The death of dialup. Concert Series.

[jadin]

A local coffee shop (and by local I mean right below my floorboards) every year has a week long anniversary bash. 20 bands, 6 days, lots of beer / coffee. This is my second year photographing. I only shot 3 days, but got drunk enough for 6.

A couple notes:
- all the shots have a yellow cast from the spotlights. (the owner said the other colors were too dark)
- if you think they are too dark, you need to calibrate your monitor. plain and simple. no really, take 5 minutes and do it proper. alright, alright, some are fairly dark i admit, but if your monitor was calibrated you'd still be able to see them.

The first band I shot was raggae.

They finished their set with a full band cow-bell solo.

The next band was plain old rock.

Next was a hip-hop band.

The last act that night was another rock band.

Whose bassist got very drunk.

A bluegrass band.

Another bluegrass.

I was able to splice two together for a full band panorama.

The last act I shot was rock with a tinge of country.

It wasn't until after looking at my shots did I realize the drummer from the previous band played with this guy as well. Most of which he was improvising, very well I might add.

All said I was disappointed over last years photos. But then I didn't try nearly as hard either. So I have only myself to blame. Hope you enjoyed.

Oh and dialup users? May you rest in peace.

 

[d_the_sandman]

These are really great, IMO.

I do mostly concert photography (because I'm an artist myself) but my shoots in clubs never come out as good as I would want. What's your setup, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[LaFoto]

Whoa. Even my fast connection packs up on these half-way through. Well, I get to see most of them and can tell that you did really, really well, and on my (admittedly quite bright TFT screen) there is not one that is too dark! I really like the one of that bass player under your headline "Next was a hip hop band", even though he is dark, but his hair and profile are nicely outlined by the stage lights. I really like that one!

 

[jadin]

I use a Nikon D1X with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. There's a few things that can vastly improve your low light action shots.

- set your camera to use low(er) contrast. this makes for less variation between bright and dark, which there's a lot of on most stages.

- set your camera to use exposure compensation as far as you feel comfortable with. this allows you to set your shutter speed faster.

- under-expose about a step or so, especially if your shooting raw. this also allows a faster shutter speed and most of the time the light is easily recoverable in editing.

- raising the iso obviously helps as well. find out how high you can go with your camera (or film) before it's too grainy ahead of time. then simply use as high as you feel comfortable with.

- if you use a zoom lens, set the aperture to something that will go across the board when you zoom. (i.e. if the lens will go to f/5.6 while zoomed, but only f/3.5 while unzoomed, set the aperture to f/5.6 so that you don't have to adjust the exposure everytime.)

- take TONS of shots. In this setting most of your shots won't turn out. Out of 400 shots only 100 were in focus. Of those, only about a dozen I consider keepers. Last year I took a lot more shots, and thus had a lot more turn out.

- auto-exposure is pretty worthless in this setting. ideally find an exposure you like and just leave it at that the rest of the night. this allows you to focus on composition and, well, focusing.

Using these steps I was easily able to get 1/60s and 1/100s shutter speeds. More than enough for this type of shooting.

By far the most important thing is to get the exposure and all the little details figured out right away. Then you can spend the majority of your time worrying about composition, drinking beer, and listening to music.

 

[d_the_sandman]

Thanks.......I'm definitely gonna take that advice.

Then you can spend the majority of your time worrying about composition, drinking beer, and listening to music.

You mean I'm NOT supposed to do that before I get to the club?




.......and by "before I get to the club", I mean the last 7 years of my life.

 

[Sand_On_The_Breeze]

Great shots! I enjoy shooting concerts, but mine don't turn out nearly as well as yours. I just posted some up today.

 

[jadin]

One last bump...

 

[JonMikal]

excellent series jadin.
my hats off to the guy on 'fretless' bass.

 

[Force of Nature]

every single one would look better in B&W IMO

 

[NMLeakway]

Awesome series, I too would like to see some in B&W

on a side note, the first time I saw the man in the first picture under Bluegrass (image 21), I thought it was Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel, and almost had a heart attack.

 

[jadin]

As far as b&w is concerned I completely agree. Being in color adds nothing to these shots. (I was disappointed that the owner chose yellow for virtually every act this year.)

Jeff Magnum rocks! I'm a huge fan of pretty much any Elephant 6 band though. My favorites being 'Of Montreal' and the 'Olivia Tremor Control'. For those of you unaware, the Elephant 6 record label is what the Beatles would be like had they started making music in the 1990's / 2000's instead of the 1960's.