The basic camera settings I use for concerts

bigtwinky · Mar 18, 2015

I routinely maintain a blog with tips, shows, and so on. One of the questions I get the most are what settings I use.

There is no "one size fits all" for settings, but here is what I found works!

Hopefully it helps some of you de-mystify concert photography

If you have questions or what not, let me know!

rudimaes · Mar 19, 2015

Sorry, but where are the tips?
Rudi

Braineack · Mar 19, 2015

I'm assuming the link back to his blog was deleted

waday · Mar 19, 2015

Why not post some of the tips here on the forum?

Braineack · Mar 19, 2015

but that wouldnt drive traffic to his blog.

bigtwinky · Mar 23, 2015

I didn't know of the article posting policy put in place... here are some of the settings described in the blog post

You just won't get the pretty pictures and random tips haha, but still hopefully useful information for you all

1- Camera mode (manual vs aperture priority)
The first thing you need to work on is shooting in (M)anual mode to have full control of your camera. With ever changing conditions, you want to make the decisions and not rely on your camera. While daunting at first, learning how your camera works is key to getting the shots you want.

I know of some photographers who started off shooting in Aperture Priority, where you control the lens opening (aperture) and let your camera decide the shutter speed. This can work well in a concert, and it is probably a good starting point while you progress into full manual control.

2- Spot metering
In order to establish what will be a properly exposed image, you tell your camera how it should meter the light in the scene. There are various options where the entire scene is considered, part of the scene or just a small point.

I am almost always in spot metering (unless I am being creative, like the shot below). I put my metering point on the artist’s cheek and get my reading from there. Think about it… what is important to get perfectly exposed? The artist’s face (yes, this can change, but in 90% of your images, you want to show the artist). So no matter what the light tech decides to do, you are aiming at properly exposing the face.

In concerts, the lights usually don’t light up the entire stage. Going with other modes, such as the entire scene being considered, the camera will see a whole bunch of black areas where there is no light and compensate for this, often giving you wrongly exposed images.

3- How wide to set that aperture?
The answer, when you start off, is simple… as wide as you can go. You want to soak up as much light through that lens, so you are aiming at an f/2.8 or better. Zoom lenses that are a constant f/2.8 are the bread and butter of a concert photographer. However, some photographers prefer to use prime lenses, the ones that don’t zoom. They are usually better in image quality, lighter and more importantly, cheaper.

This is where having a nifty 50 is often referenced. A 50mm lens is a staple for all photographers, the f/1.8 being the cheapest at $120 CAD. When the light is bad (which it will often be in small venues), that extra light coming into the lens will help you get faster shutter speeds or a lower ISO.

4- Fast shutter speeds
Bands vary in intensity on stage. Some bands can be very calm and barely moving, while others can be jumping all over the place and running from side to side. So you you want to get a shutter speed as fast as you can to freeze the action. My sweet spot is 1/200 for a standard band. You will want to crank that up to 1/320 – 1/500 to get perfect freeze in a jump shot, and you can go down as low as 1/60 for bands that are more stationary.

-> If you are stuck shooting a fast moving band with slower shutters, aim to get images at the apex of the mouvement. It is purely physics. When a guitarist (or even a basketball player or even you) jumps, once they hit the highest point right before coming down, their mouvement stops.

5- ISO
The ISO determines the sensitivity of your … uh… sensor to light. The higher the amount, the more sensitive it is, the faster shutters/wider apertures you can use. The drawback? Image noise. I rather get a noisy image that is frozen than a blurry clean image. So don’t fear cranking that ISO.

Most modern cameras can handle ISO 1600 very well, with little noise. Professional cameras can handle ISO 6400 with little to no noise. So chose an ISO setting that will allow you to get the shutter you need.

6- Auto white balance
If you are shooting in RAW, you can tweak white balance later. With the ever changing light colours, I always shoot in auto white balance and adjust later.