C&C Kind of... Taking Dead Kennedys Concert Pictures

[Super Simple]

I went to see the Dead Kennedys last night and took some pictures.

I'm VERY new to photography (but not digital imaging), and my skills are pretty much zero.

The pictures didn't really turn out all that great. The concert was indoors and lighting was dim.

I'm using a Nikon D5000 with an AF-S 18~105mm lens. I was about 15 m from the stage, give or take a bit. I only have the built-in flash. (Planning on buying one sometime in the near future, but don't know much about what I need/want.)

Can anyone sort of tell me a bit about what I'm doing wrong, and in the remote case that I'm doing anything right, let me know.

I've posted the pictures here:

Dead Kennedys

I won't post them all here, but here's one that didn't turn out too badly:



Hints?

As you can see, it's far from good.

I tried changing settings and whatnot, and in the end, only the pictures that I took on "auto" were worth anything at all. The others were all miserable failures.

Feel free to tell me what you really think. You won't hurt my feelings. I know they're bad... What I don't know is how I can improve (with the equipment I have, or by buying some more).

 

[bazooka]

You've got a few things working against you here...

The lighting is low level and gelled. On your wide shots, your camera is white balancing to your flash because the backs of everyone's head looks correct. I think the only thing your flash was doing on the stage was creating reflection on the drum kit and screwing with the auto white balance.

You are far away and have to zoom in quite a bit which causes your variable aperture lens to go down to 5.6 on the shot you posted above. This cuts off light which you are in desperate need of. If it's a VR lens (I'm guessing it is based on the sharpness of the non-moving objects on stage), it will help with camera shake, but it will not help with them moving around on stage. Hands and heads in particular will have motion blur.

Your auto white balance is really going to struggle with concert lighting which is almost always mixed... reds/blues/oranges/what have you. It's best to shoot in raw and worry about color later. And your so far away, your flash is pretty much just causing problems.by exposing the foreground. The good news is your ISO is @ 800 so you could have changed it to 1600 and 1/60th (above shot is 1/30th) and gained a noticeable improvement in sharpness, but at the cost of increased noise. In my opinion, it's almost always better to have a sharper shot than less noise.

As far as equipment goes, you could get an f/4 (not variable) zoom, or a 100mm 2.8 prime, or even better depending on your budget.

So options:

Turn up ISO.
Get closer to the stage and zoom out a bit to let more light into your lens.
Get a faster lens.
Get your own lights on stage.

 

[Super Simple]

That helps. Thanks.

Looks like I've got some learning and buying to do.

 

[subscuck]

Low light shooting w/out flash is all about lens speed. As already mentioned, you need faster glass, especially in situations where flash photography is not allowed. Dialing up ISO is fine as long as your cam performs well at high ISO.

BTW, I had no idea the DK's were touring again. Did they do Holiday In Cambodia or Kill the Poor?

 

[Super Simple]

Low light shooting w/out flash is all about lens speed. As already mentioned, you need faster glass, especially in situations where flash photography is not allowed. Dialing up ISO is fine as long as your cam performs well at high ISO.

BTW, I had no idea the DK's were touring again. Did they do Holiday In Cambodia or Kill the Poor?

They did both! For Holiday in Cambodia, they just ripped it up! Completely off-the-hook and the crowd went absolutely wild.

If I ever have a chance to see them again, I won't miss the chance.