C+C my latest music (gig) effort?

Hey all,

Have been to two gigs before, both in December I think. Popped into one for about 10 minutes last night, fired off about 20 shots, I'd say. These are the ones I decided to keep. Just wondering what the general consensus is on them? Amazing? Average? Terribly crap?



1.




2.




3.




4.




5.




6.




Just looking for any kinda feedback at all. Will hopefully be sticking my head into the same venue every week for a small few minutes to get shots of whatever band is on.

By the way, I realise #2 is generally pretty crap (in my opinion), but i wanted a shot of each person in the band (who call themselves "Saucy Jackie") and it was the only one I could get of him.



Thank you in advance to anyone who may reply.

pixbyjohn

I like them all, noisy but grand. I actually like number 2 best, seems to have more "feeling" to it rather than some of the others who seem to be posing for the lens.

Cheers John.


Not quite sure why I don't like 2, to be honest. The last and the first ones are my favourites, i think, but its always good to get another person/people's opinion. Thanks

AnCatDubh

for me #1 & #5 are the keepers. There's a tremendous b/w conversion on #5 - convert and turn up the blacks with your levels tool.

DotOrg

Deleted User wrote: »

Will hopefully be sticking my head into the same venue every week for a small few minutes to get shots of whatever band is on.

to me, taking good music photos is about watching, waiting, anticipating 'moments' that happen when a band is on stage. i've never met any great photographers who improve or get consistently good shots by just taking a few shots for a few minutes

Mountainsandh

Hi KKV, my humble opinion is really not much to go by, but if I may, I don't like the way they're tilted. I must say I'm gone off the "tilted look" altogether after looking at hundreds of teenage Flickr accounts, I see well how a bit of tilt sometimes might do it, but it just annoys me here. Call me an ol' bore .
The last one is definitely the most striking of the lot for me.

AnimalRights

#1, the rest I don't like...

roast

I like #1, and #2.

2, because, as someone said earlier, it seems to be the most natural.
My only other comment would be that the shots seem to be a bit noisy... but I'm over it already. :pac:

Out of curiosity - what was the venue?

NakedDex

I really like the first one. There's something about it that really makes me want to see that moment in person.
I have to agree on the tilts though. I've never been a fan of it in any context and it doesn't add anything to these pictures.

pete4130

They just look like snaps to me. I don't find them engaging or exciting at all.

ACD, I'll give that a shot, soon enough. I've to get a few communion photos out of the way first, though. Cheers for the comment.

DotOrg, I've attended a small handful of gigs in this venue (though only had a camera for two) and nothing monumentous happened at all. The lads stick to their set, bit o' banter between songs and then get off the stage for the next band.

I imagine I'll improve more by being able to look back at my shots and get feedback on them so I can have a better feel for what to look for when I next visit a gig venue.

That said, I'm in a position where I can't stop for any more than a few minutes, anyway. I have about 6 venues to circle in the space of two hours. This is an additional place on top of the others, so I'm happy to be able to get in at all.

In an ideal situation, I'd agree, that you'll certainly have better photos to show for your time at a gig if you stay for the whole show, but as it is, speaking realistically, I'd say I spent 20 minutes in there on Friday, and could manage the same in future, which is approximately half the stage time for the bands in there (a four hour show with, on average, three bands. Two bands have a 60 minute slot, and one has 120 minutes, but each band has to set up and take down their stuff on stage, which takes about 5 mins each side of their performance. So for a 50 minute performance, I cover 20. It's not too bad. As I say, in those 20 minutes, I took about twenty shots, so I didn't just go in in machine-gun mode. A lot of the shots I took would be burst shots, though.


Mountainsandh, I do admit that in some shots I tend to purposely tilt (to try and fill the frame a bit more). With the exception of #2 and #4 (2, because I was too close, and 4 becase I wanted to fit more of the drum kit in) tilting wasn't intentional. It more because I was being pushed and shoved by people jumping about all over the place. When I'm bumped into, I tend to adjust myself, and this obviously resulted in some tilting.


It is easy to overdo, though, yeah.


AR; Care to elaborate any further?


Roast, ISO was 3,200 for all the shots I think (at f/1.8 or f/2 or such). The place is practically pitch black except when the lights hit the guys. I ran a noise reduction filter on them, but preferred them without it (looked a little too soft). I need a new body

The venue is called the Purple Room, it's in Drogheda. It's actually not a bad little place at all. For live music, a lot of people seem to think quite highly of it. I think they've DJs in there too and such (though i've only ever been when bands are on).


Cheers for the feedback, NakedDex and Pete. Don't suppose you'd care to elaborate any further either, Pete?

melekalikimaka

wouldnt be keen on the composition, lots of missing limbs and guitars, i agree the tilt thing is a wee bit off putting, tho i know from my own experience crumby lighting can be a front bum for gigs, so its hard to judge any further on the images

pete4130

They just aren't clean or neat, like missing limbs, half guitars etc..
they look like anyone could have turned up at a gig and got them with their point and shoot (no offence meant). It looks like you've tried to capture everything thats going on and had no real idea of what you wanted to capture. A lot of shooting gigs is taking a step back, seeing what conditions you have to work with and picking one or two things that you see that you might be able to get a shot of and waiting for that shot. You might have to wait for the lighting to come up briefly/strobe and try to catch that.

Some gigs the lighting is just going to be terrible and you have no control over that. Strong red or blue lighting is going to be a nightmare.

Generally if I'm shooting on aperture priority I'll set the camer to underexpose by about -1.7 or -2.0. Your cams light meter is going to see a dark scene and try to give an exposure that will capture it all (slow shutter) where as you don't care if the background is dark, because it is.
Sometimes let the images be dark and hope the lighting will highlight some shape.

The photo below was shot using a Nikon D1 (from 1999) with 2.74MP and pushing it to 800 ISO and a 50mm 1.8. I just spot metered on the drummer knowing the background would be dark so decided to use that to isolate him and had a slow enough shutter speed to still capture some movement of his drumstick.




This one I let the available light highlight the shape and it worked out. A lot of it is luck and a lot of it is seeing something that might work and getting lucky with it.




Both gigs had terrible lighting.

Cheers for taking the time to write that up, Pete.

Both are excellent shots you posted. I'm a manual man at all times, so when I was shooting 1.8 and ISO3,200, it was because I'd been in there a few times before, as I say, and I needed those settings each time. The lighting set up rarely changes in there, and it's so cramped on the stage, that getting the above kinda shots would require nothing short of a miracle. That said, though I do love the feedback, and it gives me something to aim for or to try for in future. I posted this is so I could hopefully try to work on my 'eye' for these kinda shots.

On June 3rd, I'll be able to get a full gig in (or two, back-to-back, but it'll be the same bands both times) so I'm gonna head in next week for a bit of a quick look around for a few minutes, and take a few shots. Hopefully, between reviewing the photos, and this thread a few times (along with whatever other gig C+C threads a search brings up) and hopefully I'll have something interesting to show from that.