimes this results in an under exposed photo, but in my opinion a grainyish photo thats been brightened in photoshop is more use than a blurry photo.

Some examples:

Ben Kritikos in the sugar club (205mm, 1/125s, f/3.5, ISO1600):


The Immediate in the Sugar Club (50mm, 1/160, f/1.8, ISO1600):


The Thrills in the fm104 gig (300mm, 1/250, f/5.6, ISO1600):

AllMyOwnTeeth

Consider using a monopod. It should help you steady the camera and let you away with a lower shutter speed (and a bit more sharpness). They are reasonably cheap, and double as a telescopic batton for having sword fights with guards...