Coachella Music Festival : 2013 : General Discussion

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Hey how’s it going everyone.

I’ll be attending Coachella Music Festival again for the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] year running, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] weekend. For those who don’t know, Coachella is an annual event that sees a couple hundred thousand attendees over the 3 days with multiple stages of music playing everything from rap to folk rock, dubstep to punk rock and everything in between. This is the event Tupac came back as a hologram last year.

I have a couple topics to discuss, but if anyone has any questions or comments at all related to Coachella, feel free to ask away.


On the topic of cameras, here is their rule “OK Digital Cameras (Non-Pro) “ What I take this to mean having seen people get denied access with cameras is “No removable lenses” Of course I would love to bring in my D90 and choice of lenses, but that’s not going to happen (maybe**) so I am considering my options. I have pondered how a mirrorless camera such as the Sony NEX series or even the Nikon 1 would be handled. Staff security is not knowledgeable on all camera systems and if I had one small lens attached I think it might get by, even if I had to try different gates.

If I did go mirrorless, anyone have recommendations? I really like the NEX lineup, but it would be shame that I couldn’t benefit from using my Nikon gear with it. With the 1 series from Nikon, the sensors are pretty tiny. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

If I were to purchase a “Non pro” camera or one without detachable lenses, what would be some recommendations say? Say under $500? I am really not familiar with non-dslr cameras.

**So I do nightlife photography here in Phoenix for AZCentral.com/The AZ Republic newspaper. I emailed my editors today to see if they could get me any assignments. It’s a long shot but my fingers are crossed!!


If anyone has any tips or “must get” pics, please feel free to drop a note here

Hopefully I am not the only one going or that is super excited
Thanks!
-Morgan

 

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Morgan, Last year was my first year attending Coachella. I knew about the camera policy (no removable lens).

I brought a Canon G1 X ... that camera had just come perhaps a month or so before Coachella. Canon tried to create a camera with a regular APS-C sensor in a more compact body. They didn't *quite* succeed... but they didn't miss by much. They discovered they needed to increase the body size slightly over their other G series bodies (G series are advanced point & shoots which they target market to people who already own a DSLR but need a camera to take to places where a DSLR is either not permitted or simply not practical.)

When they tried to use a regular APS-C sensor the body simply had to be much too large. They "settled" on making the sensor slightly cropped down. The G1 X actually uses the same base sensor found on the T2i, T3i, T4i, 60D, & 7D (Canon's 18MP sensor) EXCEPT.... it's been slightly cut down. The sensor is 80% of the size of the APS-C sensor. This makes it the LARGEST sensor size on any advanced point & shoot on the market. There are some compact cameras with true APS-C size sensors, but they are technically MILC cameras (mirrorless interchangeable lens camera) and since the lenses on THOSE cameras can be removed, the security at Coachella could technically tell you that you can't bring it in.

The truth is, if you showed up with a MILC camera with just one lens, and it wasn't a particularly large lens, they probably wouldn't guess that the lens is removable. I did find a *few* people who got away with bringing in DLSRs (more on that in a moment.)

Anyway... I settled on the G1 X... it has amazing performance especially for low-light events and it technically fits all the rules at Coachella. I knew I wouldn't have a problem with that particular camera... and I didn't. It also has a hot-shoe if, for some reason, you want to bring a dedicated flash.

Sony has some NEX models with true APS-C and Canon has recently released the new EOS-M (mirrorless / MILC camera). The EOS-M only has a couple of lenses in the line-up to start but can use any EOS lens intended for their DSLR (there's an adapter required, but there's no loss in image quality or functionality.) HOWEVER... if you show up with an EOS-M and a Canon EOS DSLR lens they're obviously going to figure out that it's a "removable" lens and tell you that you can't have it. If you show up with a less ambitious lens, you'll probably get away with it.

I mentioned that I ran into a few people who brought regular DSLRs. One guy had a Canon 5D III. I *assumed* he had a photo pass and was talking to him. He said he picked his 85mm f/1.2L lens because it offers a "modest" zoom without being too large and gambled that since it wasn't a zoom lens they might not figure it out. He ALSO said that each morning, he checked the guards who frisk everyone going from the campground to the festival grounds. He was trying to figure out which guards looked like they probably weren't very camera savvy and also less observant & thorough. Each day he managed to get in and told them the lens doesn't come off.

I ran into one other person who brought a DSLR with a zoom lens. They said their first day they got in with it... the second day they were told to take it back to their campsite. I even ran into one person who brought an extra lens (I think they gave the second lens to someone else in their party so that they weren't carrying two lenses. The second person disguised the lens into something else they were bringing so that when security checked them (as long as they weren't too thorough) they wouldn't notice the lens.

Anyway... it's a risk. I decided to play it safe. I knew the image quality on the G1 X was extremely high (I'd done some evaluations of that camera against my Canon 5D II with L series glass and it actually held it's own... people couldn't tell which camera took which image.) Obviously it doesn't have the performance of a true DSLR, but once it does take the photo the images actually do look impressive.

My other half posted most of the images (actually he took more photos than I did, but we only had the one camera with us.) Here's the links to his albums.
Here's some general festival images
https://plus.google.com/photos/109792156715755708589/albums/5733299438915194321
Here's a night-time performance
https://plus.google.com/photos/109792156715755708589/albums/5733300005712723729

He marked all his Coachella albums "Public" so you should be able to view the images without having him in your circles. There are many more. I found the camera generally performed well even in low light... not always, but mostly. It has the same ISO performance as the rest of Canon's 18MP sensor DLSR bodies (because it's the same base sensor... just cropped down to 80% size). The DIGIC V processor on the G1 X gives it a little bit of an edge as well.

 

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See, you learn something new everyday. Looked up the G1 X and yeah that seems like the perfect fit for the event. The low light performance is very acceptable I would say. Thanks for sharing the albums.

I am pretty sure I saw some non media DSLR's last year, but I was still pretty new to photography and wasn't ready to just cold talk to people about it yet. Not the case anymore haha. Too bad the Sony RX 1 wasn't in my budget for a "second camera".

I did a little more research and found that there are F-mount adapters for the NEX series so I am really leaning towards that at the moment. But yeah, scoping the guards would be objective number one. And they do just send you back to camp so it's not the end of the world.

Are you guys going again this year? I am anticipating the lineup to come out soon. Last year the released it on Monday, Jan. 9th.