photographing a band at a gig - Your tips please

[hopeful_builder]

noob with a 550D using the kit lens, only had it a week or so and took some shots in their rehearsal room while they were playing. I struggled to get the light right as it was always using the flash due to poor lighting.

They have a gig at a local pub and I wondered if any of you could share some tips / hints as to how to best photograph them while in poor light conditions please?

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

I shoot pub gigs fairly often.

I tend to shoot in manual mode, and tend to chimp to get my exposure right. If the venue has lighting you will have a well lit person with a dark background. Generally a technically correct exposure will blow out the performer and turn the background gray. Once you get to know a venue you will often have a starting point. You might then have to make minor adjustments depending on how well lit a particular performer is. Make sure you keep the shutter speed above about 1/60th, other wise you'll get blury images, this will depend slightly on your skill and also the performer. You will probably need to go faster for a SKA band who bounce around a lot but will might be able to go down to 1/30th for a blues singer. If use a 17-50 and a 35. If you're using longer lenses you'll need faster shutter times.

I also shoot RAW, it gives me much more scope to process images. I also find coloured lighting causes issues with white balance. Sometimes you'll want to embrace the colour and sometimes you'll want to neutralise it. So RAW and then adjusting the whitebalance later is the way to go.

I virtually never use flash. If I do it's often to get a shot of an audience member or a particular band member who likes to hide in the shadows (usually the bassist). If you shoot through the entire gig using a flash the band will hate you, you'll also end up with really dull looking pictures.

Make sure you set your ISO manually (other wise it's pointless using manual exposure) and make sure you know what is the highest ISO your camera produces usable results with.

If the venue has no lighting don't be afraid to leave the camera in the bag. Don't promise shots unless you know you can deliver something of a reasonable quality. Some times there simply isn't enough light, that's the way it goes.

Lens wise I used a 35mm f1.8 and a 17-50 f2.8. A nice fast lens will make you life easier.

EDIT: http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsned/

 

[Nexus]

Friend of mine is a gig shooter and what I've discovered from him pretty much mirrors the advice above.

You need to forget about using a flash, as you want to be able to capture the lighting and the atmosphere of the venue and a strobe will not show that. Its the kind of situation where high ISO is your friend, so the better noise performance your camera has, the better.

 

[Photogirl]

You need decent lighting to not use flash I hate using flash at a gig but sometimes it's necessary I use an external and bounce it up or use a stolen diffuser. You do need manual so you can master the shutter speed and iso level. Best advice is to shoot for experience so you can master the settings and lighting. If I'm at large venue I shoot from 400-1000 iso at between a 40th and 200th of sec at a low aperture if its a pub that's dark I'd shoot a higher iso with fill in flash.

 

[jorzeh]

High iso low powered flash pref with gels that match the lighting and a low f stop, You will have problems o a kit lens with focus.

 

[Raikiri]

You'll struggle with the kit lens and no flash, they just aren't really fast enough for this kind of thing unless the lighting is very good.

These were both shot on a 30mm f1.4 at around f1.6-f2, 1/80th and ISO 2500.

This one was shoot at the same settings, but with ISO down to around 1000 and the flash fired at 2 stops under. It can work to even out strong backlighting but it's not ideal.

 

[alexthecheese]

How do you find your camera exposes with the flash under-firing? Does it work it out exactly as it should - you'd presumably have a slightly lower ISO, but not as low as if it were to fire on full power?

Not really used the flash in anger on my D5100 - when I use it I have it mostly on auto.

 

[jorzeh]

You don't use full power, Infact you shoot with very very low power something like 1/128 all you're doing is fill flashing them so the background lights are not over exposed as they are normally hitting the back of the Subject, It's just like Strobist work with 3 flashes or so.

 

[Raikiri]

How do you find your camera exposes with the flash under-firing? Does it work it out exactly as it should - you'd presumably have a slightly lower ISO, but not as low as if it were to fire on full power?

Not really used the flash in anger on my D5100 - when I use it I have it mostly on auto.

You should be shooting in full manual, for that one I exposed for the background then used a low power flash for fill.

 

[ElDude]

I'm learning this at the moment. I've done 3 gigs so far and I'm improving slightly each time. Last weekend I got there early to see where I could take photos from. Trouble is that in my area there are no pubs with a raised area or offering plenty of space for the band and anyone taking photos.

I don't use flash but this weekend when I was taking photos of people by the bar, I desperately needed fill flash. I lost a few photos due not having a flash. I've corrected one so the person can see their photo, but frankly I'm mortified its on public display

I'm in no way good enough to offer advice, but what I will say is go there to learn, don't expect it to be perfect first time. Also you can get some fun effects with weird lighting and long exposure


http://www.flickr.com/photos/23645722@N07/8131957147

Not sure if that link works. Flickr is weird with the app so I had to select the email link option it's one of my favourites of the weekend.