For many, concert photography It is one of the most difficult and complicated topics to work on. I want to demystify this topic so today I bring you a series of tips and tricks that will make any concert, musician or band resist you from today on 😉
Why does concert photography seem so difficult?
Doing concert photography seems complicated due to the fact that it is a situation where, as photographers, we have no control over almost anything. Unlike other photographic disciplines such as portrait photography, at a concert we cannot communicate with the artist, we cannot direct him as we please through instructions, we have no control over the lighting sources which are constantly changing. We are not even able to change the angle from which we shoot very much. Not to mention the adoring spectators and attendees who, entranced by the music, raise their arms and elbow each other, totally oblivious to our desperate attempts to get a decent, sharp picture.
Well, although it sounds like an impossible mission, doing concert photography is much easier than you imagine. Then I explain where you have to shoot.
Where to start?
In photography learning, it is convenient to start at the bottom, start with something simple and easy. If you start with the difficult you will get tired, you will get overwhelmed and you will end up selling your camera in a Second Hand store.
In concert photography it is best to start by going to intimate or relatively small capacity concerts. This will allow you to move around the room more easily and will save you from the nudges and pushes of macro-concerts.
Photographic equipment
Concert photography can be done with any camera. This is so and there is no more. Whoever gets bad photos is never the camera’s fault, it’s because they don’t know 😉 let’s not kid ourselves.
That said, it must be said that concert photography is much easier if we have a good photography team. It does not have to be an expensive professional team of 3,000 euros, but it is convenient to have 2 main elements:
A reflex camera with good ISO levels: At concerts, usually, the light is scarce. One of the most effective remedies in this type of case is to increase the ISO sensitivity. Typically the higher ISO levels, the more light the camera will capture. But, it happens that generally the more ISO the camera captures, the more “noise” will appear in our photo. Unless we have a good camera. There are many cameras that allow you to raise the ISO (and therefore are capable of capturing a lot of light) without worrying about noise, here is a careful selection recommended by a server.
Large aperture bright lens: We return to the same thing, it is necessary to capture a lot of light, for this it is convenient to have a good wide-aperture lens at hand, something between f/1.4 and f/2.8 would be phenomenal. For my part, I would never go to a concert without my adorable King of Goals.
Settings
You already have a good SLR camera and a lens that offers a large aperture. And now that?
Here are the “best” settings needed for successful concert photography:
- Turn off the flash completely.
- Select Manual mode.
- Set a rather high ISO value. If you have doubts, start from a value and go experimenting, you go up little by little. Once the photo is taken, review it on the camera screen by enlarging it with a magnifying glass and checking if the noise that appears in the photo is acceptable or not.
- Choose a large opening. One or two steps below the maximum aperture that your lens allows you. For example on an f/1.4 lens I would try to shoot at f/1.8.
- Choose a fast rate of fire. Since you want to freeze motion and keep the artist sharp, you’ll need to set your shutter speed to a relatively fast value. Here there is no exact value either, it depends on the lighting conditions but I would start at 1/400s for example and go down, to see what result I get. Based on that I would decide: what comes out dark? I lower the value to 1/300s, and so… what comes out blurry? I raise it a bit.
- Shoot in RAW. You don’t know how much freedom shooting RAW gives you. This format, present in all current digital SLR cameras, allows you to play much more with the photo and get more out of it later when developing it on a computer. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with retouching or makeup. Shooting in RAW does not manipulate the photo, you simply leave part of the adjustments “pending” and control them later on the computer. For example, if the photo is underexposed in RAW, nothing would happen, later you can correct its exposure through any RAW photo editing program. (Do not miss my articles on the wonderful world of RAW: here one, and here another).
The composition
The “technical challenge” that concert photography represents shouldn’t divert your attention from something without which your photos won’t be worth much: the composition. It is an essential component. With the composition we tell a story, we transmit a feeling, an idea, we tell something, we stir up a feeling in those who see the photo. It’s something you shouldn’t lose sight of when photographing a concert: be creative, focus on secondary elements, I don’t know, frame the half-bored drummer there in the background and make him the star, focus on the strings of a guitar, look for details, portray a moment between two spectators… In the end, it depends on your tastes and the creativity you put into it.
The Golden rule
Go to many concerts, do not despair. He shoots a lot, every time after a concert he studies the results and looks for possible solutions to failed photographs. Over time you will get better and better photos.
tricks
Then I leave you, by way of closing, 3 tricks that you can apply in your concert sessions:
- Frame the artist or music band, manually focus on them and stay on the lookout. Sometimes the spotlights will move towards them to illuminate them for a while. This is your opportunity, shoot as many photos as you can taking advantage of the time that the artist is illuminated.
- If none of the tips in this article work for you, don’t turn off the camera yet. There is something you haven’t tried yet: shadow photography. Shadows are a very creative and different way to tell the story of a concert, and they are generally much easier to capture. You just need a light source behind the stage. Use it to your advantage.
- After the concert, the next day you have the disappointment of verifying that a wonderful photo came out full of noise due to the high ISO. Nothing happens, you can still save. Turn it into black and white and you will see how good it is. Above you have an example.
Did you find this article useful? If so, I would like to ask you for 2 favors:
- Don’t stop practicing what you learned. Print this article or write down the most relevant points and have them at hand. Then look for a music concert that will take place in your city in the next 2 months and get yourself a couple of tickets. With the excuse of wanting to practice this article, take advantage and invite someone you like 😉
- Help me to spread this article through Facebook, Twitter or Google+. I will be infinitely grateful to you 😉