Concert photography

[abbingtonmatt]

You can have a look at Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS 8MP Camera .A decent deal for the Gold one is $179 instead of $250.

 

[ukcatfan]

Just a thought, but if you need to make sure to not draw attention, be sure it has an optical viewfinder. Many p&s cameras do not have one anymore. One more thought on brand. Many people consider Kodak as one of the worst low light performers. Try to find a camera with a larger image sensor. The basic size is 1/2.5". Look for something in the 1/1.6" - 1/1.7" range. That should help with a little lower high ISO noise.

 

[Disnewbie_N_MO]

The concert will start with the sun up and end after dark. Does it matter if I leave the lens hood on during the night shots? Also, with alot of light behind the subject, is there any advice or tips anyone could give me. I just bought a Sony DSC-H50. For now I'm just shooting everything with the "Easy" setting. I wanna get into the manual settings, but have no clue what to do. I guess what I'm asking is, will I be alright on the easy setting? I'm open to suggestions. I really wanna unlock the potential this camera has to offer.

 

[thomas998]

at the very least I think I would look at the manual and find out how to change the metering of the camera. If you are going to go with a auto mode, then you need to at the very least set the camera to "spot meter"... the default will have the camera trying to balance the exposure for the whole scene... unless close enough that the whole scene is all the band group or whatever filling the whole viewfinder, you will end up with overexposed picture of the band group/whatever.

I would also do some test shot of various ISO settings. You likely need to go with the fastest one that doesn't look to noisy. I would just say fastest but in most cameras the fastest is so noisy that it is sometimes worthless.

 

[dr_zero]

Any shots from the concert?

 

[Disnewbie_N_MO]

Any shots from the concert?

None worth showing off. When the sun went down, everything looked orange and really noisy. We always go see the Trans Siberian Orchestra every year. That's one I want to have this camera figured out for.

 

[dr_zero]

None worth showing off. When the sun went down, everything looked orange and really noisy. We always go see the Trans Siberian Orchestra every year. That's one I want to have this camera figured out for.

Well if you want to share some maybe folks can make some suggestions on how to make the most of poor light conditions or maybe to have some fun with the orange

My daughter dances and one year they were all pink or red from the poor lighting it took alot of time to try and tweak the colors to salvage some so I know what you mean.

The Trans Siberian Orchestra sounds cool!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Orchestra

 

[MICKEY88]

My daughter dances and one year they were all pink or red from the poor lighting it took alot of time to try and tweak the colors to salvage some so I know what you mean.

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generally speaking stage pictures that are red in color, aren't a result of poor lighting, it has to do with the color temperature of the lights used..

 

[Disnewbie_N_MO]

Alright, as embarressing as this is. I wanna learn how to shoot professional style photos. So here is is with the details below it.

File Name: DSC00167.jpg (rename)
Taken With: SONY DSC-H50
File Size: 250 kb - 800x600
Taken On: 2008:06:14 20:59:44
Camera Make: SONY Camera Model: DSC-H50
Date/Time: 2008:06:14 20:59:44
Resolution: 800 x 600
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 30.1mm
Exposure Time: 0.025 s (1/40)
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO Equiv.: 400
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: program (auto)

 

[dr_zero]

generally speaking stage pictures that are red in color, aren't a result of poor lighting, it has to do with the color temperature of the lights used..

What I meant was they had red and pink gels in and everyone looked out of color.
They had not planned well and had left the gels in from a previous show.

OT:
Different bulbs do affect color when I was a kid I noticed that at funerals the light was always kinda pink to make people look more natural. (weird I know)
Fish tanks also use different lights for a more natural look same thing with make up in the bathroom and in the hospital it affects healing and diagnosis.

 

[MICKEY88]

What I meant was they had red and pink gels in and everyone looked out of color.
They had not planned well and had left the gels in from a previous show.

OT:
Different bulbs do affect color when I was a kid I noticed that at funerals the light was always kinda pink to make people look more natural. (weird I know)
Fish tanks also use different lights for a more natural look same thing with make up in the bathroom and in the hospital it affects healing and diagnosis.

it's still more a matter of white balance or color temperature, than it is tweaking colors in the photo..

 

[alan]

Here's what I do when I shoot stage productions - I run a website at http://www.stagepics.co.uk

1. Shoot RAW and expect to post-process
2. Set the ISO high - it's easier to ameliorate noise in post-production than it is to ameliorate camera shake or motion blur
3. Use Aperture Priority mode (Av in Canon cameras) and set the aperture as wide open as your lens will go (unless you have a stonkingly wide lens, in which case you can start thinking about trading aperture for depth-of-field)
4. Shoot slightly wider than you want the picture to be. Dancers can move very fast and it's easier to crop in post-production than it is to fake up a hand or a foot
5. Shoot lots of pictures - if you get a 10% keeper rate you're doing just fine
6. Enjoy!

This may not be all of it, but it's a good place to start.

regards,
/alan

Here are a few of my favourites from StagePics:

1. The Boy Friend, EMT, Edinburgh

2. Same show

3. Same show again

4. The Secret garden, The Melodramatics, Edinburgh

5. Same show

6. The Best Little *****house In Texas, Theatre Guild, Glasgow

7. Jekyll and Hyde, Limelight Productions, Dunfermline

8. A Chorus Line, EMT, Edinburgh

 

[dr_zero]

it's still more a matter of white balance or color temperature, than it is tweaking colors in the photo..

Whatever dude Im not going to argue with you over a photo and a scene you have never seen before. I was speaking about my situation only.

 

[handicap18]

it's still more a matter of white balance or color temperature, than it is tweaking colors in the photo..

Whatever dude Im not going to argue with you over a photo and a scene you have never seen before. I was speaking about my situation only.

He is correct. With RAW files you have the ability to change the white balance. Even if they used jells with the lights you can adjust the temperature of the lights in post processing to make it look more "normal". Then you can adjust the saturation and color balance as well.

Concerts always seem to use weird colored lights, yet with a little white balance tweaking you can make corrections.

 

[dr_zero]

He is correct. With RAW files you have the ability to change the white balance. Even if they used jells with the lights you can adjust the temperature of the lights in post processing to make it look more "normal". Then you can adjust the saturation and color balance as well.

Concerts always seem to use weird colored lights, yet with a little white balance tweaking you can make corrections.

Ok you both made an assumption that the pictures taken were made with a digtial camera which they were not so there was no RAW or White Balance to be set in my case wish it had been that easy.

No we were stuck with some pretty weird colors that show LOL a two tone blue background and dark red and pink lights with all the different leotards it looked like a bad trip.

Sometimes poor lighting is just that poor lighting.

Sorry Disnewbie_N_MO didnt mean to hijack your thread.

 

[Experiment_626]

EDIT: I see in your follow-up thread that you probably already know most of this, so I hope it doesn't come off as pedantic (it wasn't meant that way in any case).

Ok you both made an assumption that the pictures taken were made with a digtial camera which they were not so there was no RAW or White Balance to be set in my case wish it had been that easy.

No we were stuck with some pretty weird colors that show LOL a two tone blue background and dark red and pink lights with all the different leotards it looked like a bad trip.

Shooting on film does introduce more steps to the process, but the same basic procedure can still be used to adjust white balance after images are scanned -- at least using a current version of Adobe Camera Raw, which can now open TIFF and JPEG files as well as RAW. It is also possible to tweak the setting in Photoshop's Auto Color dialogue to give good results 90 percent of the time.

However, if you mean there were lights of more than one color being used at the same time (as your description leads me to believe), then that does make it much more difficult. You can sometimes make selections and correct for each light, but more often than not you can only fix one and not the other. In these cases, I'd just use the color for effect -- what else can you do?

SSB

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Here's what I do when I shoot stage productions - I run a website at http://www.stagepics.co.uk

1. Shoot RAW and expect to post-process
2. Set the ISO high - it's easier to ameliorate noise in post-production than it is to ameliorate camera shake or motion blur
3. Use Aperture Priority mode (Av in Canon cameras) and set the aperture as wide open as your lens will go (unless you have a stonkingly wide lens, in which case you can start thinking about trading aperture for depth-of-field)
4. Shoot slightly wider than you want the picture to be. Dancers can move very fast and it's easier to crop in post-production than it is to fake up a hand or a foot
5. Shoot lots of pictures - if you get a 10% keeper rate you're doing just fine
6. Enjoy!

This may not be all of it, but it's a good place to start.

regards,
/alan

Nice photos alan! Quick question, do you use Spot, Matrix or Center weighted metering?

 

[alan]

Thank you!

Unfortunately I am still on the Canon 350D, so my metering choices are limited. What I normally do is:

* For wide shots, use evaluative (I think that's the same as Nikon's matrix mode) with -2/3 exposure compensation (to try to prevent blown highlights)

* For close-ups, if I have time to switch, I go to "Partial" (a kind of poor man's spot metering), zoom in as close as possible, hit the "exposure lock" button, recompose and shoot (I still have the -2/3 EC in place). Obviosuly I can only do this with slow-moving subjects, often illuminated by a spotlight)

If I don't have time, I just leave it the same as the wide shots and hope

regards,
/alan

 

[MICKEY88]

Whatever dude Im not going to argue with you over a photo and a scene you have never seen before. I was speaking about my situation only.

wasn't arguing at all sorry you took it that way
, and what makes you think I've never seen the scene before, ??? now who is assuming as you put in your next post...I've shot dance ,band , and stage productions for 25 years, I've pretty much seen all types of stage lighting, and I've shot with film and digital..


film or digital, there is a way to filter light or color correct
back in the film days I shot the shows at Hersheypark on a daily basis, due to the color temp of the stage lights, and yes color gels... the pics always had a very hard red color cast, that is until I tried dale labs from florida, they filtered the pics when printing and my pics were right on colorwise... so it is possible with filters to correct a lot of red color cast..


I find it interesting that people refer to this as poor lighting...perhaps it is difficult lighting for pictures, but poor,bad,improper lighting are all incorrect terms,

the lighting is chosen to set a mood, not to make photography easy..so as long as it does what the producer or lighting director wants, it is good,proper lighting.

 

[dr_zero]

I find it interesting that people refer to this as poor lighting...perhaps it is difficult lighting for pictures, but poor,bad,improper lighting are all incorrect terms,

the lighting is chosen to set a mood, not to make photography easy..so as long as it does what the producer or lighting director wants, it is good,proper lighting.

I got what you saying its cool, our case was the auditorium had another show and the light people did not remove the gels from the other show and there was no one to remove them for our show . It was such a mismatch they almost cancelled but when you have people in from all over as they say the show must go on! LOL