Shoot Band in Club

[MarkBarbieri]

I was recently asked this question and thought I'd post it here.

Hi, Can I ask some photog advice? I have a friend who plays in a band. He is playing in a club next weekend. I would like to try and take some pictures. What would your suggestions be for settings on the camera? It will be dark with colored stage lights and a huge lighted logo behind the drums. I have a Canon Rebel XT with the basic lense and a Canon 70-200 lense. thats it. I do have a tripod and a monopod.
I am fairly new to this camera. I have had trouble in the past shooting in the dark.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

I've never shot in clubs, so I can only guess. I imagine that the light will be pretty low, so your biggest problem is likely to be getting a fast enough shutter speed.

I would set your camera to shutter priority and adjust the shutter speed to something like 1/200 if you are zoomed in or something lower if you are zoomed out. If the light is low, you may have to increase your ISO for that to work.

You may even get to the point that you can't get a high enough shutter speed even at ISO 1600. If that's the case, you are in trouble. You could purposely underexpose your pictures (dial in -1 or -2 stop exposure compensation), shoot RAW, and try to fix it in post processing. You'll end up with a really noisy picture, but noisy is better than blurry. Your other option would be to get a faster lens (wider maximum aperture). The problem with that is that fast lens tend to be very, very expensive.

If you can use a flash, that will certainly help. The problem with flash is that it can lead to really flat looking pictures. It's best to mix the flash with some natural light. The Rebel XT doesn't, if I recall correctly, allow you to adjust the flash exposure. If you have a 580EX, you can adjust it on the flash itself. If you don't, you might try shooting in manual or aperture priority and setting up your shot to underexpose by 1 stop and let the flash add in the extra stop of light. That will allow the flash to help with the shutter speed but it won't give you that ugly "flash" look to your shot.

I have no idea what other issues you'll have to deal with. Does the vibration from loud music impact photography? The few clubs I remember from my younger days were so smokey that I'm not sure you could ever get a decent picture.

The tripod or monopod would definitely help, but your subject is probably going to be moving quite a bit, and they can't really help with that. Well, technically I suppose that you could whack your subject with the tripod and knock them out before shooting them, but that doesn't sound like a very good idea. If I were a club owner, I'm not sure that I'd like someone in with a big, stiff stick like a monopod and I can't imagine letting someone set up a tripod. Well, not unless they agreed to a 5 drink minimum.

 

[DVC Jen]

I took photos of a church service two weeks ago for their new website. The church was VERY dark during the service and they had a band playing during most of it. I was able to get some decent shots. I set my ISO at 1000, used my Sigma 28-70 f/2.8 and had the camera set at shutter priority with it at 1/25. I was able to use a tripod for 95% of the service (no flash). I took TONS of shots and was able to get quite a few without movement in them - but a band playing at a club would probably be nearly impossible at that shutter speed.

I also had my exposure compensation set to +2 and I still have to up that during raw processing - then I used the noise reduction filter in PS Elements 5

The photos turned out fine for web viewing - they are going to be fairly small. Not sure how they would look in print.

Hopefully this person can maybe get there a bit early and try a few different settings to see what works best.

It is a hard situation - hope it works out well for them.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I also had my exposure compensation set to +2

It's late here and I'm tired, so I may be spouting nonsense. Isn't that backwards? +2 would mean that you want to overexpose by two stops. That means that your shutter speed would be four times longer than normal. I think you want -2, which means that your shutter speed would be one fourth the normal value.

 

[Master Mason]

Also, what would be the reason for using exposure compenstation when you still have ISO room?

 

[DVC Jen]

It's late here and I'm tired, so I may be spouting nonsense. Isn't that backwards? +2 would mean that you want to overexpose by two stops. That means that your shutter speed would be four times longer than normal. I think you want -2, which means that your shutter speed would be one fourth the normal value.

Mark I am not above admitting that you know so much more about this than I do. I am still trying to figure it all out.

I did set it to +2 because I did want it to overexpose it by 2 stops because I thought that was the right thing to do since it was so dark in there. I very well could be totally confused and doing the wrong thing.

If it did slow my shutter speed down and that is what I am thinking you are saying (and if that is how it works - I just learned something new - thanks ) then it didn't seem to matter too much because most of my shots weren't blurry or out of focus. Maybe I just got lucky. My biggest issue was them being dark and noisy.

I don't feel right posting any of the photos with actual people in them - but here is one I took right before the band started playing.

Ya know - just when I think I have something figured out I learn I was wrong about it. Oh well - at least it is one step backward for every two steps forward - so I am still going in the right direction. Just not as quickly as I want to be. But then again - I am not always the most patient of people - especially when it comes to myself.

 

[DVC Jen]

Also, what would be the reason for using exposure compenstation when you still have ISO room?

Ok - I'm scratchin my head here.

I was really worried about the noise. For some reason I get it fairly easily with my 30D - even though I am not supposed to - I do. So in my thinking - and again - it could be wrong and please tell me if it is - I was thinking that by using exposure compensation it would be less noisy then putting my ISO all the way up to 1600.

 

[Anewman]

Your other option would be to get a faster lens (wider maximum aperture). The problem with that is that fast lens tend to be very, very expensive.

IMO
Fast primes are the way to go, tis a club so you should be able to move around. The cheap 50mm might even turn out to be the exact focal length needed.

 

[Master Mason]

Ok - I'm scratchin my head here.

I was really worried about the noise. For some reason I get it fairly easily with my 30D - even though I am not supposed to - I do. So in my thinking - and again - it could be wrong and please tell me if it is - I was thinking that by using exposure compensation it would be less noisy then putting my ISO all the way up to 1600.

In my experience I get less noise bumping the ISO then I do using exposure compensation and adjusting the exposure in PP. I only use exposure comp when my highest ISO won't get the job done, or sometimes because of massive variences in light in the scene, when I think I might be smart than the camera...

 

[DVC Jen]

In my experience I get less noise bumping the ISO then I do using exposure compensation and adjusting the exposure in PP. I only use exposure comp when my highest ISO won't get the job done, or sometimes because of massive variences in light in the scene, when I think I might be smart than the camera...

I will try it next time. Thanks.

 

[KrazyPete]

I shot Nickelback from inside the barricade earlier this year, it was a learning experience for sure.

Chimp chimp and chimp again. With those constantly changing stage lights your camera's built-in light meter will be jumping all over the place. Once you get an exposure setting that is generally working, leave it.

Pay close attention to what your camera is autofocusing on. Mine liked the mic stands that were between me and the singer. That's a problem, especially when you are shooting with your aperture wide open. I would suggest setting the auto-focus to some single point mode so that it's easier to control.

 

[alan]

I have a part-time hobby of shooting stage shows. See http://www.stagepics.co.uk. I'm not sure how much is an exact match for "band in a club" but there's got to be quite a lot of similarity. Here's what I do.

Step 1 - start at 1600ISO. You might get lucky and be able to bring it down a bit, but you'll get to learn that in a few steps...

Step 2 - Switch to Av mode. Yes, aperture priority. Why? Because you want to get the fastest speed you can, that will give you enough light. But if you go to shutter priority, you're not letting the shutter speed drop below whatever you set, and you might still be able to get something useful.

Step 3 - Use the fastest lens you can find

Step 4 - Switch to centre-weighted metering (or spot if you've got it). That way you meter for what you're focusing on.

Step 5 - I normally have -2/3EV exposure comp. Partly because my subjects are often in spotlights and it helps reduce blown highlights, also because it makes the shutter just a touch faster and can be recovered in post processing. As long as you do step 6.

Step 6 - SHOOT IN RAW. JPG throws away information, and in poor light you need every bit of information you can get. SHOOT IN RAW.

Shoot your shots, chimp, chimp, chimp. Make a trade-off between ISO and shutter speed, but the bottom line is that you can reduce noise in PP but you can't remove motion blur.

Shoot a little wider than you think you need to. You can always crop in PP, but you can't widen the picture to insert that guitar head you chopped off because the zoom was too tight. Well, not easily anyway.

I hope this helps,

regards,
/alan

 

[Khokhonutt]

I shot one of the local bands not too long ago. I was there as a spectator, but wanted to play with the camera, so I went and tried a bunch of stuff. As the others have said, shoot high ISO and plan on post processing. With RAW and noise reduction software (I use noise ninja), I was pretty happy with the results. I threw a TON of pictures away, but the keepers were okay, considering what I had to work with. The cool thing is I sent the link to the band and they were so happy with the pictures, they told me to let them know anytime I want to come and shoot again. They said they'd put me on the guest list and save me cover charge.

Here's the link to the full gallery:
Smokin'

And here are some of my favorites:

Groupee tatoo shot

I shot with a mix of flash and no flash. The problem with the flash is it brought out the smoke in the place. As others said, fast prime lenses rule. Plan on shooting a lot, you'll get a few keepers.