RCPM: Concert photography tips

I posted some images from a recent Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers concert (at Southgate House in Newport, KY) to a fan site and someone posed the following question in reply:

Just curious from the pseudo-amateur photographer point of view what body/lens did you use to get these pictures, that's if it's singular, it looks like you may have used multiple lenses or perhaps one extremely versatile one. Did you use a flash, that's something I hate doing in concerts because I think it ruins the "natural" light of the setting. I'm thinking of a Sigma 50-150 or 75-200 either with the f 2.8 throughout the range, do you think that would help at all for concert photography at all, at the moment I'm stuck with my 50mm f1.8 which is great for the low light situations without flash.

I thought that since it'd be beneficial to a wider audience that I'd post my reply here instead of just in the forum...

Don't knock your 50mm! At this show I used one lens & camera: the Canon 20D with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. Most were shot from just in front of the stage (where we were standing) while a couple were from the side of the stage or from the balcony that goes around the venue.

So - and by the way thanks for the compliment - how did I get the variety of looks with just one focal length? Here are some tips.


Zoom v. Prime
For one thing, zoom is in the feet of the photographer! While it's certainly handy, in the case of a concert a fast prime is significantly more useful than a zoom - even an f/2.8 zoom. First of all, from f/2.8 to f/1.4 you're looking at a difference of two stops: that's four times the amount of light entering the lens.

That makes a BIG difference in three key areas:

• How bright the image in your viewfinder is. The wider the open aperture, the more light enters the viewfinder and that makes it easier to see what's going on. You can see the difference by using your camera's Depth of Field Preview button with the 50mm f/1.8 you've got set to f/2.8 in Aperture Priority mode. See how much darker the viewfinder becomes?
• Faster and more accurate focus. The lens aperture is always wide open while you're focusing and composing your shots; it only stops down for an instant while the film/sensor is being exposed. SO, the wider the aperture the more light you get to the autofocus sensors and the easier it'll be for them to lock onto your subject.
  
• Faster correct shutter speeds. This is the most obvious benefit of a fast lens: the wider the aperture the faster the shutter speed that you can get and properly expose the photograph.

I got a variety of shots through a combination of moving around the venue, tilting the camera, and adjusting my position back and forth as best I could from where I was standing. You really don't need zoom as long as you're willing to find compositions that work given what you can fit into the frame.

Forget the flash - Ride the Exposure
I did not use a flash for any of these shots - I've tried that before & think that it's: A) Annoying to the fans & the band, esp when you're shooting several hundred frames; and B) takes away from the atmosphere of the room by lighting everything up and washing away the colored lights.

Instead, you need to use the available light in the venue. Fortunately, RCPM had a decent lighting setup going (I believe it's actually the permanent rig at Southgate House). Here were my camera settings for the night:

• Manual mode
• Aperture ranging from f/1.4 to f/2.2
• Shutter ranging from 1/40 sec to 1/250 sec, typically staying around 1/125
• ISO 1600
• Spot metering
• Motor drive

First off, Manual Mode is the only way to go here - the light changes far too frequently for the camera's meter to do the right thing & you'll end up with a lot of either too dark or too light pictures... not to mention the fact that the shadows are what make the shot & your camera's auto exposure is going to try to achieve something much more even! It's best to use your camera's Spot Meter to determine the proper exposure time for your desired aperture setting. Then, just roll the dial left or right to vary the exposure time as needed for the lights as they're changing. This "riding the exposure" technique works pretty well once you get the hang of it.

I chose a wide open aperture for several of the photos because (obviously) of the low light environment as well as for the limited depth of field that it offers. This allows me to blur out the background into a nice creamy bokeh while keeping my subject sharp. I did try to get a click or two up from wide open as the 50mm f/1.4 is significantly sharper at f/2.0 than it is at f/1.4, but I'd rather have a slightly soft picture than one that's ruined due to shaky hands & a too low shutter speed.

At ISO 1600 and a wide aperture, I was getting some very decent shutter speeds; often as high as 1/250, which meant that I'd have a good shot at freezing the action as well as being able to stop down the aperture a bit when necessary. I'm fine with ISO 1600 in this situation - the 20D has very low noise to begin with and a little graininess could even help to add some atmosphere to these shots.

Finally, the motor drive helps a ton - you'll need a large memory card but given all of the expressions, etc. involved in a rock show you'll want as many frames as you can get in order to find one that works. You may have all the technical exposure details correct, but if the singer doesn't have a good expression going then the shot is worthless.


Post Processing
Just as important as the thought that went into taking these photos was the time spent in post processing after the concert. Prints are made in the darkroom and the work you put in at the PC (our modern-day darkroom) can mean the difference between concert snapshots that get lost in the shuffle and great photographs that make people say "wow".

I did all of the post work on these images in Lightroom 1.1 - interesting because I don't believe I entered Photoshop-proper a single time during the workflow. The first step after importing all of the photographs was to fly through them looking for standouts. After I found a few that had promise, I spent time on each in the Lightroom Develop module.

In Develop, I would make tweaks to the exposure settings, pick a good crop for the image, and then start exploring my options regarding color. Of the nine selects, I only processed a few with standard color. The rest are black and white or color images with some degree of toning introduced via the Lightroom Split Toning tool. While I maintain a few standard settings for split tones, I typically stumble across what I think works best by playing with a variety of looks.

Once I've achieved the look I'm after, I'll usually add some amount of vignetting to the image. This helps to keep the viewer's eye in the scene and also makes the images look less "digital": the smaller sensors on most digital SLRs only use the center of your lens thereby avoiding the vignette that you're likely to see on a traditional film setup. Plus, I just like the look!

My final steps are to export JPEGs and upload them to my Smugmug account so that I can share them with the rest of the world.