Band pictures

Venus · 10 Oct 2006 at 00:30

Hello there.
Well, next week I am supposed to take pictures of a band. To be honest, I have never tried something like that before.
Is there anything I have to take special care off? Or is there something like a 'perfect setting'?
Would be awesome if anybody could give me some advise!
Thank you!

Darryn · 10 Oct 2006 at 00:50

Ive got a similar shoot coming up soon, i intend to try a few differant things out.

I will be taking my 50mm f1.8 to try and get some natural lowlight shots of the band, probably using something like f1.8 ISO 1600 and a fast shutter speed as possible.

I will "try" the 2nd Curtain flash technique used most effectively by cykey here

Sorry im not much help, reading the above linked thread has quite a lot of band photos... so you could gain ideas and inspiration from them.

cyKey · 10 Oct 2006 at 01:14

Wide aperture, high ISO, shutter speed = lens focal length for no flash. If you're using the flash use it as fill in. Be very very careful with the flash as it can destroy the real atmosphere of a gig.

Venus · 10 Oct 2006 at 23:27

Thank you guys! That is really a great help!
Thanks!!!

PureAppleJuice · 11 Oct 2006 at 11:38

Avoid using the flash. I've done a few shots for bands that've ended up on CD covers etc. Flash ruins the atmosphere and if there's a smoke machine it'll reflect off that, and change the stage lightning in a negative way.

titchard · 12 Oct 2006 at 18:00

Venus said:
Hello there.
Well, next week I am supposed to take pictures of a band. To be honest, I have never tried something like that before.
Is there anything I have to take special care off? Or is there something like a 'perfect setting'?
Would be awesome if anybody could give me some advise!
Thank you!

Hey,

It really does depend on the lighting a lot, thats the key, if I often go to bands I take a few practise shots of the support band to get the camera calibrated so to speak, then I just work from there.

Last time I was in the academy 3 in Manchester I managed to get great shots by putting the ISO to 1600, the F Stop to 1.8 and the shutter speed to a (shockingly amazed that it worked!) 300/MS setting, and that managed to get some stunning shots, it was slightly noisey but due to the smokey atomsphere it looked good. I think noise in gig photography adds slightly to the feeling.

A 50MM 1.8 is your friend in gig photography.

Rich

Venus · 12 Oct 2006 at 21:22

Oh thank you so much guys! That is really gonna help me a lot! Might post some of them, after I went there!
Thnaks again!