taking pics at a gig?
- Thread starter al84
- Start date
Hi. OK, here is the place where I'll be going Photo gallery - The Beer Cart Arms pub, Canterbury . I have an 18-55mm lens and a70-300mm Tamron lens. If there are others which are better for this type of shooting I'm able to get new lens. It will be a metal gig so be fast paced. I'm sure a flash will be fine. I'll have to ask him though.
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BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Hmmm. Given the tight quarters the 18-105 might be the best choice, but that's not one of yours.
Looks like some bands bring lights, others don't. Find out what they have and how close you'll be. Clubs like that, for a metal gig there will be (hopefully) be sweaty fans pressed up front, so most of your shots may be from the side, and any up from will subject you to getting knocked around which will be bad for movement. I don't like the idea of flash in places like this, but if you have to use it it'll likely produce better black and whites than color images. Not a bad thing, but something to consider when you talk to him. The D3100 isn't the best high ISO camera, so in your practice see how high you can crank it to shoot without flash and not get more noise than you want. ISO noise can always be disguised as film grain in B&W's too, so consider that.
Doing a practice run at the place sounds like a must. Bring both lenses with you both times just in case. You don't want to wind up with the wrong one. Shoot a bunch with one, swap out on a break and shoot closeups with the other.
Looks like some bands bring lights, others don't. Find out what they have and how close you'll be. Clubs like that, for a metal gig there will be (hopefully) be sweaty fans pressed up front, so most of your shots may be from the side, and any up from will subject you to getting knocked around which will be bad for movement. I don't like the idea of flash in places like this, but if you have to use it it'll likely produce better black and whites than color images. Not a bad thing, but something to consider when you talk to him. The D3100 isn't the best high ISO camera, so in your practice see how high you can crank it to shoot without flash and not get more noise than you want. ISO noise can always be disguised as film grain in B&W's too, so consider that.
Doing a practice run at the place sounds like a must. Bring both lenses with you both times just in case. You don't want to wind up with the wrong one. Shoot a bunch with one, swap out on a break and shoot closeups with the other.
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Also, find out what they're looking for in their photos. Do they want "cool shots of the whole band" (i.e. 18-55), or "killer close-ups of how hard they rock" (70-300mm). :very_drunk:
Rexer John
Senior Member
If flash is OK, practice some slow synch flash for a different effect. Rear curtain synch shows trails, before freezing the subject with a flash.
Look up pictures of slow synch to see the effect.
You don't want all shots like that but it can give you that unusual image with a brighter background. A tripod would get static background objects better with the extended shutter time but not essential because you want to show movement anyway.
Look up pictures of slow synch to see the effect.
You don't want all shots like that but it can give you that unusual image with a brighter background. A tripod would get static background objects better with the extended shutter time but not essential because you want to show movement anyway.
Maybe for a few select shots. But the ability to zoom as you move around will be the most useful.
Believe it or not, I take a 16mm full frame fisheye with me. I would not have been able to get this shot of the band had I not had that lens with me! My 20mm Nikkor was not wide enough. Things were so tight in this bar that I was practically standing on the stage just to get the photo (and had to clone my own toes out of the bottom of the image). The bar was kind of dark, so I wound up bouncing the light from a Sunpak 544 off the ceiling to get even illumination for the whole image. Sometimes you have to make the best of what you have to work with if you want the shot! As we always used to say in the Army....."adapt, improvise and overcome"!
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Do yourself a favor and bring a monopod or use your tripod like a monopod and take the images using ambient light instead of flash. The times I've tried using flash just didn't look right. Everyone near me was bright and nearly washed out and everyone towards the back was black. But the shots using ambient light gave me much better results and looked far more natural. That said, even at high ISO my shutter speeds were fairly slow so using my tripod as a monopod helped enormously.