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The first band I shot turned out horrible! But a few weeks in i've learned massive amounts about lighting, ISO, shutter, motion blur, and my trusty D70, pushing it to the limits everytime.

The curve ball is that every band and venue is different, which makes me nervous, because I have to pick my gear and settings and hope for the best.

VR has saved my life.

My method: Stick it Manual, straight to 2.8 for the whole night, VR on, and then find a shutter/ISO combo that looks ok, and judge from the LCD, ignoring the Histogram and Meter.

Anyways, these are my most recent pics that i'm happy with (no doubt i'll hate them in a few months.) Thanks for reading, and feedback always welcome.



smashing the mic on his head






didn't notice the bloody mic stand in the way

i really like all of them, except for the one of the drummer. it looks a bit washed out, i'm guessing you were really pushing the limits of the camera/lens/flash to get that shot.

but yeah, i really liked them, you will probably still like them in a few months time

No flash? I wouldnt be ignoring the histogram. I'd be trying my hardest to get as much over to the right as possible on the histogram with your shots. You want to overexpose or expose to the right as MUCH as possible here because with underexposure brings NOISE

With your shutter, I suggest you set it at your focal length or just a BIT slower. Ie: if your shooting at 50mm with a crop body, then get your shutter to about 1/60sec. Set the ISO/Aperture to whatever will give you that shutter speed.

By doing this, your getting sharp shots because your equal, or close to, your focal length, your NOT raising your ISO higher than you need (ie you use 800 to get 1/60 sec and not 1600 to get 1/120) . With this you'll get heaps of ambient, sharp shots and less noise.

If you cant get your shutter to that, then you need faster glass and if your shooting this stuff at F2.8 and your ISO is maxed, you need faster gear. For this stuff, F1.8 would give you alot more breathing space

Just my 2cents having shot alot of low light stuff

Thanks mate

Yeah the drummer shot has some smoke in the air, and I used selective noise reduction on the background which softened it up a bit.

It was shot at 200mm without flash also (don't have one)

Cheers

I'm impressed - those are pretty reasonable. Band shotting is hard, especially with cheap cameras. That's where the D3/1DIII would help a lot...

Mostly to gigs I take a short f/2.8 zoom and a couple of primes. Nothing over 100mm, although there are times when a 200 would be nice but there's no way I'm paying for a 200/1.8 ($US3k+). As Petteri says, if it's not interesting enough you're not close enough

Thanks guy's..

New/faster gear would be awesome, even a new cam, but it's not an option at the moment, so my D70/70-200 combo is the best I got.

I usually pick my shutter first, starting at 1/80 minimum, then adjust ISO till it looks close when reviewing. My ISO is anywhere from 500-1250 depending on who's where and the lighting on them. Focal is mostly between 100-200mm with VR of course.

Been doing this a few weeks all up, so much more to learn, and all the advice will definitely help me so keep it comin'

James.

I like them all, although the background singer is distracting in #3. I like to hear or imagine the music with band shots. These images are making me think of bands like Nirvana/Pearl Jam, if that's similar to what they play then you've captured them perfectly in my mind's eye. 1,2 and 5 are the best IMO despite the mic stand

Cool thanks mate #3 might be better in selective colour.

This is the kind of stuff they play just to give you an idea:

http://www.myspace.com/thescare

They sound great to me, destined for good things. Not how I had envisaged them.

Great series Pehpsi. The tones, relatively low, noise, colour, composition and subject separatiion are terrific. Well done. Your combo is working well.
cheers
marco