1st try gig photos - c&c

tadhgrrr

Went to see Micah P Hinson play in Sheperds Bush, London last night and brought along the 400D with 50mm f1.8 attached (all shot at 1600 hence the noise, wide open). first time trying gig photography...think i prefer the black and whites (converted using LR)...any comments appreciated.

-t

Ricky91t

Cool
i like these other than noise i can see nothing wrong with them
Keep it up!

Borderfox

Very nice, good shots and the noise is well contained

smelltheglove

Good pics, gigs are very hard, and as boring as some performers can be for a photographer a good tilt on an image can all of a sudden make them look great and black and white also saves so many pictures.

Have you tried to remove the noise at all, there are a few ways to get a good effect that works great with music, if you have paint shop I recommend soft focus and tweak it a little so you get such a slight glow, it helps loose the damaging effects of removing noise.

AnCatDubh

#1 and #2 are very atmospheric so i hope that was the desired intention - to me they're good. I like the softness and the noise / grain is endearing to the overall subject (imo).

although i'm not as gone on #3, it still is a good take - i think the crop is a little tight on the left hand side but i don't think that's what i'm not sure about. I think probably seeing it in the context of the other two is probably my issue and the other two are really quite good.

Regards.

FDuff

great B&W! and nicely composed too. keep on that way.

tadhgrrr

hey guys, thanks for the comments...didnt look at removing the noise (only have LR at the moment...is there an easy way of doing it there aswell?)...although in a certain way I think the noise adds to the b&w shots creating that atmostpheric shot AnCatDubh mentioned...makes them a little bit grainy/gritty. Hes quite a 'raw' performer and puts alot of himself into the music, and maybe the b&w shot limits emphasise the emotion of the performance a little more than the colour ones.

As for the colour shot I just put it in there to contrast with the b&w ones...I have a b&w version of this one aswell and prefer it as it completes the set nicely but I just wanted to get peoples thoughts on it....seems b&w is favourite.

cheers again

t

smelltheglove

I don't have lightroom so I wouldnt know really, I would say though that noise adding effect to a picture is purely something that one person might like and another will dismiss as just not good enough. I have in times added it to increase the overall effect of an image but I try to have images such as high speed or low light as perfect as possible as the noise is what people look for and point out as a bad point. Get me?

Removing it is very much trial and error, I have quite a few different photo editing software and while every now and then I will revert to photo shop I would highly recommend Corel Paint Shop pro. I started myself on their first software years ago when I was a tenny bopper but I find it a lot easier to use than photo shop and more flexible too. I do also believe it is almost 1/8 of the price of photoshop with Pain Shop Pro 12 / also known as X2 coming in at just over 100 euroif I remember right and CS3 may be over 800. Worth the investment in every possible way.

Messed Up Mind

Those photos are pretty good considering the super high ISO. I usually use a 400-800 ISO to minimise the grain. They are really good though. I've been doing gig photography on and off for a year and a half now. It's good to try and bring your camera to lots of different gigs. Don't bring it when you want to have the craic though, as you'll spend all night worrying about it! The sacrifice of craic is almost always definitely worth it. You'll deffo find your own gig style by experimenting.

It's really hard to find a very well lit venue in Dublin. Most of them prefer to use an awful mixture of green and red lights which can really interfere with how you take your photos. The best and well lit small venues I've taken gig pictures in no particular order are The Button Factory, Tripod, The Spiegeltent (when it rolls into town) and The Sugar Club (sometimes).

Don't use a flash. It blinds the performer especially in really low lit conditions.

I wouldn't advise doing the tilt thing like a previous poster suggested. It bugs the hell out of me personally, and if you look at various music magazines that feature a lot of live pictures (such as NME or Hotpress or something) they hardly ever use tilt. It's just a gimmick to add a bit of pizazz.

Also, try get in contact with the artist or event manager pre gig, just to be polite. You may even get free concession passes to the gig, if they're really nice!

According to State magazine's photo editor, the kinda atmosphere and action here: of the Clash's 'London Calling', is what all gig photographers should aspire to capture.

Well done on the snaps and the future of your gig photography!

kgiller

Nice work Tadhg