Gig photography?

[james_byrne]

My mates band have got a gig coming up and want me to take my camera along. Does anyone have any tips or advice that I can use?

Thanks, James.

[inacar]

From the peanut section, just take lots of photos and protect the camera. Good Luck to you.

[yelvertoft]

Bands will almost invariably be performing in dimly lit conditions, so a fast lens (big maximum aperture) will be an advantage. I see from your gallery that you use a Fuji S5600, which appears to have a max aperture of f/3.2. This is reasonably fast, so you're onto a good start there. In the dimly lit pub (or wherever it is that your mates are playing), you may find that in order to get a reasonable shutter speed, you will still have to bump up the ISO on the camera. This will result in noisy, grainy images, but they can be cleaned up using Neat Image, or similar.

Using the flash will give your pictures a very different feel, and useless unless you are right up the front, the built in flash simply won't have the ooomph for anything beyond about 10ft. It all depends on what kind of image you're after. Motion blur caused by low shutter speeds may well convey the energy of the band, it may just look like you've had a few too many beers.

A good idea would be to go along to a rehearsal session, even if it's not in the gig venue. Experiment with different camera angles, different positions, different compositions. You will learn much, whatever the results. Have a look at magazines showing photos from other gigs, think about the compositions that work. I don't think you'll find many shots taken from a straight ahead position, with the stage horizontal, and the band standing stiffly in the middle.

[jamieZ740]

hi there, i asked the same question with DJ instead of BAND on a forum, here are sum answers i saved : -

"Remember, the smaller the number for aperture, the more light it lets in, shutter is pretty self explanatory...

I work on anything from the following...

AP 2.8 with shutter speed ranging from 1/10 to 1/5
AP 4.0 with shutter at 1/25
AP 4.6 with shutter at 1/2 or 1/25
AP 2.8 with shutter 1/25 and below

Have a look and I'm sure the above will eventually make some sense. Oh and I find nothing but an ISO200 on my camera really does it any justice."

"But if you use flash, try to keep below ~1000 ISO as noise tends to kick in quite noticeably on most D-SLRs around that ISO.
I tent to stick to 800 for most shots but will crank it up above that if trying to take a shot with just ambient light (i.e. no flash)"

"Automatic all the way!! Cant be remembering and messing with settings when ya at da club, thats why they put the auto switch on there! " (always one usefull person!!!)

the top answer^ i wrote down and took it with me (well i actually printed it onto a little card ) But, they came out alot better than my first attempts following the "instructions" if u will.

hope it helps, jamie

[james_byrne]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Much appreciated!

Regards, James.

[jamieZ740]

ive done more on this kind of stuff now.. how did you get on JB?
for anyone else wanting to take in club shots
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...00&ppuser=1465
i feel the smallerst F number possible, iso 800(1600 if its superdark) 1/10 sec and rear sync flash seems to do wonders.

just thought id bring it back up as i seem to have progressed on these club/gig shots

[floydee]

hi james yesterday i had a go at gig photos iv never done anything like this before but here in porthcawl we have an elvis festivall every sept i did,nt realize how hard it is ill attach a couple of thumbnails they were all shot on 400 iso iv only had the camera a month and icoudnt get it to go on 800 iso i had to put them through shadows and highlights on ps twice to get anything acceptable but if i were you i,d have a go as i quite enjoyed it i,m going to sort out the iso today and go and have another go tomorrow allthe best ken powell

[jamieZ740]

this time at 4.5 / 1 sec shutter speed / iso 400 and rear curtain flash

http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...0&limit=recent

and at 1.3 seconds
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...9&limit=recent

use that iso for colour, seems to be very vibrant