some band photography *Now with pictures

[Thommo]

hey guys, some of you may have seen my thread in which i was asking about how to effectively take live band photos. well my trial gig was on friday night and i had a ball, got to enjoy the best of both worlds, listening to a band i love and taking some cool photos...

anyway i dont know how to judge these so i will let you guys, most have been cropped and colours and brightness played with a bit, but here they are.

Pics are now up at http://www.pixspot.com/thumbnails.php?album=73


a big thanks must be said to all the guys who gave me some pointers, esp gary helping with flash settings. most of the photos were taken on shutter priority at about 1/50 with the flash dialed back to between -1and2

[Thommo]

ergh cant get the image tags to work

[birddog114]

thommo,
I couldn't see the pics! sorry!

[Thommo]

ahh crap i thought ug box worked on here....

[gstark]

Says I'm disallowed.

Sounds to me as if they have a problem.

[Thommo]

yeh im just in the process of uploading to pixspot, what is the maximum pixels though

[Thommo]

should work now

[MHD]

Such a hard subject to capture!

What apetures did you use? Were these taken with the 50/1.8?

I (not knowing the full story) would have opened the lens up a bit more, tried to get closer and get head shots with a blurred background...

But I have never shot a band before

Where was it (looks like ANUbar)

[Thommo]

was taken at the ground floor in belco, i think most of these were taken at f1.8-2

[MHD]

Kewl... Were you as close as you could get?

This is where a zoom like the 80-200 would be nice... or for true money the 80/1.4

[W00DY]

Not bad photos of the band but they all look a little to dark for my liking.

This is probably how the actual stage looked ( ) but maybe a little more lighter would have done the trick.

W00DY

[birddog114]

Not bad photos of the band but they all look a little to dark for my liking.

This is probably how the actual stage looked ( ) but maybe a little more lighter would have done the trick.

W00DY

Thommo has the 50/1.8 and he tried to capture the full body, it's imposible to have a great capture like the way he want, half body shoot will look nicer. IMHO the 50/1.4 will do more for this type of shooting than the 50/1.8, or the 85/1.4 or 70-200VR and shoot in distance.

[Greg B]

Thommo, I know how hard it is in that environment, I reckon you have done well.

I think they are a bit dark too, I took the liberty of tweaking one a bit to show what I mean, also a bit cropped. Hope that's OK - PM me if you want it removed.





cheers

[Thommo]

no thats fine greg...

as you said birdie i was trying to capture the full body, to me it just looked better but it also was a pain int he butt to try and pull off successfullly

[Thommo]

Not bad photos of the band but they all look a little to dark for my liking.

This is probably how the actual stage looked ( ) but maybe a little more lighter would have done the trick.

W00DY

yeh woody the stage lighting was worse than usual, it was all the most basic lights that didnt even cover the stage, it was a nightmare trying to get a shot of nick (the drumme) also as i said before i thought it was harder having so many people on a small stage... also the trombone player had practicly no light on him...

i know the lighting at their next gig will be better

[MHD]

If it wasn't hard everyone would be doing it

[Thommo]

If it wasn't hard everyone would be doing it

well i dont mind, i had soo much fun. and i found that knowing the guys made it easier to know when to shoot and when they will do something funny or cool, if this was a band that i had never heard before i think it would be even harder....

next thing on the cards is a SB800 though... but will have to wait until after big day out

[gstark]

[yeh woody the stage lighting was worse than usual, it was all the most basic lights that didnt even cover the stage, it was a nightmare trying to get a shot of nick (the drumme) also as i said before i thought it was harder having so many people on a small stage... also the trombone player had practicly no light on him...

Without knowing the specific venue, I'm inclined to say that no, the lighting was not worse than normalk, and that no, it won't be better next time. From these images, it seems to me that this is a typical pub venue, probably the sounbd guy - who has no concept of what the sound should really be like - doing the lighting.

Given that he has no concept of what the sound should be like, you're well behind the eight-ball when it comes to lighting. Wait until they figure it's cool to turn the red lights on and off in time with music.

Good work nonetheless, Thommo. You can see what I mean by the contrast range - you have massive dark backgrounds to deal with, and they should be ignored from the exposure perspective - centre or spot only.

Given that you're using 50 and trying to shoot full length, you're going to be forcing yourself back away from the stage when compared with using the kit or 24-120 lenses. That's going to increase your flash to subject distance, so the -1.3 that I use is probably a little too much, and you may be exceeding the capacity of the gun.

I've found that the FEC I need varies from location to location, and yes, you have to pay attention to what you're shooting and from where. Given you're shooting at an increased distance, reduced FEC may be the go here; certainly, experiment and play.

Your comments about the 'bone player not being illuminated at all and the similarly the drummer are not at all surprising, and very typical. But the D70 should be able to focus and shoot with no major issues at all. Again, adjust the FEC for those subjects to compensate.

And don't forget - you can also play with ISO; bump it to 400 ... 600 ... 800 ... see what results you get. You'll have heaps of noise in the dark regions at 1600, but you'll be surprised at what you can pull out as you become more comfortable with the venue's lighting and how it affects exposure.

[Thommo]

thanks heaps for you help gary, will have to try it out next week