Local Band, they are pretty good (C&C)

[nickzou]

D7000, 50mm f/1.4, 24mm f/2.8, ISO1600-2000

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5)

 

[mrstravis]

I'm an extreme noob so take this with a grain of salt. I like the black and white but think that it would be better in color. Simply bc it's a band and so I would expect vibrant colors and energy. Bw says classic to me. Just my noobish $0.02. Great pics btw.

 

[e.rose]

How was the stage lit exactly? Was it *really* that dark or is that just your B&W processing?

It *looks* as though they were using very few pots, or pin lighting or something looking at the spots on the stage and how the lighting hits the dude in #5.

They all look kind of underexposed to me, but there again, I don't know if that's accurate or your B&W conversion.

If it was *really* that dark in there, this would have been one of those few cases where I would have asked the band if it was okay if I used some flash and used a low power to try and bring some more light to the image.... some people would disagree.

My eye goes *straight* to that exit sign in #1. It's super bright, against a super dark background. Same thing with #5.

I'm not a fan of the other mic in the front in #2. I think a close up would have been better from the angle you got #3 at or slightly more left of that, so you would have gotten rid of that mic stand.

#4 - The mic and stand is totally covering him and his face. By all means take shots when he's at the mic, but take them from an angle where the mic doesn't extend all the way up his forehead. It obviously only looks that way in your image because you're shooing up at him, but moving to either side a bit would have fixed that issue. I'm also not a fan of the tilt in that particular one. I don't *hate* tilted shots, but I think there's certain places where it works and places where it does, and it doesn't work here. I think it works better when one of the guys is leaning into what he's playing, or it's some sort of "action" shot, or what have you. Here he's just kinda standing there.

Others may have differing opinions, but those are mine. :sillysmi:

How long have you been shooting bands? I don't think I've ever seen any other band threads from you before... but I've been less frequent to the forum as of lately... so that might be why.

 

[nickzou]

The place was practically black except for the stage. Unfortunately I don't have a speedlight yet and even still I need time to get good at it.

I've posted this band before. But only once. I've only shot this band because I know them.

As for the rest, it was very helpful advice and I'll keep it in mind next time. I tried exposing according to my cameras meter but it seemed overexposed so I just used my best judgment. As for the mics I knew they were going to be a problem, unfortunately it was an open mic night and there plenty of extra mics lying around just in case. It bugs me too.

 

[e.rose]

The place was practically black except for the stage. Unfortunately I don't have a speedlight yet and even still I need time to get good at it.

I've posted this band before. But only once. I've only shot this band because I know them.

As for the rest, it was very helpful advice and I'll keep it in mind next time. I tried exposing according to my cameras meter but it seemed overexposed so I just used my best judgment. As for the mics I knew they were going to be a problem, unfortunately it was an open mic night and there plenty of extra mics lying around just in case. It bugs me too.

Well it definitely takes practice. :sillysmi: And don't feel bad about posting the same band, haha! I use my husband's band for practice all the time because I know I can get away with getting in their faces with whatever I want.

Keep shooting! :sillysmi:

 

[Gaerek]

Checking out the histogram on those images is pretty telling. They all have an enourmous peak very close to the left. There's very little data in the middle, and a smallish peak near the right, where some of the highlights are. What this means is you have a lot of blacks in your image. A few whites, but hardly any midtones (relative to your shadows and highlights). Basically, it's saying these are very underexposed. If you were willing to boost your ISO a bit more, they might have turned out somewhat better. If you've never looked at a histogram before, I'd highly recommend it as a tool.

Here's a great tutorial to learn.

Understanding Histograms

 

[nickzou]

I've looked at the historgrams. I lightened up the image quite a bit and with the D7000 I could've probably lightened it up a bit more. But here's the part I'm struggling with in terms of my photographic learning. What do I do when my meter doesn't agree with what I think the image looks best. I like that the image is high contrast. The first few shots I took I used my cameras meter and it lit up the image like a normal room. But the place was dark, REALLY dark, the lights were harsh and there were harsher shadows. A lot of time I couldn't even see their faces. My question is right now, do I trust how "artistic" intuition or do I trust my light meter?

I first noticed this dilemma when I was just screwing around with my camera in my room. I turned off all the lights except for my TV. Then I used the light meter to set "proper" exposure. I put it on a tripod and aimed it at an object. It took 30 seconds for proper exposure (oh yeah, this was in the dead of night so the only light was my TV and at ISO 100, since well, nothing was moving in the room, I'll take as little noise as I can). When I looked at the result, it looked like I had my lights on. Which is not at all an accurate representation of what the image should've looked like. At least in my mind. In my mind, in that situation, it was not the proper exposure.

 

[e.rose]

I've looked at the historgrams. I lightened up the image quite a bit and with the D7000 I could've probably lightened it up a bit more. But here's the part I'm struggling with in terms of my photographic learning. What do I do when my meter doesn't agree with what I think the image looks best. I like that the image is high contrast. The first few shots I took I used my cameras meter and it lit up the image like a normal room. But the place was dark, REALLY dark, the lights were harsh and there were harsher shadows. A lot of time I couldn't even see their faces. My question is right now, do I trust how "artistic" intuition or do I trust my light meter?

I first noticed this dilemma when I was just screwing around with my camera in my room. I turned off all the lights except for my TV. Then I used the light meter to set "proper" exposure. I put it on a tripod and aimed it at an object. It took 30 seconds for proper exposure (oh yeah, this was in the dead of night so the only light was my TV and at ISO 100, since well, nothing was moving in the room, I'll take as little noise as I can). When I looked at the result, it looked like I had my lights on. Which is not at all an accurate representation of what the image should've looked like. At least in my mind. In my mind, in that situation, it was not the proper exposure.

if you lightened them up "quite a bit" than the original exposures were WAY too dark, because *these* are still very underexposed.

It depends on what metering mode you're using.

If the stage is pretty evenly lit, I tend to use Matrix metering... it's just easier for me especially if the band is super active, but if the stage is spotty, like a lot of the venues I shoot at where one guy is lit hotter than another (and it's not always the singer either :er: ), I'll use spot metering and take my reading off of the guys themselves.

The only thing I'm really concerned about is getting a good exposure on the guys. My histogram is definitely weighted on the dark end, but that's also because, being in a dark room, there are a lot of dark values... HOWEVER, I will still get data in the center and highs, which according to Gaerek's post, it seems like you lacked.

What are you metering off of? *How* are you metering at shows?

In all honesty, I think this was probably just a crappy venue to shoot at, especially without a flash. You have dark dark darks in #5, the dude's face is dark, but his shirt is blown out... which tells me the light spread from whatever they were using for lighting wasn't very wide and it obviously puts a hot spot on his white shirt which is only going to reflect way more than what you can handle while trying to expose for his dark face.

 

[Gaerek]

I've looked at the historgrams. I lightened up the image quite a bit and with the D7000 I could've probably lightened it up a bit more. But here's the part I'm struggling with in terms of my photographic learning. What do I do when my meter doesn't agree with what I think the image looks best. I like that the image is high contrast. The first few shots I took I used my cameras meter and it lit up the image like a normal room. But the place was dark, REALLY dark, the lights were harsh and there were harsher shadows. A lot of time I couldn't even see their faces. My question is right now, do I trust how "artistic" intuition or do I trust my light meter?

I first noticed this dilemma when I was just screwing around with my camera in my room. I turned off all the lights except for my TV. Then I used the light meter to set "proper" exposure. I put it on a tripod and aimed it at an object. It took 30 seconds for proper exposure (oh yeah, this was in the dead of night so the only light was my TV and at ISO 100, since well, nothing was moving in the room, I'll take as little noise as I can). When I looked at the result, it looked like I had my lights on. Which is not at all an accurate representation of what the image should've looked like. At least in my mind. In my mind, in that situation, it was not the proper exposure.

I usually don't shoot in those kind of lighting conditions, but I do know from experience that they can be tough. Your meter only knows what it can see. It's only going to look at shades. Your metering mode is very important. Do you happen to know what metering mode you were in? If you don't, chances are, you were in matrix, which means the meter is going to take an average of the entire scene and make the exposure average out to middle grey in tones. From what I see of your histo, using the somewhat useful, but not quite that accurate Firefox histogram plug-in, it seems it metered you where it was because there were lots of shadows, and lots of highlights. Mid-tones weren't really present. You really clipped a lot into your shadows. Basically, your histogram was opposite what the "model" histogram would look like. Typically, most of your data should be bunched up in the center, with it tapering off at the ends. The "model" histogram will look like the traditional bell curve we all learned to love in statistics class.

So what can you do? There are a few things. First is switch metering mode. A more limited meter mode might be more helpful. Spot or Partial (sorry, can't remember if they have a different name with Nikons, I shoot Canon) would allow you to focus on a specific spot, or small area to get a proper exposure. Which to use is going to depend on the situation, and what you think will give you better results. That will come with experience. It might be a good idea to play with the different metering modes in different lighting situations in order to see what they do. Another thing you can do, if you know that the lighting for the scene is (or will) trick your meter is to use exposure compensation. In this one, you could likely use +1 EV safely, and maybe up to +2. Keep an eye on your highlights though. In those scenes, the bright areas will likely get blown out.

Like e.rose has mentioned, the lighting really sucked there, and that just makes it even more difficult. Next time, try the techniques I mentioned, and focus on getting your exposure correct. If you can nail exposure most of the time, they start focuing on other things. But if your exposure is off, you won't be making good photos. Also, listen to e.rose. She shoots bands all the time, so she'll know a lot more about the acual technique for doing it than I will.

EDIT:

Here's a screencap of one of your shots with the histo next to it. You can see what I mean. Your histo has about 85% of it's data in under 10% of the tonal values. This means you are almost certainly underexposed. In certain types of photography (low key, for example, which your shot isn't) this could be an acceptable histo. But not for the shot there.

 

[e.rose]

Wow, yeah. That's way too underexposed. Since that was the image that Gaerek chose to display the histogram for... let's stick with that one. Do you know what metering mode you were using and what you were metering off of? What was your shutter speed, aperture and ISO for that image?

 

[cvbikeguy]

i love the ones with him yelling (or singing) and the second with the mic.

... i hate his shorts

 

[KmH]

I've looked at the historgrams. I lightened up the image quite a bit and with the D7000 I could've probably lightened it up a bit more. But here's the part I'm struggling with in terms of my photographic learning. What do I do when my meter doesn't agree with what I think the image looks best. I like that the image is high contrast. The first few shots I took I used my cameras meter and it lit up the image like a normal room. But the place was dark, REALLY dark, the lights were harsh and there were harsher shadows. A lot of time I couldn't even see their faces. My question is right now, do I trust how "artistic" intuition or do I trust my light meter?

I first noticed this dilemma when I was just screwing around with my camera in my room. I turned off all the lights except for my TV. Then I used the light meter to set "proper" exposure. I put it on a tripod and aimed it at an object. It took 30 seconds for proper exposure (oh yeah, this was in the dead of night so the only light was my TV and at ISO 100, since well, nothing was moving in the room, I'll take as little noise as I can). When I looked at the result, it looked like I had my lights on. Which is not at all an accurate representation of what the image should've looked like. At least in my mind. In my mind, in that situation, it was not the proper exposure.

So, what metering mode were you using?

 

[nickzou]

Yeah I metering in matrix mode.

 

[e.rose]

Yeah I metering in matrix mode.

That's where you went wrong with this one.

As I mentioned, I use Matrix when the stage is pretty evenly lit... when you have spotty lighting in an otherwise pitch black room... use spot metering. Meter the guys... preferably their faces, unless you've got someone with a white shirt, like above blowing out. Then I try to find a happy medium between his face and that shirt.

Most small clubs don't have moving or changing light, so during the first song, take a few test shots of the differently lit parts of the stage.

There's one venue in particular that I shoot at that I know if I'm shooting anyone in the front center of the stage... that has to be 1 stop darker than on the left side of the stage... and it has to be 1.5 - 2 stops darker than the right side of the stage. Shooting drummers there is a nightmare. Luckily the *only* drummer I've shot at *that* venue has been my husband, so I can get up on the stage and in his face with a flash and he won't be bothered by it...

Spotty lighting sucks, but you have to attack it differently than a well-lit venue.

Matrix is going to lie to you in this situation, because it's trying to take a reading of the whole frame... when the only important parts of the frame is the person in it... not the dark stage, or dark walls behind them... spot metering will only take a reading off of what you have the center of the camera pointed it.

I honestly only use my meter the first song or so in a venue like this, because as I said, I take readings off of the guys in different parts of the stage, and then the next time I go back to a certain part I already know about where I need to be with my settings.

I just takes a lot of practice. :sillysmi:

 

[sierramister]

D7000 can take higher ISO's. And if that band plays for an hour, switch to M and start a rubbin' those dials till you hit your sweet spot!