Lesson in preparedness - Last night concert shoot

[Nikonfreak]

I wanted to post this. Shot a concert last night at the American Airlines Arena. I was expecting to shoot it for a lighting company, but ended up being hired to shoot the event for the artist himself.

Interestingly enough, where I'd normally take a whole load of gear, I got lazy...expecting to shoot the typical lighting shots and that was it. I found myself in a tough spot. Normally, most of the fast f/2.8 lenses I had would have worked as I'm used to the lighting provided by this particular lighting company and I know what to expect... so I thought.

Well, they only provided the equipment for the lighting and another group, hired by the artist, programmed the lighting effects. Most of the show was so dark that with an f/2.8 lens wide open, and at ISO 1600, the best shutter speed I could manage without underexposing would be 1/20 to 1/40.... Of course, no flash permitted... especially when shooting on stage.

Had I been the really prepared one... as I normally am... I would have had a 50mm f/1.8 and the 35 f/2 with me... kicking myself for such small lenses and I didn't carry them with me. So all night long I played the balancing act of high ISO, noise, and shutter speed fast enough to avoid blur but slow enough to get a useable image with the lens wide open..

The artist's manager wanted images of him interacting with the crowd as well so that presents a whole new challenge. Getting the artist on stage, lit up and the much dimmer crowd... if you expose for the crowd, you blow out the performer... if you expose for the performer, the crowd gets really dark... so you play a little slow shutter game.

After a while, the other photographer said screw it and whipped out a flash. I should have followed suit, but I wanted to stick by the rules. It'll probably hose me because I'm not happy with them, but truthfully, they aren't bad, but you go crazy knowing that it's not the best you can do. Gotta drop the images off to the manager this morning... so they are straight out of the camera and I've selected the best ones. Out of about 700 images, I probably have dropped the best 350-400 on 3 CD's for them.

I'll post a few in a while... gotta run out to drop off the disks.

Julio

[cyclohexane]

Ouch. Sounds like it was a hell of an experience. At least you had autofocus and digital... LOL

One time I managed to leave all my autofocus lenses at home- only had a 105mm f/1.8 AIS and 20mm f/2.8 AIS.... and I was asked to shoot a pick-up softball game during lunch. My D2H's autofocus was useless; thank heavens for the nice, big viewfinder. Another time, I was shooting a prom with my FM2 and 20mm to move around easier, and... I only brought 400 film, when 800 or 1600 film and a faster prime were needed. I thought "Naaahhh, they're plenty of lights by the DJs... I can just get creative with angles or something." I got a few shots with a friend's Rebel XT though, 1/15 second, ISO 1600 (Canon's sensitivity is a partial stop higher, too) wide open with his kit lens.

[eClix]

Ill talk to you about preparedness lol. Saturday on my to get my stuff, on the highway there was emergency people everywhere right. I was thinking I would be able to get anything decent right? Think again. As we passed, straight across from the accident there was nothing but a clear view. So there was a completely crumpled, flattened car with it's bottom right against a tree with all these fire fighters and emergency people at it. We're talking premium portfolio spot news shot and I wasn't ready .

[Nikonfreak]

Equipment preparedness... found this trunk backstage... See, you never know what kind of equipment you'll need at a show!

Be prepared.

[Nikonfreak]

Here's a shot that shows some of what I had to deal with. It was very dark. The company that I was used to doing business with hadn't programmed the lights so it was darker than expected and when it was illuminated, they used lots of blue lighting, which doesn't give you much to work with and shooting from the stage sometimes caused blue halos around the performers when shot at certain angles.

[Nikonfreak]

Here's another shot that basically demonstrates how dark it was.... extremely low light. I should have brought the 50 f/1.8 and the 35mm f/2... an 85mm f/1.4 would have really been nice as well. You just never know... pays to have the small lenses at least. I would have made due.

Here's a shot at 52mm with the Nikon 28-70 f/2.8 AF-S, ISO 800, 1/50 @ f/2.8, Manual mode on the Nikon D200

[Nikonfreak]

Another one...

This was challenging because I was doing it with the 70-200 VR... Let me say... VR can help you.* I leaned up against the rails and fired away.

1/50 sec at f/2.8 @ 200mm,
shutter priority
ISO 1250...

talk about challenging!* VR baby!* VR... it may not be everything... but sometimes it's really something incredible, especially on this lens.

Julio

[Nikonfreak]

And even the 12-24 f/4 Nikkor came out for some shots from on the stage itself.

1/20 @ f/4 @ 13mm @ ISO 1250

Nikon D200
Nikon 12-24 f/4

All said, it was a very difficult shoot. I wish I would have had faster glass. This was truly one event where the 200 f/2 would have come in very handy. I could have done the entire concert with the 200 f/2 except for the wide shots. I'd have been a happy camper too.

I had the 300 f/2.8 with me the whole night and never needed it once. There was no reason to use it and boy would I have rather left it at home and lugged the fast primes. Live and learn. Hopefully I'll get some positive feedback on the images. I may be more critical of myself than the customer would be.

Julio

Other images from the concert are up or will be up soon on my pbase.com site.

www.pbase.com/loansharkx

[Max@Home]

well...

...given the circumstances and your limitations I think you showed up with some pretty decent pics

...*and* a lesson learned, win-win IMHO

..and thanks for the 'reminder'

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

[epatsellis]

Of course you do realize that way back when, when we had to load "rolls" of film, getting 30 or so good shots out of a half dozen rolls was a good gig.



erie

[cyclohexane]

Those look pretty good. Good job.

The 400 film gig I did was more or less completely blown...

[ScottBuckel]

Julio - you may not have been a prepared as you would have like, but you got some very good images from the shoot that really give a feel for what the concert was like. Like I have suggested to many in the past, it is not the equipment it is the person behind the camera.

Scott

[Nikonfreak]

Originally Posted by epatsellis

Of course you do realize that way back when, when we had to load "rolls" of film, getting 30 or so good shots out of a half dozen rolls was a good gig.



erie

Hard to remember back to the film days I guess. I don't think I've loaded a roll of film in about 4 years. I guess it's interesting that the expectations seem to be somewhat higher for ourselves. LOL

Michael: I can't touch ISO 400 unless all the house lights come on.

Thank you Scott.. I appreciate that. We tend to be harder on ourselves.

Julio