"Hey, Body Bag!" CC Please

[Scott7117]

These are a few shots that I never really got around to posting. They were taken at battle of the bands. This was my first attempt at concert photography, most of my shots didn't come out very well but I felt these were post-worthy. I decided against using a flash, and I think that some of these pictures lack a clear subject because of it. They were all shot with my Pentax K1000, with Superia 200. I'm still pretty iffy, so let me now what you think.

1.

I felt this was my best shot. I wanted to capture action and I think this shot did a good job of that, without making it confusing and distracting.

2.

3.

I had to manually focus and it was pretty dark. Do you think that the blurriness in some of these pictures resulted from too long of an exposure and an unsteady hand, or did I focus poorly? I know that longer exposures can leave trails(which I wanted) and such, but do you think these were overexposed?

 

[Rachelsne]

I would say your shutter speed was too slow, and as you were hand holding the camera you had some hand shake. Wen you look at the light in the second picture, it has a trail, this would be from moving your hand, most likely when you pressed down on the shutter button, as the trail is down ( i think thats right, Im still a newb too)

You may have been in focus but with the movement its hard to tell.

What were your settings /camera /lens etc?

 

[manaheim]

Was the blur intentional? I could see it maybe being neat if done carefully, but I don't think you caught it in this series. In that first shot the light on the left there is pretty distracting too...

If you don't want the flash (and even if you want the blur), you're going to need to speed up that shutter (as Rachelsne pointed out).

 

[Dulouz]

Try using a flash with shots like these to freeze the subject. Keep the slow shutter speed to create movement and interesting blurs and light effects.

I like to use the 2nd curtain flash option.