Photographing live music can be very rewarding but difficult at the same time (as evidenced by the fact I couldn’t condense it to just 10 tips!)

1. Use the right equipment

Whilst I will never say you can’t shoot X with camera Y, shooting moving subjects in low light is one of the areas where the DSLR is head and shoulders above compact/bridge cameras, due to the vastly larger sensor.

The second piece of advice I can offer here is to invest in a 50mm lens. All the major manufacturers make a cheap 50mm f/1.8 prime which can be had for around £60 ($90). The wide aperture makes it at least 2 stops faster than the kit lens shipped with most DSLRs. This drops your ISO from 1600 to 400 or ups your shutter from 1/25 to 1/100. On most DSLRs the lens acts as a short telephoto which is just right for most venues and the wide aperture gives you nice out of focus backgrounds.

2. Anticipate the action

Like all good sports photographers you must be able to anticipate. And again like in sports the are always clues, such as a crescendo or tempo change, that tell you something might be about to happen. Focusing is difficult in low light, I find it very helpful to assign autofocus to a button other than the shutter, so I can focus first and then I’m always ready to take a shot when something happens. Here’s how to do it with a Canon, anyone using a different system that knows how to do this please let us know in the comments!

This doesn’t just apply to band members, the lights are likely to be on a repeating program so pay attention to that. Most of the time the musicians will be fixed to the spot (e.g. in front of a mic stand) so you just have to find the right angle and wait for the lights to shine down on your subject

3. Smoke makes things look cool

Smoke/haze makes everything look better, it’s also necessary for you to be able to see beams of light, and hides the often shabby back of stage area. There’s not much to say about this one, except that like the lights the smoke machine is likely to be on a timer, so try and figure out the timing and line up a shot with the spotlights.

Smoke fluid costs money so some venues don’t use it all the time. You might be able to ask them to turn the smoke machine on, the worst they can say is no.

4. Shoot lots

Even with the right equipment you are going to get a lot shot out of focus, blurred or totally over/underexposed. Embrace the advantages of digital and the low price of memory cards and shoot as much as possible. This is not to say the old concepts of anticipation and good composition no longer apply. On the contrary, using all of these in conjuction with an itchy trigger finger will give you the best possible results!

I took 11 photos of this guitarist in almost exactly the same position, this shot was slightly better than the rest.

5. Shoot RAW

Following on from above, the light levels are going to vary massively between shots, the metering system is never going to fully cope, shooting RAW gives you the maximum possible flexibility. And memory cards are still cheap.

The jpeg version is on the left and almost the entire image is pure white. The right image shows what I was able to recover from the RAW. It’s still great but if that had been an incredible moment, RAW would have saved the shot. White balance is also almost impossible for the camera to judge with so many light sources, so RAW allows you to chose a pleasing colour balance after shooting.

6. Engage the subject

Whilst very few of the people who get up and stand on a stage in front of a crowd of strangers are what you’d call shy, some musicians love to show off more than others.

Those people are likely to go even further if they see you taking photos and if you acknowledge them.

7. Change your perspective

It will soon get boring if you take all your photos from the same angle, so change your position. Get higher, lower or round the side of the stage if possible, just don’t get thrown out.

Using a wideangle lens is a great way of exaggerating pose and giving the photo an epic sense of scale.

8. Don’t forget the drummer

This is one area where it’s important to get a good position to shoot from, hidden away at the back of the stage the drummer is often ignored by photographers yet he/she can be the source of great photos, as they often move around a lot more than other musicians.

A good way of capturing this energy is with a long exposure, the above was the result of capturing the stage strobe light with a single exposure.

9. Don’t forget the crowd

Focusing entirely on the stage is also a mistake as the crowd are often a source of great photos.

10. Use off-camera flash

You are often at the mercy of the lighting design, when the venue has particularly poor lighting there is not a lot you can do. The following was shot in a bar with no stage lights. In fact there were no lights of any sort on the stage, making it darker than the rest of the bar! Even at f/1.4 and ISO 3200 I was metering a 1 second exposure. Not good.

A pair of flashes placed on the cabinets behind the musicians pointing inwards provide the only lightsource you need. Position yourself so that the flash itself is blocked and fire away.

11. Do whatever you need to get the shot.

Finally, if you have to up the ISO several stops in order to use a wide angle lens, do it. Noise doesn’t necessarily ruin a shot, the following was underexposed at high ISO, which is basically the worst thing you can possibly do with regards to noise, yet I still decided to keep it.

It is the quality of the shot that determines your camera settings not the other way around. Do whatever you have to do to get the shot.

MG

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Tutorials and guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.