This spring 2009, I have chance to shoot Ludacris concert in Bucknell University. This is the third music concert that I shoot. Last year, I shot Third Eye Blind concert and O.A.R concert. Sadly, this is the last concert that I shoot in Bucknell University because I will soon graduated YAY!
I already wrote two posts about shooting music concert (check out bottom of this posts), so I won’t repeat so much about how to shoot a concert. But I will try to summary what you will need to pay attention too and some new tricks to get the job well done.
Note: I am shooting in the pit (which is right below the stage dividing the stage and the audience). To be able to shoot in the pit, you need to get media pass from event coordinators.
Equipments
DSLR camera is almost a must. beginner dslr like Nikon D40, Canon XS is okay, but if you have higher-end camera which has high continuous shoot speed, it is more preferable.
Because it is hard to switch lenses in the middle of the concert, I think two cameras will yield the maximum result. Three cameras or more will impede mobility. Mount one camera with fast wide angle zoom lens and the other camera with fast telephoto lens or telephoto prime lens.
To limit the lens flare, lens hood will help.
For the lens, the bigger the maximum aperture is better, for example f/2.8 or f/1.4. If you are short of budget to get f/2.8 zoom lens. I recommend 2 prime lenses. 24mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8.
Camera settings
Before, I use shutter priority to lock up the shutter speed. But now I use manual most of the time. I think it is the result is more consistent eventhough I have to check the exposure once in a while.
If you decided to use spot metering or other metering mode that are available, be sure to check the highlight. You can check it in the histogram, the most right collumn is the blown highlight zone. If it is blown up (completely white), then you need to set exposure compensation to -1/3, -1 or greater. Also make sure that your shutter speed is high enough to prevent blurry image by boosting ISO appropriately.
Locking shutter speed is more important than aperture because slow shutter speed will blur the image. The shutter speed will depend on the focal length of the lens you use and how fast is the singer move (Ludacris moves around very fast) 1/125 to 1/250 is needed.
The new trick that I try in this concert is registering my setting in the custom functions. Most dSLR has customer function (C1, C2.. etc). The reason I use custom function is so I can switch setting easily. I dedicate C1 to shoot the stage and C2 to shoot audience. There are huge discrepancies of light between stage and audience. In practice, I switch from C1 mode to C2 mode when I am shooting audience and vice versa.
Don’t forget to shoot the photo in RAW mode, because it is the highest quality the camera can bring, and if you sharpen, correct the color balance and exposure without significant lost in image detail and quality.
Audience react to Ludacris energetic performance. Usually the audience is very dimly lit, and the color is not attractive either, So I convert this image to black and white. I feel it is stronger than in color.
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