Photoshop Channel Mixer - Black & White Film Settings

I couldn’t think of a better title, so there you have it! I’ve been reading a book over the last couple of days which any serious Digital Photographer should probably have in their library, called “Black and White in Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom: Create Stunning Monochromatic Images in Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Lightroom and Beyond” by Leslie Alsheimer; I know it’s a big old mouthful, but it’s a great book, and whilst it’s not complete rocket science front-to-back (for example anyone that’s been using Photoshop in anger for a couple of versions should have at least some of this down already) I can almost guarantee that there is useful content in here for even the most seasoned professionals, and for the rest of us mere mortals, there’s a stack of useful information that goes way beyond the basics. So if you’re serious about editing or developing your B & W images in a controlled way, it’s money well spent. It also covers workflow using Adobe Lightroom in some detail too.

Now to the meat of the post, which was the whole reason for this post, that is within the book Leslie talks about some basic Channel Mixer settings which give the appearance of traditional black and white films, the list includes some old favourites like Kodak Tri-X and Ilford HP5, it covers something like 15 films in total. I sat down the other evening playing with these settings, and whilst I quite like the general feel that they use, I’m afraid I have a hard time telling a deal of difference between all but the most extreme ends of them. But my shortcomings aside, for those of you that are interested, I’ve saved them to a Channel Mixer settings file which you can download and import into your own Photoshop. They were created in CS3, but I’m guessing that they’ll work in CS2 and possibly CS also; in CS3 they are also picked up inside the new Black & White Adjustment tool (which is really just a fancy front end to Channel Mixer anyway, but obviously gives you the additional control over the CMYK aspects of the image along with hue and toning capabilities. Anyway, enough waffle, I hope you find them of use, if you don’t believe that they accurately represent the films… Don’t Shoot The Messenger!! I’m simply sharing something I did with anyone that wants to use it. Of course, no one would point out a problem without offering a solution would they?? So if you tell me that they don’t represent the films closely enough, I’ll be expecting your new improved settings in the same message, then I’ll probably amend (or addend) the settings appropriately with your offering. Click on the link at the very bottom of this post for a handy zip (about 6KB) file of the following settings: Agfa 200X, Agfapan 25, Agfapan 100, Agfapan 400, Ilford Delta 100, Ilford Delta 400, Ilford Delta 400 Pro & 3200, Ilford FP4, Ilford HP5, Ilford Pan F, Ilford SFX, Ilford XP2 Super, Kodak Tmax 100, Kodak Tmax 400, Kodak Tri-X.

I know there is much more to making a digital image emulate film, these just offer a simple starting point to work with in terms of RGB response, again, don’t shoot the messenger!!

You’ll need to save them to wherever your user presets live, in the case of a Mac it’s in your user directory under “Library -> Application Support -> Adobe -> Adobe Photoshop CS -> Presets -> Channel Mixer” or alternatively you can save them anywhere and simply use the “Load Preset” option inside Channel Mixer and navigate to the directory at that time.

Disclaimer - Obviously I offer no warranty of any kind with these settings, they’re offered as is, and if you make anything explode, implode, or they screw with your images in any way, don’t blame me. If you’re not sure what you’re doing find someone to help you who does.

Download The Channel Mixer Settings Here!!

One Last thing, if you like these, and find them useful, leave a trackback to this post or if you don’t have a blog or don’t know what a trackback is then just leave a comment on here. It gives me the ability to know whether it’s worth me doing something like this again or not.

Artist Profile - Sean McHugh

Another artist that is probably long overdue for a nod and a tip of the hat is Sean McHugh. Sean is is a fantastic photographer, with a mind numbingly firm grasp on technical aspects of photography to a great depth. Perhaps best known for his work in and around Cambridge University on his site Cambridge in Colour, particularly his amazing low light, long exposure photography, which is some of the best I’ve seen (both of Cambridge and low-light generally). I beleive Sean is now selling his work and you could do far worse than to adorn your walls with a piece of his work. In addition to his work, he’s spent a huge amount of time sharing his knowledge in the form of photography tutorials which 95% of photographers out there could learn something from! I’ve emailed back and forth a few times over the last couple of years with Sean, and he’s agreed to allow me to tag along one evening that he’s out shooting, alas, due to his schedule being even more hectic than mine, the opportunity has not yet presented itself, maybe one day everything will come into alignment and I’ll be lucky enough to get my chance. Sean, thanks for sharing, please know that your work and tutorials are very much appreciated!! Good Luck in your future endeavours!

Damien Lovegrove - Lighting Genius

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to twice have the opportunity to work with one of the finest (in my opinion) Portrait and Social Photographers in the UK (and perhaps the world). Damien Lovegrove is a master of lighting, having a background in Film and TV lighting, Damien has probably forgotten more about lighting than I’ll learn in my time as a photographer. His style of picture is often high key and very artistic, he’s quite comfortable with throwing the rule book out of the window in pursuit of a great image. All of the portrait photographers that bemoan high-key images should spend a day or two in the company of Damien, and realise that an image doesn’t have to be heavy, moody, and serious to make a good portrait, light, bright and airy can bring the most fabulous feeling too. I worked with Damien once on an Annabel Williams course, where we worked with daylight, and once with Damien on his Photoshop course, where again, Damien’s grasp of working with images (as one might have in a darkroom with silver halide) in a non-destructive way, in order to enhance rather than manipulate is fantastic.

But perhaps the one course I’m missing which I suspect would potentially carry more benefit than probably any other is his location lighting course. I suspect this is where Damien’s true love of his art would shine.

He’s released two tutorial DVD’s, one on using natural light and another on using flash, it was discovering these that prompted me to write this and pay homage to the man. I’ve not seen them yet, but I do plan on buying the pair and hopefully in the near future have the opportunity to work with him again on one of his courses.

If you’re looking to learn the business of Contemporary Wedding, Portrait or Social Photography, I personally believe that working with Damien is possibly one of the best places you could spend your money. Many have asked me if Annabel William’s classes are worthwhile, I would say unreservedly yes, they are fantastic, but….. if I only had enough for one class, I would probably look to see what courses Damien had running first, not to take anything away from Annabel, but is simply a testament to how I rate Damien.

I’d love to hear from anyone else reading this that’s worked with Damien or plans to in the future!!

Concert Photography Part 3 - Etiquette

Etiquette is a strange thing, in the way that it’s incredibly subjective. People interpret it in different ways, for example, if I put someone before myself by holding a door open for them to walk through, thereby inconveniencing myself, some would think it were polite, and etiquette might dictate someone to offer a thank you. One dictionary defines it as:

rules governing socially acceptable behavior

But again, socially acceptable is subjective since society is an unspecified number of people grouped as a collective, but I’m going to assume that Etiquette in the context of this article amounts to:

“Making an effort in concert photography while you are working to be polite to those around you, contributing to a mutually happy work environment where everyone can work together without annoying each other, and screwing up their day“

Regardless of what it means to you, this is the context that I’ve used for this piece. The tips I list here are gathered from my experience working small gigs, large concerts, festivals and other events. Nothing I write here is intended to single anyone out. Those people working around you doesn’t just mean other photographers, we’re talking about venue staff, band staff, security staff, everyone you’re likely to come into contact with during your assignment.

Firstly, a word to those of you that are starting out, regardless of the kit you carry, professionalism is as much about how you approach a task, as it is about “getting the shot”, if you piss people off you’ll start to find it very difficult to get follow up work, this is a very small industry, where the regulars often know each other, respect them, be openly friendly, and you may find you get more work from unexpected directions.

Preparation - AKA, Help others to help you!! This has nothing to gear preparation, we’ve already covered that in an earlier article. This falls under the realm of preparing all the information that is relevant to the venue and the job. When you got the assignment you’ll have a contact, that contact will have a mutual opposite number. I’ll elaborate further; Arrive early, because when you arrive with plenty of time it allows security and stage management to deal with you in a way that works with the rest of the their job. If you arrive just in time or late it usually pisses people off, they have to make a special trip for you to collect you, or repeat instructions they’ve already given everyone else, and it’ll just make them resent photographers more than they already do. Most venues, especially larger ones will often have a map of the layout of the venue; where the stage is; where the exits are; where the crowd is in relation to the stage. There are other nuggets of information you might need which will also be a factor, like how much lighting is being used and height of the stage, try and get these ahead of time, asking the staff stuff like this when you arrive will likely annoy them as they have a thousand other things to think about on the night, all of this will factor in to how you are received by your fellow ‘togs.

Security - Security is a fact of life these days, whether you’re covering the band at the local pub or shooting a mega star at Wembley Stadium, in both instances there will likely be security (or doormen). Firstly it’s important to understand that most security teams are probably not accountants that moonlight as doormen, many security professionals these days are exactly that, professionals, they earn their living from it. When they stop you at the door and politely ask to look in your bag, let them, they’re almost certainly not trying to steal your kit, and simply trying to back sure (in the wake of all the London Soho bombings) that you don’t have a bag full of weapons or explosive devices. Don’t forget it’s very unusual for non-photographer people to turn up at any kind of gig or concert with a large bag of stuff, so it’s natural that you will attract attention to yourself, if they raise any objections, it’s OK because the venue knew you were coming, right? (more on this in a moment), you have an email, or at the very least the name of a contact within either the band or the venue?? If they give you instructions like “we’ll lead you in at the end of song 1, you get songs 2 and 3 to shoot then we’ll lead you out” listen to them, if you’re looking to do this concert photography malarkey often then you’ll be likely to bump into the same security guys again and again, if you do see the same guys often, try and remember their names, a little social etiquette goes a long way, conversely if you piss them off regularly, they’ll still remember you, just not in the way you’ll want them to.

Lights, Camera, Action
So you’re about to be lead in by security to the auditorium. You kit is all ready to go, you’ve made some initial assumptions about the lighting, your gear is all set, ISO, Shutter Priority, lens…. great!! In a few seconds the frenzy will begin, you and a dozen other ‘togs running around on stage all trying to get the creative shot, the action shot, but wait, who left their bag in the middle of stage front? Crunch!! Trip!! Crash!!. It sounds a bit amusing but it’s easily done, one your way into the ‘togs pit, or stage front or wherever you may be working look for somewhere safe to put your gear bag, don’t expect the security guys to look after it, it’s not a part of their job (unless you know one of them on a first name basis and see him regularly, he might help you out occasionally ) if the audience is close to the pit, be careful leaving it close to them, after all you don’t want it to go walkies. Don’t leave it where people can trip on it or tread on it, it’s your responsibility to look out for your own gear, it’s not everyone else’s to avoid stepping on it because you left it somewhere dumb!!

Try and avoid hitting people with your zoom lens, try your best, it still happens and can’t always be avoided, likewise you’ll likely get bumped around a little, it’s the nature of the beast. If you have a point and shoot camera, you’ll likely attract some “looks” from the other ‘togs, it’s normal and I’ve seen it bunch of times, many people forget that everyone starts somewhere, there’s not much you can do about it unfortunately, just remember most of the people in the pit are there to do a job, and earn a living, and if you’re using the point and shoot, they’ll be assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that you’re not! The sooner you upgrade to an SLR and some decent glass the quicker you’ll be “accepted” and it’s about as simple as that.

Know what’s going on around you, ALWAYS!! Before you stand up and take that shot, are you standing in front of someone that was there before you? Are you about to walk through someone else’s shot? Are you about to stand in front of five other people that are trying to work? If you watch the others working that have been doing this for sometime it looks like you’re working with a team of Meerkats!! They’ll see space they want, and understand who’s around that space all in one look then duck under the other ‘togs lenses and scurry to the spot, stand up final check that you’re not blocking someone else’s shot then SHOOT! Look again and repeat for the few minutes they have. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at the SHOOT & MOVE stuff, and you’ll get better at being aware of those working around you, and almost intuitively know where to be and where not to be, who’s shooting and who’s framing or preparing to move. Again, sometimes you’ll get in peoples shots, you’ll get in their way, you’ll bump and get bumped, apologise if it’s your fault and move on, they probably won’t hear your apology over the music, probably won’t hear it because they’re too busy looking for the next shot, but they might and it never hurts, likewise you’ll get heads, arms, lenses and all sorts of other unwanted junk in your shots too (see the image at the end of this article), don’t let it spoil your day, move on and focus on the gig. If there’s a newbie that doesn’t have a clue about etiquette, there are a few things you can do; give them a wide berth, so they don’t screw your shots; point them at an article like this after the gig so they can know better for the next time; the former will allow you to get your shots, the latter will help them become a better ‘tog. But don’t blast them for not knowing any better, it’s counter productive and that might have been you way back when at your first big gig with a gaggle of ‘togs.

Once your two (or however many) tunes are done you’ll be lead away, don’t be tempted to turn and get shots of the next tune because it starts as your being lead away, security are under strict instructions, if you do try, you’ll piss them off, potentially get them into trouble, probably make an enemy of them and potentially get yourself kicked out. The same goes for being lead in, if you’re shooting for tunes two and three you’ll be lead in towards the end of tune one, don’t be tempted to lift the camera up until your tune, even to get a reading for light, as far as security knows you’re shooting.

Now for the waiting!! Did I mention the waiting, before you went in to shoot the support act there was waiting, if you were lucky there wasn’t much, but if you shoot the support act and the main act, then you’ll be waiting for the support act to finish, then the intermission then the build up until finally you get to do your shoot for the main act, the reason you came in the first place. You’d better get used to the waiting, ’cause you’ll get a lot of practice!!

Congratulations…. you’ve filled a stack of memory cards now go back to the studio and enjoy the fruits of post-processing your work for submission!!

There ends this sermon, and this series of tutorials on concert photography, it’s not rocket science, it’s mostly common sense and practice. It’s great fun, infinitely rewarding and has a certain cool factor. Some of the article(s) apply equally to local gigs and major concerts equally, other parts apply only to the big ones. Take the parts you need or find useful and discard what you don’t, my only hope after writing these articles is that ‘togs new to concert/music photography go forwards with a better understanding of what to expect and what is expected of them. As always if you found this or these articles useful, leave a comment, tell me, or even better still tell others you think might find them useful. Good Luck!!

Image © reproduced with kind permission of Thomas Kjær

Concert Photographer’s Network @ Ning

I’ve had great feedback from everyone so far regarding my articles on concert photography, and it turns out that there are way more people shooting at concerts than I’d realised, to everyone that’s given feedback so far, thanks for the encouragement!! To this end I’ve created a Concert Photographers Network of at Ning. If you don’t know what Ning is, here’s a short description…

Ning is a platform for creating your own social networks. Our passion is putting new social networks in the hands of anyone with a good idea. With Ning, your social network can be anything and for anyone.

If you’re familar with MySpace, it’s similar to that, but in a more niche, content specific, kind of way. Ning allows you (and allowed me) to create a social network of like minded individuals, around any subject or topic…. love woodworking and making wooden toys, go and create a community to allow others to share their woodworking skills and ideas and knowledge.

So, if you’re into Concert and Gig Photography, and want to meet, talk, chat, blog, get critique, get feedback post images, and learn from others that are also into shooting live music, musicians, artists, bands and other musical shenannigans, go and take a look, sign up, and join the group!!

You can find it at http://concertphotos.ning.com

Don’t expect to be overwhelmed with members right away, I only created it today, and there’s only a couple of us there right now, but Professionals and Amateurs are warmly welcomed. I look forwards to seeing you on there!

Concert Photography Part 2b - Technique

So you’re going to be working with limited light, and probably gonna have your lens wide open, you want to avoid camera shake, but still want some creative control over the way you shoot, and for me (and many others this means using shutter priority on the camera, with a shutter speed set to 1/160 and 1/125 second depending on the over all effect, amount of light present and type of shot you’re going for. 1/125 and lower, means you’ll either be using an IS/VR (image stabilization or vibration reduction) lens or you have a steady hand and you’re looking to get some motion blur from the artist (that’s motion blur from the guitarist moving his hand etc, the background or surrounding should not be blurred otherwise it’s camera shake ).

You should always, always, ALWAYS, spend the time before you go into the auditorium, or before the bands come on stage checking your settings. You may only have 10 minutes to work, so to find out 6 minutes into the gig that you’ve been working at ISO 400, or lower (because you didn’t check it after the last studio shoot) is not fun. So, physically check everything, what’s my ISO?, Shutter priority selected? Spot or Partial Metering selected?? Spare (EMPTY!!) Memory Cards in your pocket?? These are the same things you’ll be checking every time before you go into a gig, so with that in mind, print your list out, laminate it, and keep it in your kit bag, it gives you a consistent list of checks every time, and if you have a small pen or marker in your bag (you do carry a pen with you right??) you can add anything else you think of at the gig, and make it a part of your list when you get back to the studio.

Lens hoods are another subject which causes contention amongst people. I think it’s essential unless you’re trying for a creative effect with flare. When the artist/band is on stage and the lights are changing and flashing, you’ll almost certainly be taking light from the side of you and chances are there will be some light pointing right at you. Some shots look great with lens flare, but personally, (like any effect) the overall impact is reduced if it’s present in absolutely every shot, but each to their own, personally I always use a lens hood to reduce flare unless I specifically want effects.

Memory cards are fiddly things, have a system for swapping them out, and have plenty with you, they’re cheap enough. Don’t wait until you have only a few shots left, try to plan for the change, between tunes or something. Again if the management only allows you a couple of tunes to shoot, then keep your largest card to hand for this, better to have lots of space left than have to change out cards in those few precious minutes you have. Have a system for changing out cards, I keep empty cards in my left pockets, and used or full in my right, so a card that comes out of the camera goes immediately into the right hand pocket, ensuring it doesn’t get reused. If you don’t have a time limit, then try and plan the change outs for between songs, or when you think things are going to be uninteresting (you already have shots of 3 guitar solos, maybe now is a good time to swap the card out??). Ony you know how many shots you take, so if you get to a gap between tunes and you have 25 frames left on your card, only you know if that’s enough to take you through the next number or if you need to change out now?

Feel free to move around for a different feel, and to help try and give the shoot some context around the band, are the band playing a famous auditorium or venue, like The Royal Albert Hall in London, think, is there anything you can work into any of the shots to tie that in?? As I’ve mentioned before get your bread and butter shots out of the way, and assuming you’re not going to get ousted after a couple of tunes, you’ll find that as the gig goes on, there will be a lot that you’ve already covered, leaving you time to experiment, artistic, special effects silhouettes, etc, this is a great time for being creative with stuff and learning on the job.

Just remember, one of the most important things is to have fun, and if you’ve prepared and thought about exactly what you want to do ahead of time, understand which shots you need to achieve your brief, checked your check card that you keep with you, once this is all taken care of, the technical side can take a back seat to your creative side, and you can let your creativity flow, and get lost in the event.

If you found these articles useful, please tell me, but more importantly tell others The next article is going to be on the very important subject of etiquette. Stay tuned!!

Concert Photography Part 2a - Creative Interpretation

Welcome back, apologies for the long delay, sometimes life just gets in the way, and things get pushed back a bit. So without further ado, here’s part 2a!!. After spending some time writing this part of the article I realised that it was going to be another tome. So I’ve split it into two parts. The first part is know your audience, who are you selling to, what style are you shooting? The second part is, what methods and technical settings am I using to get my shots.

I believe it was Ansel Adams that was attributed to have said “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” and you should regard this article in a very similar way, the techniques that I talk about here are not by any means the definitive way, or perhaps even a good way to achieve concert shots, they’re simply the way I do it.

Some folk in the business of concert photography my look upon my work as cliche, or passe, but the way I shoot is very much in accordance with my target market (the publications that commission the work I do). You should always bear this in mind when shooting. Typically publications like NME don’t want the normal “up-the-nose-shots” of bands and prefer something more off the wall, more cutting edge, which is fine if you can pull The Raconteurs to one side after a gig and take an hour of their time composing some bang up shots, but for the other 99.99% of photographers that don’t have that kind of access, it might not be a possibility. But always remember, as a general rule of thumb, when you’re starting out you should shoot the type of music that you love. If you hate classical and go to a classical music gig, your photo’s are likely to reflect that (unless you’ve been hooting stuff you don’t like for a long time and know how to get the shot the editor wants). As long as you’re shooting gigs of bands that you’d normally pay money to go and see, it’ll never get old, or dull, or boring. What’s more, you’re pictures will reflect your love and enthusiasm, it’s inevitable.

So bearing this in mind, quite often (the larger the gig the more this is likely to hold true, festivals often being an exception) you’ll be out front with the other photographers, for two or maybe three numbers, so first thing is to get the bread and butter shots, if you go out with artistic intentions and come away with nothing of use to the magazine you’re submitting to, then you have to ask why were you there?. Know the picture editor of the publication (this goes for anyone wanting to get work from a magazine, as well as those already doing so) know what they like, know the magazine, know the subject matter. Ask yourself; What style of publication is it? What’s the overall feel of the magazine? What type of stuff do they regularly publish? Do I cover bands that are appropriate fodder for them? To take an extreme example; you want NME to take a look at your portfolio, you need shots of new or cutting edge bands, and contemporary music shots, with an edgy feel to them. Mojo on the other hand, might love some “up-the-nose” shots of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, if it’s currently topical and a great image. But I digress, get the main shot, so you have something to go back with; for me perhaps this means a couple of close-ups of the individual bands members (that’s all the band members), a couple of wide shots of the group on stage, a couple of real close crops of the main artist. Ok, you’re happy that you got those, now you can start getting a little creative, some of the crowd perhaps, some with some lens flare?, some silhouettes? some blurred? BZZZZZZZZ times up, security is escorting you out of the auditorium. Two numbers have played, and assuming it’s not Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the songs are going to be probably 3 or 4 minutes each, there should be no surprises, the stage management/security will tell you in advance how many songs you’ll be allowed to shoot for. If you’re good with security, they’ll be good with you. Don’t start shooting, before or after you’re allowed, or they’ll get angry, listen closely to their instructions, and you’ll do just fine, don’t listen and ignore them and be prepared for a very short career, because you’re likely to bump in to the same security guys more than once!

So you’re back in the studio, looking at the images, post processing, if you’re working to a commission, don’t hang around prep the images for transfer (ftp, email, CD, DVD) and get them off at the earliest possible opportunity, editors have a job to do, they have to produce a magazine, if they don’t ever have to chase you for images, and they’re always sent to them in a timely fashion, then they’ll be much happier than if they have to chase for the images or worse have to redo a layout because your images simply weren’t there in a timely fashion.

I hope you enjoyed this article and found it useful or insightful. Next time, I’ll be talking a little about f-stops, shutter speeds and other stuff.

Concert Photography Part 1b - Bodies

The Body

So, what about the camera body?? Use the one you have until you can buy the one you want. Ideally the body you use will be relatively modern (if it’s a DSLR) because the newer the technology, and the higher the quality body, generally the less noise your sensor will give. Your camera should be able to manage working at 1600 ISO or higher (3200 ISO ideally), which is why I said the technology should be as new as possible, older technology sensors have significantly more noise than those of newer bodies. The important thing to remember is it’s not always about price and cost, after long deliberation, I eventually opted for the EOS5D over the more expensive professional models simply because the 5D generated less digital noise than any of the other models available at the time, an you’ll probably find yourself wanting to lift the exposure on a shot quite frequently in post processing, which is where digital noise really shows. The noise generated by my EOS 20D at ISO 3200, is far worse than when the same settings are used on my EOS 5D, and less noise makes for a cleaner image. Ideally, the body should have spot metering, and at the very least partial metering (sometimes I prefer partial over spot, I’ll discuss more in the piece on technique). The frames per second isn’t an issue for me, because I often know what shot I’m looking for based on the mood of the gig at that point in time and fire off 2 or 3 shots to get the shot. Others I’ve worked with, use high frames per second, and blow through a memory card every 5 minutes. It’s down to personal style. In camera metering systems that you’ll be working with are all quite different from brand to brand and even in some cases from camera to camera, the more you live with it, the better you’ll come to know it, I’d like to say you can use your light meter, but as you know the reality is that the pre-gig lighting is normally quite low and the lights are enormously changeable and most of the time you’ll be working too intensly to have the luxury of time to even think about pulling out a light meter, best to leave it at home… less to carry .

What about the quantity of bodies?? Well I work with two sometimes, and other times that’s just overkill. As an example, when working Wembley or another large venue, you almost certainly want two bodies, you want the close-ups and you want the wides, and because you may only have 2 songs in which you can get your shots, time is of the essence. This means no time to change lenses, two bodies, one with a 16-35mm or 24-70mm another body with 70-200mm or similar, and swap around as you need. For smaller more intimate venues, or places where perhaps the stage isn’t quite so elevated, or you have plenty of time to change lenses, one body would suffice. Again more discussion of this in my piece on technique. The bodies I use are a Canon EOS20D and an EOS 5D. That’s where I’ll leave it for the moment, the next article up will be part 2 - Technique. Hopefully this has been useful to people, I’ll probably add to this article based on peoples feedback and if I remember anything I forgot to add in when I wrote it originally.

Concert Photography - Part 1a - Lenses

Welcome to the first part of my concert photography articles. As explained previously, I don’t claim to be an expert or more knowledgeable than anyone else particularly, I’m simply passing on some of my experiences. This first article is going to deal with equipment as I see it, what works what doesn’t work, and everything in between. This article is going to assume you have a DSLR, although you can use a film SLR, and people did for years, there are reasons, which I’ll cover in this article and the article on technique, why DSLR is potentially a better tool for this particular job.

Lenses

The first thing to remember about shooting live gigs is that the lighting is different at every gig you go to, it’s never the same amount of light twice, but one thing you can be sure of, and that is that there is never ever enough light. With that in mind if you’re looking to cover this stuff, I recommend as fast a lens as you can afford, ideally f2.8 or faster. OK , so fast lenses aren’t cheap, I get that, but really, other than gaining access to gigs, which I’ll cover in a later article, a fast lens is your biggest obstacle to making a good go of shooting gigs. That doesn’t mean that you have to buy the most expensive lens you can find (although if you can afford to without breaking the bank you’ll be glad you did), Canon and Nikon make a fine range of fast lenses but they come at a premium price, Sigma and other third party manufacturers are likely to make some great lenses for your camera too!! I have friends who use the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 with great success and the retail price on it is almost 50% less than those of the aforementioned brands. The reason they’re so expensive is because the more light a lens has to gather, the larger the elements and the more scope for something causing a defect with the final image. The good news is that most lenses engineered to be this fast also tend to be engineered to professional (or near professional standards) which means that they can take a lickin and keep on tickin!! As you start to shoot more popular gigs you’ll find this really important (15 or 20 photographers in a 6ft wide space across the width of the stage all running around for the shot and trying not to get in each others way) as you’re bound to bang the camera occasionally.

Keeping all of the above in mind, the next question is; Prime or Zoom? This really is a matter of personal choice and technique. On one side prime lenses are lighter, generally cheaper, and almost always faster pound for pound. As an example, if you always get great access to a venue and often find yourself quite close to the stage, then you might be able to work with something like the Canon 135mm f2 (assuming you have a Canon) or similar, a very fast lens, certainly lighter than a fast zoom. The downside is that you trade weight for the flexibility that you get with a zoom lens. My personal preference is to work with fast zooms, always, since there’s very little planning that can be done as to where you get to shoot from at a gig, I find it best to have the zoom and be able to cover most situations. My personal choice (I’m a Canon user) is to use two lenses for my gigs, a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L-IS and a Canon 16-35mm f2.8L, these aren’t necessarily the best tools for the job, they’re just what happens to work for me and my style of photography. One last thing to know is if you get a lense with image stabilization (IS for Canon, VR for Nikon) it has a gyroscopic style mechanism that helps to prevent motion blur caused by not being able to hold the camera still enough. I know people that can hold hand hold a camera using 1/60 shutter speed, but not everyone can. Image Stabilization will help to make lower hand holding speeds without camera shake a possibility, Nikon claim up to 4 stops on some of their literature, but either way it helps (as always with a price premium!). I’ll cover shutter speeds, etc in my technique article.

So, I hear you asking, if there’s not much light, why not make your own light and bring along a good flash? Good question, well most larger venues and even mid-sized theaters have a strictly no flash policy, which is either in place at the request of the artist/bands management or a standard policy of the venue, wither way, get used to not using a flash, I can guarantee as you start out at the smaller venues, 80% of places won’t allow it, and as you start working the bigger venues, you’ll find the flash simply acting as dead weight that you carry around (unless you’re shooting something else while you’re there), but I’ll probably cover this more under etiquette.

That’s all for this article, I originally started to write about bodies in this post, but the post was becoming too long and unwieldy for a blog post. I’ll finish writing the rest of this and post it in thenext day or two. I hope someone finds this article useful, if you do, leave a comment. If you don’t, then let me know why, leave a comment. Something I could of done better? Something I got wrong or is inaccurate? Let me know, leave a comment. Cheers for now.

Tips on Concert Photography - An Introduction

Whilst I’m happy to claim that I’m not the number one concert photographer on the planet, whilst I’ve been shooting live gigs, I’m happy to pass on some tips to those looking to start out doing this. Mostly because I’ve recently found myself getting annoyed at newcomers to the area in much the same way that people got angry at me when I started. There are a few good articles on the web, but most are relatively outdated or largely irrelevant, many focus from the perspective of shooting with traditional film, it’s not that I’m anti-film, but in the arena of concert photography (especially when working to deadlines), digital is king, as I’ll explain in this post. All tips in this post are a combination of my experience, others words of wisdom and common sense, it’s not meant to be definitive, so if I’m wrong on something post a comment and put me straight, so others can read it too!

I’ll be splitting this up in to four parts, because in my opinion, there are four equal parts to concert photography. Part 1 will deal with hardware, and equipment, Part 2 will deal with technique, Part 3 will deal with etiquette (perhaps the most important and least addressed part of the big picture), Part 4 will deal with getting access (which also includes a bit on who gets the finished images). I like to go into detail, so I’ll try and post a part every few days, depending on my work load.

These articles will not cover photoshopping or manipulation, because everyone is different, and all magazines have a different feel to them, so each brief or commission needs to be treated differently.  It doesn’t go into how much to charge once you’ve got some experience, that’s entirely personal. And I don’t cover many legal aspects, but I will touch on a few items that are important to know about (I’m not a lawyer, so any legal stuff I talk about needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, in other words, I’m bringing your attention to something, not giving you a legal opinion, go see a lawyer if you want clarification.  Last but not least, I disclaim any bad stuff that may happen to you as a direct result of taking my advice most people don’t listen to me 99% of the time, I’ve got no reason to expect them to start now!!

Watch this space. Part 1 should be along in a few days.