Looking for a lens and some tips on shooting a gig

dazftw

Well lads

Doing a gig next month(my 1st one) and i'm going be using my trusty canon AE1 and i'm wondering does anyone on here have an 85mm by any short chance?

Iv'e got the 24mm and 50mm which i'm confident enough with but would like to just have something a little bit longer for further back shots with the crowds. I have a EF 50mm 1.4 I can swap with just for the time being if someone would be interested in trying that!

I'm going get 2 rolls of B&W and 2 of colour. Not sure what ones yet but thinking about tmax 3200 and 1600 superia.

I have a good idea what i'm going do for the shots but I know a lot of people on here shoot gigs so i'm happy to take any advice.

Just to clarify I dont have a digital camera

spinandscribble

No lens for you I'm afraid but I wanted to ask you something.

how does your ae-1 handle gigs/events when the light is so dim? obviously you have a tripod but you'll have a slower shutter speed to cope? lol sorry don't see much film photography of gigs.

Stick the shots up for us to see after though please?

dazftw

It's in a big oul place so the lighting will be decent enough.

It won't be much different to digital though to be fair. It'll function pretty much the same just look different. I was hoping people would post up what's setting's they usually use iso/shutter speed just to get an idea.

The two lenses I have are 24 2.8 and 50 1.8 so i'm probably going stick with the 1.8 for close up's and 2.8 for sort of crowd stage shots. The 85 I was hoping for, for close up's from far away.

I'm hoping and will check the place next Saturday with my light meter if i'm using 1600 to get about 1/30th on the shutter speed and 1/60th with 3200.

Just to give you small example of the camera with 1600 speed film



That was with the 24mm 2.8 under a 60 watt bulb. I think it was either 1/15th or 1/30th it was my 21st so I can quite remember I'm not surprised you don't see a lot of film gig photography. If you mess up there is no going back haha.

Ill definitely post the results, though its not until the 9th of May.

spinandscribble

gotta get myself some high speed film so looking forward to the shots!

sineadw

Never used tmax (I'm sure it's the same) but delta 3200 can be pushed to 6400 and beyond quite comfortably. I've seen lovely stuff at 12800. You just need to have the right developer and a nice long dev time. The colour should be absolutely fine at 3200 as well big advantage with film is that you get lovely grain instead of horrible noise.

dazftw

Yeah it'll have a totally different look about it anyway. I'm looking forward to the black and white.

Have you used it at 6400? What developer did you use? I need to ring Gunn's in the next day or so and order some film and fix, so I can pick up some developer as well!

Ill have to find somewhere to push the colour for me. I'm not sure if the place I go to in town will do it.

DaireQuinlan

dazftw wrote: »

Ill have to find somewhere to push the colour for me. I'm not sure if the place I go to in town will do it.

I wouldn't say anywhere that has a minilab will push it for you. If I had to shoot colour at 1600 I'd probably shoot portra 800 and push it a stop. I've never liked the fast fuji films. For future experimentation, the new portra 400 looks to be nicely pushable with minimal grain, ie
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phloodpants/sets/72157626086079045/
(not my shots)

B&W I'd probably shoot tri-x at 1600 and dev in Diafine.

Not really good at low low light though, if things start getting shaky at 1600 I generally just pack up the camera.