Well I have had my 5D for just a couple of weeks. Until now I had been borrowing friend's 10D to take all my portraits and learn in my class. I am loving my 5D, affectionately called Sassy, so much. On Friday we went to a concert of someone we have been following since little bars where there were 10 people there. He is now getting big and will be on tour with Phil Lesh (bassist from the Grateful Dead who brings in top musicians for certain tours in the past he has had Warren Haynes from the Allman brothers and Chris Robinson for example) and we are super excited for Jackie because he is such a young talent with an old soul. His music has been compared to Bob Dylan to give you an example...well enough of that. If you see him in your hometown - take the time and check him out he rocks.

Like I said I took the camera and this was the first time taking pics. I tried a pns once and the delay ticked me off and I never shot pics again. I would love to know what you think. Any suggestions for pictures in the tricky lighting would be very appreicated. Looking back at the pics I already know some things I would do differently. All these pics just had a sharpen run on the jpg of the image. I have not played with the RAW files yet, but will. I also took the wonderful Matt Antonino tutorial on the logo placement and created my first action. So many firsts here...okay pics 5D all with 50 1.4






There are more pictures and story on my blog. Thanks for letting me share. I would really LOVE CC on how I can improve in this lighting situation as well.

Great shots, great to see another Colorado photographer on her. Ususally when I shoot at concerts I will shoot at f4 at 800 iso, and center weighted metering. I think the 5D handled well for you.

Welcome to the fun of music photography!
A really good book you might enjoy is Concert Photography by John Sievert.
If you're shooting with the 5D, go ahead and bump up the ISO. Compose to emphasize and focus the musician's face or the instrument or both if possible.

Have fun,
Lori

nice. i dig these. my favorite by far is the third one on your blog, where he's at the keyboard. it's a great composition, an action shot with great use of focus and wonderful colors. a shot you should definitely submit to him.

one thing i try to avoid when shooting a live show, is to have the mic covering up the artist's face when he's singing (as in your last blog shot). i know it's hard, and your angles are extremely limited, but i've never come away with a shot i love where the singer's face is really covered by the mic...because you end up missing the emotion of the moment. not always, and not completely...but just enough.

the second to last shot on the blog is a bit too blurry for my taste, but i love seeing them both really going at it on their axes.

all around though, these are shots to be proud of seeing as it was your first time shooting a live show. bring some other lenses next time. i used to solely use my 50/1.4 and then started using a zoom lens (forget the type) and now really enjoy switching between the two, depending on the shot i'm aiming for.

thanks for sharing these, i love seeing live rock show photos and yours are really enjoyable.

RBothwell - Hi! Glad to always "meet" other Coloradans - Are you coming to the GTG? If so, I look forward to meeting you soon and thank you I will have to try closing down my aperture so I can get more dof next time for sure!

LoriWo- Thank you for the suggestion on the book I have it on order now I look forward to it. I will try to up the iso more too. Thank you once again

mac - Thank you so much for all your critique and cc I LOVE IT. You know the mic thing was something B and I were discussing after the show I completely agree. I will have to bring my 85 or get a 135 for next time so I can get better angles as well. Thank you so much once again I appreciate the time you put into your reply to me more than you can know.

Stacy I really love those pictures, and the ones on your blog; it looks like you have a real eye for concert photography. Looking forward to meeting you at the get together.

FWIW I tend to shoot manual mode and tungsten WB for concert shooting. Pick a exposure that is good for the lights at their brightest and stick with it It can be very tricky, but I find that if you let the camera meter you can loose shots to being blown out really bad or too slow of shutter speeds.

here's a few I shot of a fairly well known jam band Moe....

Thank you so much for that great info. you know what is funny is we have seen moe well DH almost 100 times and me about 40 or so. We have been on two moe. cruises and since my son is the same age of some of their kiddos we ended up doing the same activities outside of the cruise and kinda got to know them a bit...I canNOT wait to take moe. pics so I may see you up there some time sorry i ramble on. Can I ask what lens you used for these? I still trying to decide what to add to my bag Oh and yes I did loose a few to slow shutter...one of the points I put in my "lessons learned" book.

and Andy - THANK YOU! I am so looking forward to meeting you next month as well too. As stated above we see music a bunch so I think one thing that helped me running out of the gate is I kinda knew what to expect next and anticipate some of the lighting situations. I totally look at concerts in a different "light" now that is for sure

Thanks again everyone!

I think both of these were with my Sigma 17-50/2.8 and my D200, I'd have to look at EXIF at home to be 100%. My main 2 lenses for concert stuff is the 17-50/2.8 and my 70-200/2.8 VR. I'll usually bring my 50/1.4 and 10-20 but they usually stay in the bag unless I have lots of time to shoot and decide to experiment a bit.

Moe is fun to shoot, they travel with a good light setup so it makes for some fun photography. Plus I love their music. This was my 6 or 7th time seeing them. I tape a lot of shows as well so if you want to hear audio from this set, let me know and I can send you a copy of the show, encore was a really nice Steely Dan cover! So did you do the Jam Cruise or did moe do something specific?

To elaborate a bit on exposure techniques, I find that if I'm not shooting manual the camera tends to chase the exposure as the lights vary. Shooting manual I sometimes need to go up or down a stop or two but lighting changes so quickly in a concert situation that trusting the internal meter never seems to work that well for me. With the really directional lighting and varying colors it's just too easy for any of the metering modes (matrix, spot, center) to do a reliable job. You will either wind up metering off a shadow and blowing out where lights are hitting or metering a highlight and loosing the shadows, concert stuff is challenging, there is a lot of dynamic range you are dealing with.

I'm actually shooting blues ledgend, at least in my mind, Taj Mahal tonight in KC. I've been a fan for a long time so I'm really looking forward to the opportunity. The venue is a bit bad for lighting, but we'll see how things work. Take Care!