I went down to The Music Room in Bur Dubai to attend a Beatles revival concert. Before the concert, a local rock band came on stage to perform for a short while and I used the opportunity to have a go at shooting a rock band. I knew that getting acceptably in-focus photographs during a rock concert would be difficult. The lighting designs at concerts, which can be simultaneously elaborate and low light, wreak havoc on your camera’s ability to correctly judge focus. and exposure.
I knew I would need a fast lens and high ISO, shoot in RAW and manual mode. I had decided to shoot with the Fujifilm XT1 and the 56 mm 1.2 lens (85 mm equivalent). Typically, most concert photographers shoot with the 70-200 mm 2.8 lens at a minimum but I knew that I would be able to get close enough to the stage to make the 85 mm focal length acceptable in this case.
The first sets of images were really bad. I tried to use Evaluative/Matrix metering but that didn’t work. The camera was having a hard time getting the right exposures given the high contrast and variable lighting conditions. I switched to spot metering and found it worked much better.
A lot of images were messy. Too much going on in the background, hands, arms, people moving constantly. Eventually, I zoned into one of the musicians and started shooting him from the side using spot metering which worked out much better. The other problem was that because I was shooting on the wider side of the lens (f2.8-4) and the musician moving on the stage all the time, I was unable to get tack sharp images. By closing down a one / two stops more I was able to get sharper images but at the cost of adding noise to the images (having had to push up ISO to it's max of 6400). Despite that given that the whole rock ambiance, I thought the noise added a certain grittiness and character to the images that worked well. If I had been given an editorial task of capturing this band on stage, I think I would have failed completely. I didn't like any of the wide shots at all.
Still, all was not lost. I did get some images that worked. These were primarily focused on capturing one musician at a time but I liked what I ended up with. I especially liked the fact that in a couple of the images I was able to (inadvertently) of course, take advantage of some the stage lighting acting as rim lighting on the musician! That was cool.
Key Learning Points:
- A camera that allows for clean high-ISO images is a huge advantage as higher ISO settings allow you to keep your shutter speed relatively high, reducing camera shake and better allowing you to freeze action.
- Try and position yourself to get shots that are as clear of such distractions as possible both in the foreground and the background. I learnt to watch out for microphones that obscure a singer’s face (their mouth in particular), and watch for the shadows microphones as well as some of the lights can cast on the musician / performer. In general, avoid standing directly in front of a singer/performer as more often than not you’ll end up with a microphone where their mouth should be. I have an image with the mike blocking the singers face including in this batch. With regard to background clutter, fast lens will help to make the most of what light you have available as well as create enough shallow depth of field to blur out background distractions.
- Spot metering works well for individual shots!
- Go back and shoot some more. It was fun!