This past week, the CameraPorn crew was lucky enough to get permission to shoot the performances of Writtenhouse and the Eric Mcfadden Trio at the Viper Room in Hollywood. Being that it was our first opportunity to shoot a concert, I thought it might be valuable to share my experience and methods, and some of the hot photos.
After this experience, the first thing I want to say is that I envy and look up to concert photographers. Not only is it a seriously fun subject to shoot, its incredibly difficult. Out of over 400 shots, I came out with only about 35 keepers, and probably less than 10 of what I would consider “quality” shots. Shooting in low, rapidly changing light via the multitude of moving, multicolored, overhead spotlights in combination with the moving targets of high-energy musicians proved to be one of the most challenging shooting situations I’ve found myself in to date. Luckily and despite the challenge, after some tweaking of settings and the use of quality equipment, we were able to come out with some excellent shots.
The Challenges
- Low, rapidly changing light
- Moving subjects
- No tripods or monopods allowed
- No flash allowed
The Equipment
- Canon 30D
- Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS
- Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L
- Canon 50mm f/1.4
The Settings
- ISO 1600
Although the 30D does allow an ISO 3200, I find the graininess and noise in this setting to be a little too intense to manage. Anything lower that ISO 1600 would have been way to slow to get any sharp shots. - Aperture Priority mode set at a large aperture
While using either the 70-200 or 24-70 I left the aperture at f/2.8, the widest available on those lenses to let the most possible light into the lens. When shooting with the 50mm f/1.4, I shot at either f/1.8 or f/2 only because at f/1.4 this lens has a tendency to capture soft, hazy images wide open. - High Speed Drive Mode
I set the Drive mode to high speed, because I figured, my best chance to capture sharp images at such low shutter speeds was to take bursts of images and hope for the best. - AF Mode - AI Servo and One Shot
I used AI Servo (continuous focusing, used frequently for sports photography) when the musicians were jumping around and One Shot when they were relatively still. - Multi-Controller Direct Focus Point Selection
AKA custom function 13 for all you 30D users, this allows the multi-controller “joystick” to the upper right of the LCD to select focus points quickly, with one motion. This is generally where I keep my focus point selection setting becasue it is the fastest method for chooing an AF pount.
The Photos
- Rygood’s set on flickr - click here
- Chl’s sets on flickr - 1 2
As I mentioned, the challenges included low, rapidly changing lighting combined with moving targets. The way we overcame these challenges really just comes down to making some basic settings changes, using fast lenses and a little bit of luck. Even with the proper settings, blurry photos were common, because of the relatively slow shutter speeds (sometimes as low as 1/30th), hence the low amount of keeper shots.
All in all, it was an excellent photo first experience, and one I hope to be able to try again soon. Any bands out there need photographers with great equipment who work for drinks and credit? Hit up the CameraPorn crew 
Rygood’s favorites
Also check out our latest Concert Photography Post
Thank you very much for this article. I loved it so much that I posted the link on facebook within a couple of photography groups that I belong to. Oh and I also added you as a contact on flickr
One question if I may, could you plaese explain what would be the equivelent of the “Multi-Controller Direct Focus Point Selection” on the 350D (sorry that’s the one I have for now)?
The Multi-Controller Direct is a Custom function that switches the control over the auto focus points to the joystick-like controller positioned to the upper right of the lcd on the back of the camera. This controller generally is used when reviewing photos on the lcd, after zooming to navigate around different areas of the photo. When you activate it to select focus points, it directly selects a focus point corresponding to the direction you press. This make focus point selection faster becasue you dont have to press the focus point button first located on the extreme top right of the back of the camera, which by default activates the wheel control to cycle through focus points.
I hope this helps… if not heres a link to the instruction book for the 30d that might explain it a little better than me.
The 30D Manual can be downloaded here and the multi-controller is explained on page 77 and 172.
I have done something like this outdor, at the begining light was quite enought, but when it started to become dark it was quite hard to take a good photo at low light condition, but in the fact with lens which has 2.8 it’s quite easy. I done it with my Canon EOS 350D , with ISO at max 800, and Lens Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS USM.
My pictures you can see here:
http://peech.net/pas/ikrs2007/
Waiting for comments about them - do you like or not
Great tips for something that not a lot of people get to do very often. I sure wouldn’t mind giving it a shot, but I think I’d need some faster lenses first. I’ve got a 105mm macro at f/2.8, but I think I’d like to have something around f/1.8 or even f/1.4 — my Konica Minolta probably doesn’t perform as well at ISO1600 as the Canons do.
@Peech
Very nice. Great colors and sharpness. Seems like you were lucky enough to have better light than we had at The Viper Room, which would account for the lower ISO speed. It would be interesting to see the EXIF data to compare shutter speeds.
@Brian Auer
The 30D does do a fairly decent job at high ISO, though I do make use of the noise reduction tools in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which works wonders on high ISO shots. The 105mm Macro would definitely take some awesome shots. Most of mine were shot with the 70-200 f/2.8 L IS, and though there were a lot of unusable shots, I came out with a decent number of keepers.
rygood I have exams at the moment but maybe later I’ll put pictures in flickr or service like that to see the EXIF data
Hi Again!
I registered at flickr.com few days ago now you can try to view my pictures and look at EXIF data as i promised!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peech/sets/72157600354451033/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peech/sets/72157600354110908/
second pics i like more!
Ok - hope you will find some hopeful info!
Good Luck!
@Peech
Again awesome shots man. Just took a look. You had some respectable shutter speeds at around 1/200th or so at ISO’s between 400 and 800 for the darker shots. That info would lead me to think you definitely had a serious light advantage over what we had at the Viper Room, which is a very dark place. Either way, awesome shots. I guess that just goes to show that lighting in any situation can be different, and as long as you have the right equipment and know-how, you can get the shot. Next time I shoot a concert, I hope the light is a little better
Thanks again for your feedback and participation!
@rygood
You’r welcome!
I realy can’t judge about Viper Room cause i don’t know what’s light condition in it! And i hope you’ll get better light and of course shots next time!
Actualy it was my first time when i done something like shooting concert and stuff
ok, good luck to you!
Excellent photos. I had my first crack at concert shots a few months ago. It wasn’t easy, but it was a lot of fun. Can’t wait to try again.
You can check out my first attempts at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbailey/tags/northgatemusicfestival/
nice work ben! me likey
i also like your site, some good stuff on there.
Hey,
As a frequent concert photographer, there are better settings than the ones you described above for shooting concerts.
My equipment:
Canon 400D
Canon 50mm f1.8
Canon 85mm f1.8
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6
My settings:
AV-shooting (aperture priority)
ISO 400 (all above is to much grain for me)
continuos focus
multishoot mode
one point focus.
under compensate around 1 full stop. (a bit more or less according to the light circumstances)
What I have experienced is the following, you don’t need to burst, because most of the time only the first shot will be in focus.
Use the light that is available, meaning, take a slightly different angle and try to get a light that illuminates the back of the artist.
Always focus on the face either the face or the mounth. If that doesn’t work use the microfoon ball to focus, it stands still most of the time and is mostly reflective so you get a better light reading.
Pick your shots at the beginning or the end of a song, the light is mostly better during those moments. If the artist is very energetic so will the light, use it to your advantage. Figure out the sequence of light by counting as it repeats itself.
Focus, count, shoot, you’ll have a nicely lighted photo with almost no blur.
Take pictures as close as you can get.
I manage to have shutter-times of 1/125th with the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6.
Play a little with the settings, if it is too dark to get a good shot, use manual mode and go for shutter-times of 1/50 with wide aperture.
Slower speeds than 1/25 give you motion blur, but all above should be fine most of the time.
Hope this helps. Check my concert pics on http://www.flickr.com/photos/loneblackrider/collections/72157594588583825/
Greetz have fun shooting and remember practice makes you better.