John Erin
(K=460) - Comment Date 8/16/2005
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There aren't any ideal settings per se. your camera has a light meter I'm assuming, so you need to use it to measure the light at your gigs.
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P.J. Meisch
(K=13871) - Comment Date 8/16/2005
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Hi,
I can't tell about big concerts with large stages, my experience comes from low lit pub/club stages.
What you need are real good lenses, I don't know the range of apertures your lenses have - but I'd say forget that tele zoom -, I only can tell you what I have and use:
Camera: EOS 20D, set to 800 or 1600 ISO and raw files. Especially when shooting in low light raw is a must, because the postprocessing can get lots of information from dark parts. Another thing with concert photography is the fact that often there is very heavy red light, red colour spoils the images in jpeg compression, if you shoot them raw you can adjust the colour yourself while the information is still in the image data.
As lenses I have the 24-70 2.8 L USM which I haven't tried for concerts yet, I usually take my 3 prime lenses with me: 28mm/1.8 50mm/1.4 and 80mm/1.8
Aperture values I use are normally about 2.0-2.8, sometimes I have to open up to 1.8 or 1.4.
You might like to check out my "music" portfolio
http://www.usefilm.com/browse.php?mode=portfolio&portfolio_id=16413
"session" and "my guitar" are not relevant here, the values for aperture/exposure/iso and lens should be listed in the image data.
Hope I could help you
greetings
P.J.
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 8/17/2005
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With those lenses, forget it.
They're too slow for what you want to do (especially if you can't set your camera to EI 3200 or higher, in which case you're loosing a lot in noise).
To get real results you're going to need very fast professional lenses.
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Ian Miller
(K=9190) - Comment Date 8/17/2005
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Thx John for your post.
Checked out your photos too, nice collection, especially @Westside@. I think one would get arrested over here for doing WHATEVER he's doing to a dummy lol.
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Ian Miller
(K=9190) - Comment Date 8/17/2005
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Many thx for the VERY helpful comments P.J. I shall hopefully act on the bits I didn't know before. Isn't this a cool site for almost anything to do with photography>>>?
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Ian Miller
(K=9190) - Comment Date 8/17/2005
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Thx Jeroen for your comments , greatly appreciated. I like your pic of "Feeding Time", great blues.
Ian
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Stan Pustylnik
(K=6768) - Comment Date 8/18/2005
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Jan, P.J. Meisch is absolutelly right!!!! If you would like to improve in low light photography, buy fast prime lenses. I hope you know teory, and know that initial f/1.4 meens that amount of light reaching sensor through this lens is 1.4 times smaller then original. with f/2.8 amount will be 2.8 times smaller.....
Primes are expensive. But they rule....
By the way, very early morning colors are so tender and weak, that f/3.5-5.6 will never be able to collect enough light to produce quality image at ISO 400 and 30 sec.
50mm f/1.7 will work perfectly is similar situation with ISO 200.
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Ian Miller
(K=9190) - Comment Date 8/19/2005
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Major help Stan, PROPER JOB! (Thanks)
Ian
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Helen Bach
(K=2331) - Comment Date 8/20/2005
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"...and know that initial f/1.4 meens that amount of light reaching sensor through this lens is 1.4 times smaller then original. with f/2.8 amount will be 2.8 times smaller....."
That's not quite correct. The amount of light passing through a lens at f/1.4 is half that at f/1, and the amount at f/2.8 is an eighth of that at f/1, or a quarter of that at f/1.4.
Best,
Helen
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Ian Miller
(K=9190) - Comment Date 8/20/2005
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Thx for that Helen.....I think? When it comes to the techie stuff, I'm a Numb Nut. I am VERY keen to learn but things SOMETIMES need to be explained a little simpler. Thx anyway.
Ian
Ps. When are we going to see some of YOUR work?
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Helen Bach
(K=2331) - Comment Date 8/20/2005
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Ian,
I've uploaded one of my snaps - I'm new here so I'm just getting the feel of the place.
For gigs I typically use a 35 mm f/1.4 or 28 mm f/2 and a 75 mm f/1.4 (on full-frame 35 mm, using two cameras). With your 20D a 50 mm lens would be in the same short telephoto range as the 75 mm is with full-frame. It happens that 50 mm prime lenses are nearly always superb value for their quality.
The Canon f/1.8 is around 70 bucks, the f/1.4 USM is four times that. f/1.8 is only two-thirds of a stop 'slower' than f/1.4, and often you will not want to use f/1.4 because of the limited depth of field. I'd regard anything from f/2 and faster as a 'fast' lens.
You already have 50 mm covered with your zoom lenses so you will know how you like that focal length.
Typically at a gig I would shoot at around f/1.7 to f/2 and between 1/15 and 1/125 using 1600 speed film, but there is so much variation in lighting levels that it is difficult to generalise. The first gig I shot was a Jethro Tull concert back in '73. For that I used EI 160 film with an f/2.5 lens and shutter speeds of around 1/30. Lots of light!
Best,
Helen
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Ian Miller
(K=9190) - Comment Date 8/22/2005
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Hi Helen,
Major thx for all that useful info. I shall hopefully digest it and use it next time I'm out, or may even try it low light at home to practice. May I add you to my Buddies list? Well, you're on the way there now lol.
Thx again, off to see your photo now.
Ian
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