Livingroom concert

TheStupidForeigner · Apr 13, 2015

A friend of mine is having a livingroom concert and asking if I could take a few photos for her. It is in a livingroom but as I know quite a large livingroom with around 50 or more guests but no fancy lighting as far as I know. So I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions to get some nice artistic looking shots at a place like this?

I have quite limited equipment, a canon t3 that gets very grainy over 400iso with a 18-55 f3.5 and a 50mm f1.8 prime. I also have 2 strobes, 1 light stand and a few modifiers.

I'm a relative newbie at photography and never taken anything like this before, but still I wanna get quite adventurous, get some interesting angles, maybe thinking to try back lighting with a strobe on a stand and get some nice flare too. I donno... Any suggestions, or better yet example images? Been looking on google images but can't seem to find too much.

tirediron · Apr 13, 2015

I would keep it simple: 18-55, and speedlight on a TTL cord. That way you can get the flash off the camera, but it's always with you. Just wander around shoot what looks interesting. Bring lots of batteries for the flash and just have fun. Maybe try some rear curtain sync and so on if you want to get creative.

dennybeall · Apr 13, 2015

Keep in mind that the person probably would want to have photos that included everyone that was there. You'll get most, or all, by taking enough photos. You can also use the old trick of holding the camera up as high as you can and shooting down a bit into the crowd. It's not easy but you can pick up the knack of getting the right angle pretty quickly. Remember to angle the flash up a bit more if you shoot overhead like that.

beagle100 · Apr 14, 2015

bouncing the light from the flash is an excellent idea. use the 50mm 1.8 for portraits and the 18-55IS for wider shots. definitely use the lights if it's at night and you don't have much ambient.
But don't be afraid of using higher ISO's !

I took this with a seven (7) year old Canon Rebel XSi at ISO 1600
does it look "very grainy" ?

TCampbell · Apr 14, 2015

If you have a strobe, and if the ceiling is "white" (because if it's any other color it will tint the color of the light) then I'd bounce the flash. You can get shadows in the eye-sockets because the light is shining down from above, but a small bounce / catch-light card on the back of the flash will cause it to feather some light forward to fill those shadows.

If it's an E-TTL flash then it'll take care of the power level for you. If it's a manual flash (no E-TTL) then you'll need to work out the power level that works best with the chosen f-stop and just keep the shutter speed below the flash sync speed. Cheating the shutter speed to the slow side helps the camera collect more ambient light (sometimes called "dragging the shutter") so the room won't appear as though it's just lit with flash. E.g. 1/60th would probably be sufficient. If you are trying to freeze motion of performers then you'd want a faster shutter speed (just don't exceed the camera's flash-sync speed -- which in your case is probably 1/200th.)

If the room is heavily lit with incandescent light, then you may want to "gel" the flash. You'd use something like this:

Amazon.com ExpoImaging ROGUEGELS-U Rogue Photographic Design Rogue Gels Universal Lighting Filter Kit Camera Flash Accessories Camera Photo

I use Lee gels that are cut to fit my flashes, but these are generics that have "wings" so they can be wrapped around the front of the flash and just held on with a what basically amounts to a big rubber band.

The kit that I linked has lots of colors (most of which you'll never use). Some colors really are just for "effects", but a number of the color gels are specifically for matching the flash to the color cast of other lighting in the room -- so they really are white balance purposes and not for effects.

I could only find their "universal" kit at Amazon, but at B&H Photo I see they also carry the "color correction" kit (which only includes the color-correction gels but they give you 3 of each instead of 1 of each -- so if you have more than one flash going off they can all be matched to the same color.)

ExpoImaging Rogue Flash Gels Color Correction Kit ROGUEGEL-CC

The "CTO" (Color Temperature Orange) gel (has a orange-peach color tint) colors the light so that the flash puts out a color that roughly matches the color of incandescent lighting. It's much easier to do color corrections if all the lights in the room put out roughly the same color light. If the flash puts out "white" light but the lamps put out a yellow/orange light, then when you try to back-out the yellow/orange from the incandescent lights... the "white" light now starts to turn "blue" (which you probably don't want.) When all the lights match, you can back out the "orange" cast without anything starting to turn blue on you.

TheStupidForeigner · Apr 14, 2015

Wow a lot of awesome ideas, also got my own creativity flowing. Especially love the ideas of slow shutter speeds with rear curtain, cant believe I didnt think of that already

So anyway my plan is to put my manual flash on the stand and get a friend to assist me with it, either back lighting the singer/band or a little in front for side lighting. Im not so good at flare but will try a few shots with heavy flare also. My other TTL flash I will keep on camera with a mini softbox or pointed up with the bounce card up. Will also try a few shots with just ambient as well, at least with the 50mm from a bit far back. Will also look into some way to colour correct if I need to though might be difficult.

I'm also building a list of angles and shots I will try to get:

-From up high maybe standing on a chair is an easy and great idea (thx dennybeall!).
-I'm also thinking to try some super low down shooting up shots of the singer, she's a girl and I know they dont always like that angle but what do you think?
-A tip from a photographer I chatted to at a stage concert over a year ago told me it's good to get the tops of heads in the bottom of the frame with the band as a strong subject so that will be a a few shots.
-Some wide aperture solo portrait style shots

So that should be a good few creative shots and experiment with different lighting for each idea. Anyone have any more ideas? Also, any advice on flare? I never really done that sort of thing before, actually getting really excited and nervous for this show

dennybeall · Apr 14, 2015

You had an idea of super low shots. A better idea is to consider the style of this singer. Does she have a particular action or movement? Capture that using whatever technique captures it best. If that's shooting from a low angle then go for it.

vfotog · Apr 15, 2015

remember, this is a livingroom concert, not a show at a normal venue. These tend to be in someone's private home, so you want to know what all the rules are in advance. The guests may not be ok being photographed at a private event. The host may not be ok with light stands, etc being brought into their home... and having flashes going off and distracting their guests. Normally concerts are photographed without flash, so in someone's livingroom, this could be very annoying. And they also probably will not want you standing on their furniture... sounds like an accident waiting to happen. Honestly, some shots of the performer taken unobtrusively is one thing, light stands and a shot list just doesn't sound right for a livingroom gig.

TheStupidForeigner · Apr 15, 2015

Hmm, you may be right... I think I got a little bit too excited with the idea of shooting an event like one of the pros. I also spoke with the friend and turns out will be a lot smaller room than I expected, although on the other hand will also be an acroyoga performance on the night (google it, they are crazy and awesome).

Anyway, one quick question... Any advice on taking photos of someone who is singing at the right moment? Just did some practice on my girlfriend and in 90% she had a really weird face!

Am starting to think events are harder than I thought