Gig Photography Tutorial
Gig Photography - by Chris Johnson
www.chrisRjohnson.com
First draft: 3rd June 2008
Last updated: 19th June 2008
Key words: gig, concert, live, music, stage, photography, tutorial, techniques, available light, lighting, Canon, 400D
Scope
This tutorial is intended to cover gig photography at pubs, small-mid sized venues and local festivals, the types of gig a novice/amateur might cover. I haven't had the good fortune to photo at any larger festivals, arenas or stadiums ! The notes relate to my experience and the techniques i use with my Canon 400D, Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime and Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lenses.
Introduction
Gig photography is very challenging due to the fact that you're trying to take a photo of a performer (often moving) in very changeable (and often very low) lighting conditions. I like many others choose to photograph bands in available light only i.e. without using a flash and often (particularly at small venues with very low powered or sometimes no stage lighting at all) this can incredibly difficult.
Flash vs Available Light
I choose not to use flash because i want to capture the performer in the stage lighting as i see it. In very low light situations (those gigs where there is no light on the performer at all) i'll have to really push my camera to extreme settings but i'll usually stubornly persevere and carry on shooting without flash, i'll expect to get lots of poor results but there will always be one are two which come out, often after some hefty post-processing. Under those conditions it's a choice you have to make on the spot but if you choose to give up on available light and decide to use a flash you will need to know how to use it properly in order that your photos don't just come out looking like the typical flash photos of bands taken by audience members using their compact cameras! Often these type of photos just light up the whole stage in bright white light, they lose the whole ambience of the gig and look pretty bad. They can also produce the classic overexposed person against a completely black background.
Using a properly setup and directed flash gun either as the main light source or just as a fill can produce some nice photos and certainly a slow-synch flash approach can give a very dynamic looking shot... but you need to be aware that many venues and bands simply won't allow you to take photos of them using flash mainly because as a performer there's nothing worse then having a photographer flash bright white light in your eyes all the way through a gig. Under really bad lighting conditions even hardened available light gig shooters like myself might be forced to use flash but if you find yourself in a similar situation have some respect for the performers. I was at a gig some time ago and a 'photographer' was letting off his flash about 2 feet away from a performers face as she was trying to sing - this is pretty disgraceful in my book and he should have been thrown out!
Anway, that's the "use flash or not" dilema covered! As i don't use flash the rest of this tutorial assumes you won't be using flash and that you'll be using available light only...
Fast Lenses
Even at gigs with good lighting rigs there are still occasions where there is not much light falling on the performers so having the correct type of lens is absolutely essential. This is why an understanding of lens aperture is critical and it will help you choose the right lens for the job. The lens aperature is the area through which light comes through the lens. The larger (or wider) the aperture, the more light will come through the lens to fall on the sensor. Large apertures have small F numbers (eg f/2), small apertures have large F numbers (eg f/11).
In my experience for available light only gig photography you need a fast lens, i.e. a lens with an aperture of f/2.8 to f/1.8. Great starting lenses for gig photography are the 50mm f/1.8 prime lenses, available for both Nikon and Canon dSLRs. These can be bought for around £80. An entry level dSLR camera itself might cost you around £350-500 these days. Prime lenses have a fixed focal length so you can't zoom in and out, if you want a zoom (to be able to get whole band and individual portraits shots of performers) you need something like a 24-70 f/2.8. These lenses will cost you around £300 or more. They are expensive because they are f/2.8 throughout their entire focal range. Cheaper zooms tend to have a large aperture at their wide end which gets progressively smaller through to their long end meaning they become no good for gig photography at longer focal lengths.
The lenses that come with most dSLRs (known as a kit lens) are usually 18-55mm zooms (or similar) and their widest aperture is usually around f/3.5 which renders them fairly useless for low light gig photography. This is why just going out and buying a dSLR with the kit lens often doesn't cut it. If you are on a budget it would be better to just buy the camera body only and buy a 50mm f/1.8 prime to go with it.
One thing to note about aperture is that the larger the aperture the smaller the depth of field. f/1.8 produces a very small depth of field meaning it's possible to get a guitarists face in focus but parts of their guitar out of focus. This is just an unfortunate trade off you've got to live with if you have to work in very low light at large apertures.
Basic Camera Settings
Assuming you've got a dSLR and a fast lens (f/2.8 or quicker (i.e. f/1.8)) you need to set the camera up such that you can expose the shots correctly and capture the performer without motion blur (assuming that your style does not require blur). Most dSLRs have specific presets, some semi-automatic modes and a fully manual mode. In any type of photography there are several parameters which contribute towards exposing the shot correctly. When I say correctly I mean not too dark, not too bright but just right.
The 3 main parameters are shutter speed, aperture and film speed (ISO). You can achieve the correct exposure by many different combinations of these parameters. For example at a fixed ISO you can expose a shot correctly with either a small aperture and long shutter speed or a large aperture and fast shutter speed. Now, with a moving performer a long shutter speed would be bad because you're going to get motion blur, instead you will need a fast shutter speed to freeze the action. However, a fast shutter speed won't let much light into the camera, so for this reason you need a wider aperture (as mentioned in the lenses section above) to counteract this. Along with this you will usually need a high ISO setting 800, 1600 or higher for example.
Metering
This is how the camera asseses the scene (the shot you are composing and about to take) for 'correct' exposure. In a nutshell the metering setting you choose (spot, partial, centre weighted, evaluative etc...) is essentially how much of the scene and by what algorithm the camera uses to assess correct exposure. Stages are often very contrasty with large areas of dark stage and often very concentrated brighter light on performers so getting correctly exposed shots can be very difficult. It's normal to try and get the performers faces properly exposed in priorty to anything else in the scene.
A few examples which illustrate the need for careful attention to metering are as follows:
The first would be where you are composing a portrait style shot of a single performer on stage and there is a very bright stage light behind them in the scene too - i.e. a backlit scene. If the metering setting you have chosen takes it's information from too much of the scene the very bright light will fool the cameras metering system into thinking there is a lot of light and in Aperture Priority mode for example the camera would speed up the shutter speed in an attempt to reduce the exposure resulting in an underexposed and possibly sillhouetted image of the performer.
A second example would be whilst taking a head shot (head and upper body) of a performer front lit by a very bright spot light. If your metering method uses too much of the scene then the camera may be fooled (by the darker upper body of the performer) into trying to increase the exposure of the photo and could result in a very burnt out (or bleached) face and head.
Similarly, a third example would be where a whole band shot is required. Large areas of the stage may be very dark but spot lights can illuminate heads and faces very brightly so you need to be very careful with your exposure and metering to avoid bleached faces and heads. It would obviously be better to have large areas of dark stage and correctly exposed heads and faces rather then a brighter stage with burnt out heads and faces.
Spot or partial metering enables you to more accurately meter against mid-tones in the scene such as the performers faces. However, if you have only got a mode which uses a larger area (or indeed one which uses information accross the whole scene) then you may need to apply some exposure compensation while shooting. Metering against mid-tones or faces can often produce a very dark stage backgrounds but you can brighten this up a bit by some level adjustment in post-processing if needed.
Focusing
You can set dSLRs lenses to use manual focus (you rotate the focus ring on the lens until the image you see through the viewfinder is in focus) or you can use the cameras auto-focus (AF) system. I find manual focusing at gigs too difficult so I mainly use the AF system, however my camera and lenses can often perform badly under the low light conditions and heavily coloured stage lights - red seeming to be the most difficult light to auto-focus in.
Bringing it all together
Camera Mode
Many gigs can be quite hectic from a photographers point of view. With lighting conditions rapidly changing, performers moving around on stage a lot and an enthusiastic (and often drunk) audience to contend with i find it best to use one of the semi-automatic modes - i can't imagine how i could possibly be quick enough to shoot in fully manual mode at most gigs, with the exception of a really calm and civilised acoustic gig or a gig with perhaps a less youthful audience. The semi-automatic mode i choose to use is Aperture Priorty. In this mode you set the aperture and ISO to a fixed value and the camera will automatically set shutter speed for you. At typical pub gigs with a small lighting rig I usually set my camera to Aperture Priority mode, i set the aperture to f/1.8 (if I'm using my f/1.8 50mm prime) or f/2.8 (if I'm using my 24-70 f/2.8 zoom) and i set the ISO to 800 or 1600, more often then not i have to use 1600. Sometimes the lighting at small gigs is very low (or there is no lighting at all) and I'm forced to use my 50mm f/1.8 more then my 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom. This of course means that I can't zoom in and out, and i will get a lot of portrait (individual performer) shots.
Focusing and Metering
This for me is one of the trickiest areas to deal with in gig photography and it may indeed be soley due to the techniques i choose to use. There are a few different strategies for metering and focusing and they become an inter-related technical challenge.
I usually set my camera (and lenses) to AF and I usually set just one AF point as active, often the central one but not always. I've found that activating more then one AF point causes the camera to accidentally focus on stray mic stands and shiny drum hardware! For a portrait style shot I usually try to lock the focus on the performers face (shutter half depressed) and then quickly recompose (if necessary) to take the shot. It is also possible in some cases to flip to another AF point (perhaps one at the top covering the performers face) meaning that recomposistion isn't necessary - however this is where metering becomes an issue. If using Partial metering in the last scenario this would mean that you are focusing on their face but metering (for correct exposure) against their upper body rather then their face. If the performers face was well lit but their upper body was much darker this may cause the camera to over expose their face and head unless you used some negative exposure compensation. (Note that focusing on alternative parts of a performer (such as a guitarists guitar), although fairly central to the shot, can often be disastrous. Although parts of the guitar may only be a couple of inches in front of their face, due to the shallow depth of field i may be working at this can often produce a shot with their face out of focus).
On the Canon 400D there are three metering modes: Evaluative, Partial and Centre Weighted Average. In Evaluative mode, once a lock on focus has been obtained (shutter half depressed) the exposure is locked and won't change during any recomposition movement you make and the area used to evaluate the scene is large. However, in Partial and Centre Weighted Average mode the exposure changes during any recomposition movement. This means that if you've locked the focus (and hence metered) a shot (shutter half depressed) you will need to quickly press the Exposure Lock button before you recompose and then take the shot - otherwise the shutter speed the camera worked out for correct exposure may change when you have recomposed and the exposure may therefore be different from that measured whilst initially focusing.
As you can imagine all of these adjustments (adjusting the metering mode, the AF points and using exposure locking) can be very tricky mid-gig, especially when movement on stage and lighting patterns are fairly rapid or when the lighting on a performer is very contrasty and on many occasions i have to simplify the situation, almost throwing the text book out of the window and have chosen Evaluative or Centre Weighted Average metering and a central AF point - the exposure and focus have turned out ok even in these situations and even for those shots which involved a fair ammount of quick recomposition after an initial focus lock. You can always check the preview on the camera to double check you aren't getting any burnt out heads and faces and adjust the exposure compensation accordingly. However, if i have time (for example taking a portrait shot of a fairly static performer under fairly static lighting) then i will switch to Partial metering and use the exposure lock if recomposition is necessary. In some scenarios a simple switch to a different AF point (as mentioned above) can be beneficial speed-wise particularly if it means that you don't have to recompose the shot after the initial focus lock during a brief moment of good light - you just need to be aware of the metering mode you are in, perhaps alter it or adjust the exposure compensation accordingly.
Struggling AF Situations
There are occasions where there may be very little light on a performers face and so the AF struggles. In this situation i look for something they may be wearing which may be brighter, a light shirt/dress or light trousers for example and use this as a base to lock the focus onto because it's roughly in line with their face. However, if worst comes to the worst and the AF system is having real difficulty i will go for shiny parts of a guitarists guitar as a focus base. A shiny microphone next to a singers face can similarly aid a troublesome AF system in getting back on track too!
Underexposing to Gain Higher Shutter Speeds
Sometimes even with an aperture of f/1.8 and an ISO at 1600 (the maximum ISO on my Canon 400D) there is still not enough light to expose the shot and maintain fast enough shutter speeds. In Aperture Priority mode you will be able to spot this because you will see the camera slowing down the shutter speeds in order to try to expose the shots and you'll see motion blur on the previews. Typically if the shutter speed drops below 50ms (or somewhere around that) then you will start getting a lot of motion blur. In this scenario, you can force the camera to underexpose the shot. This means that all the shots will come out darker but the shutter speeds will be quickened meaning there will at least be no motion blur. You will then have to brighten the shots up in post processing and you'll have to accept that this will show up the sensor noise more. In this situation i have to run the photos though a noise reduction plugin to remove the noise. Inevitabley you lose some detail and skin can start looking a bit doll like. A more expensive camera with a higher quality sensor and higher ISO settings is the only way around this.
Lens Changes
At most gigs i want a mixture of wide (whole band) and portrait (individual performer) shots and i'm sometimes forced to have to make quick changes between my 50mm f/1.8 prime and 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom. This is not ideal but sometimes has to be done. For a whole band shot i will obviously have to use my 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom at the wide end and under very low stage lighting these type of shots are the most difficult. This is mainly due to the fact that in order to get all the performers in focus i will need to reduce the aperture to say f/4 or f/5 in order to increase the depth of field. As a result of this, even less light is falling on the sensor so i may have to force the camera to underexpose even further in order to keep acceptably high enough shutter speeds.
In Summary
Whilst shooting gigs in Aperture Prority mode the two parameters i mostly change on my camera mid-gig are the aperture, the exposure compensation, the AF point and i activate the exposure lock sometimes if i'm using partial metering. I mostly keep the aperture as wide as possible, reducing it only when i need to increase the depth of field and i constantly keep adjusting the exposure compensation to maintain shutter speeds throughout the gig.
Other Notes
Bin RatesGig photography can be very hit and miss, and sometimes out of say 50 shots of a band only 10 are any good. This is fairly normal, particularly at poorly lit local gigs.
Lighting RigsThis can be the most annoying part of gig photography, sometimes lighting is poor, often non existent at local gigs, sometimes not pointing at the performers (badly alligned/designed), sometimes the colour gels the venue is using are just awful for photography, sometimes bulbs are missing and often theres no variation during the show so you get a whole set of green or red photos for example. Red lights in particular can be really bad for gig photos in my experience and auto focus performs badly in red light with my camera.
After some experience you will know straight away if you're going to come away with good photos or not simply by looking at the rig when you walk into the venue. Some venues have lighting engineers who might be able to help you out by providing better colours or better variation but more often then not with local gigs they won't have a lighting engineer and the sound engineer simply switches a controller on and hopes for the best. This is frustrating but normal too and you'll end going to the venues with the best lighting more often then others.
Watching PatternsWhile shooting a gig you need to watch out for patterns in lighting and where the performers like to move to on the stage so you can build up a mental map of where you are going to get the best shots from and indeed when. Timing your shots with what you consider to be the best lighting combination is often crucial for producing a nice set of photos. You also need to watch for hot spot areas where for example too much light falls on a performers head or face for example. If you aren't carefull you can end up with very burnt out (over exposed heads and faces) or properly exposed heads and faces on very underexposed bodies. These high contrast areas may need to be avoided unless you've no other choices available.
Review Your Photos Throughout The Gig
Keep previewing your photos during the gig in order to be constantly aware of the positions and lighting combinations which produce the best photos. Also it's worth checking you are exposing the shot correctly, particularly looking for burnt out areas.
Patience
Sometimes gig photography can be a waiting game... in which you know where the best shot is and under which lighting combination. So you often need to have patience and wait until the performer moves to that certain location on the stage again whilst hoping that the lighting combination will be right too. Alternatively if you've only been allowed to photo for the first couple of songs you may need to just go for it...
Gear SnobberyDon't be put off by other photographers with huge expensive lenses, i've done lots of photos in this situation and have often got fantastic shots with my £80 50mm f/1.8 prime. That said i'd love to own some better lenses and a better camera.
EarplugsWear them, the best shots can often be from directly in front of a PA speaker or close to an instrument amplifier or drum kit.
Uncomfortable Be prepared to grovel around the floor and get a bit dirty on occasions.
Don't Buy Any Old Camera You definitely need an entry level dSLR with the 50mm f/1.8 prime as a minimum. If you can afford a mid or pro level camera then that will be even better.
Flash
If you have to use flash and the venue/band permit this have some consideration for the performers!
Further Reading
Concert, Stage, and Low-Light Photography - Steve Mirarchi
Click here for article
Concert Photography Masterclass - Daniel Boud
Click here for part 1 of the article
Click here for part 2 of the article
Techniques For Live Music Photography - boo-photos.co.uk
Click here for article