If you love music just as much you love photography, why not combine the two and start taking photos of your favorite band? Concert photography is very different to any other types of photography and there are a few things you need to be aware of. These tips will help you get started.<\/p>\n
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If you’re able to get in touch with other concert photographers, it’s a big bonus. Many of them will be happy to help you out and give you their best tips on how they achieve great results.<\/p>\n
\nGET THE RIGHT LENSES FOR THE JOB<\/h4>\n
In virtually every concert setting, one of the most challenging factors is the amount of light you will be working with. \u00a0Most of the time flash is completely prohibited, so you need to be prepared to gather as much light as possible with fast glass. \u00a0The lenses I always take for concert photography are my Canon 24-70 2.8, Canon 70-200 2.8, and I actually also usually pack my 100mm 2.8L Macro. \u00a0A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to get a press pass to photograph my favorite band (Phish,) and for that show, I also rented a 16-35 2.8 on the advice of Nick Page. \u00a0There were only four press passes issued for the show, so we had enough room in the photographers to set out our lenses. \u00a0One of the other guys noticed my 16-35, and I noticed his 15mm fisheye, so we traded. \u00a0The next time I head out to a big rock show from the pit, I will definitely take both the 16-35 AND the fisheye.<\/p>\n
TRY TO GET ACCESS TO REHEARSALS<\/h4>\n
During rehearsals, it is sometimes possible to arrange access directly to the stage. \u00a0With proper lighting and angles, you can often take superb images of a performer, and it will appear as though they are in performance, even when they are not. \u00a0The photo above was taken during a run-through just prior to the actual concert. \u00a0This particular student was located in the middle of the stage, where there is no possible way to get a good photograph of them performing during the a concert. \u00a0Having access to the stage let me set up this shot. \u00a0There was a student directly in front of him, who\u2019s back was in the original shot. \u00a0Content Aware fill in Photoshop instantly removed the shoulder and music stand that were in the shot, and even extended the bow to fill the empty space. \u00a0That minor edit which took only 10 seconds in Photoshop made a vastly stronger image.<\/p>\n
DON’T THROW AWAY OVER-SATURATED PHOTOS FROM STRONG CONCERT LIGHTING<\/h4>\n
Stage lighting can be extremely aggressive and hard to deal with in terms of producing a visually pleasing image. \u00a0In the image above, you can see how saturated and over-done the blue was from the stage lighting. \u00a0But rather than consider the photo as useless, it is extremely usable as a black and white image. \u00a0Another possibility is to go into the HSL layer, and just pull down the blues until they are less overwhelming. \u00a0The saturation can be pulled down as well. \u00a0The greatest word of advice, though, is to use the incredible power of post-processing to bring back images that might at first glance appear to be \u201cthrow aways.\u201d<\/p>\n
DON\u2019T AUTOMATICALLY OPT FOR YOUR MOST OPEN APERTURE!<\/h4>\n
One thing I immediately learned when Phish started their performance is that a big-time rock band has a LOT of lights. \u00a0I was taking photos of the stage prior to the concert, and I was set at ISO 8,000, f2.8, and could get down to 1\/200th of a second. \u00a0As soon as the band took the stage, and the light show started, I was instantly blowing everything out. \u00a0I had spoken to the house photographer, and he had shot the night before, and he warned me ahead of time that he ended up at ISO 1250. \u00a0So, as soon as the concert started, I immediately went to his setting. \u00a0It really paid off. \u00a0Another concert photographer I had spoken to offered the advice to never open up as wide as possible. \u00a0His reasoning was that you need at least some depth of field in order to allow for the subtle movement of musicians, and you want the guitar players\u2019 hands AND faces in focus, and at 2.8 or lower, the depth of field could be so shallow that you would have one sharp, but the other starting to be out of focus. \u00a0Although the stage light adjusted quickly and wildly, while set at ISO 1250, I could leave my aperture at 4.5, and still have a relatively fast shutter speed.<\/p>\n
TURN YOUR BLINKIES ON!<\/h4>\n
This advice came from Nick Page. \u00a0I have to give a shout-out to Nick for all the help he gave me before I went to this shoot. \u00a0He answered a number of questions on the Improve Photography Facebook Group, but then he answered even more when I reached out with some additional questions on settings. \u00a0All of his tips were amazing, but I think the one that I appreciated the most was to turn on the \u201cblinkies,\u201d so that you can see blown out highlights when looking at an image on the back of the camera. \u00a0The goal here is to expose so that just the very slightest areas of extreme lighting are blown out, but the overwhelming majority of the lighting is not. \u00a0This works out wonderfully, because your camera is actually showing you a mini jpg of the photo on the LCD screen. \u00a0There is less dynamic range there, so those tiny bits of over-saturation will be just fine in your RAW file. \u00a0We all shoot RAW, correct? \u00a0Yes\u2026 of course we do!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read the full article with even more tips over at Improve Photography.<\/a><\/p>\n
Source: Improve Photography<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"