From time to time even as a photographer relatively new to the band photography scene I still get the occasional question about how I took certain shots, what equipment and settings I used etc…
So I thought I’d put together a small hints and tips section. Of course this isn’t the absolute right way to do band photography, but these hints and tips have helped me in the past.
- Shoot at the highest ISO you can so you can bump up the shutter speed;
- Shoot in manual if the lighting is consistent;
- Do not take your cameras meter reading as law! Don’t be afraid to underexpose slightly;
- If lighting really is a problem, you’re shooting between 1-70mm, and you have steady hands, you can get away using 1/60th on the odd occasion if the shot is important;
- Try not to use flash! If you do, try to bounce or diffuse it (as opposed to directing it at them), and don’t use it regularly for the sake of those playing. Always seek permission from the band playing as to whether or not you can use it. Also, if you do use flash, keep the ISO up high if you want to retain some form of ambient light – it can make a world of difference for backgrounds;
- Never cut out guitar heads from your compositions; you’ll miss them if you do!
- You’ll probably want to set your ISO level to 800 or 1600+. At 1600 the images will be getting grainy with digital noise, but that’s sometimes unavoidable. If you’re in a venue with plenty of light set your ISO lower, you’ll get less noise.
- You can be technically adept but still take crap photos, the trick is knowing when to click the shutter. Watch the performance for a moment, where is the light on stage? You may have to wait for the performer to move into the light.
- Sometimes your photos may need a tweak in post-processing. This isn’t unique to digital photography, people have been tinkering in dark rooms forever so it’s certainly not cheating to adjust your images in Photoshop. I usually just adjust the levels. Make the blacks really black, bring up the contrast a little. Don’t change too much though, it’ll just look obvious and cheesy.
- Try to get shots where the bands faces aren’t mostly obscured by a microphone… in this case you may want to get right to the front but on the side, use a tele zoom and get a nice midshot to close up.
- Shoot in RAW format.
- Back up, back up, back up! Bring more than 1 memory card, lens, batteries… shooting at many gigs always brings you the risk of having things stolen or broken, always keep a back up of what you have just incase something happens.
- You’re a photographer… bit like an artist, don’t fear to experiment, your view finder is your canvas, try some abstract shots from time to time. If you’re shooting a popular band the chances are they’ve had plenty of photo’s taken of them in the past, so never be afraid to try out a few shots that will grab their attention.
- Learn to take criticism, its a blessing in disguise, it helps you develop and learn as a photographer.
- Do your research, if your doing photos for a whole set, check out the bands music, there might be some really energetic songs which pump up the crowd or the band themselves, if your lucky to see the song play list before the set starts you already have time to prepare for some great ‘action’ shots.
Equipment:
- Nikon, Canon, Sony? It doesn’t matter, read some decent reviews and choose a camera best within your budget, remember you have to get lens and flash equipment as well. Personally I’d choose Canon or Nikon.
- The key for low light photography, on any camera body, is the aperture of the lens. A good f-stop for low light is f1.8, while f1.4 is better. Even larger is Canon’s 50mm f1.2, and a some much older f1.0 lenses are here and there with other camera brands. But, f1.8 is acceptable.
- I always recommend the 50mm f1.8.
- For concert photography, you will most likely need a good range lens, such as an x-135mm, or something like this. The 50mm lens, especially on a digital body, is not a good all around lens. Look for a lens with a good range, and a wide aperture, something like f-2.8 or larger.
- IS lenses, work to help steady your hand. Most stabilization unitits only give you a few stops different, except for the Nikon 18-200mm VR, which gives 4 or 5. The best way would be to pick up a wide aperture lens, but the IS always helps.
- Macro lenses are for magnifying the subject, not for low light photography like you stated. If you are doing a lot of up close work of bugs, flowers, and so on, get a macro lens. If want to do low light concert photography, get a wide aperture lens, such as the 85mm f1.2, f1.4, or f1.8.
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