More Concert Photographs

More Concert Photographs

by William Lulow

I recently had a chance to drive down to the Brandywine Valley in Pennsylvania, just north of the Delaware state line to photograph a band called Sugar Lime Blue. They are based just outside of Nashville and I wanted to make some images of them up north here because I had discovered them on YouTube and they sounded great. They travel with an ensemble of four musicians, but on their home turf, they usually have quite a few more. Here is the shot of them on stage at Kennett Flash, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania:

Many of these small venues do not have what I would call adequate stage lighting. Most of my efforts in these situations call for settings of ISO 1600 – 2000 to enable the lens to be stopped down to f/5.6 or f/6.3 and a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second, with my 20mm f/2.8 lens. Sometimes I have to crank the ISO up to 2500 to have enough light. I need to be able to stop most of the motion on the stage and have enough depth-of-field to get two people in focus at the same time. In this case, the bass player (far right) was wearing a hat with a brim so I had to wait until he raised his head enough to be able to see his face. (Probably not a great idea to wear hats on a club stage because if you’re on stage, you want to be seen! But for some performers I guess it’s what they like). I think this was the best I could do with that, given the circumstances. The two-shot looked like this:

This was acceptable sharpness, but not as good as it could have been with better lighting. Here is another:

The top one was made at ISO 2500, f/6.3 at 1/100th of a second. The extra ISO setting is beginning to take away some of the sharpness, but the woman’s face, microphone and her motion was pretty sharp. Most of these were made with my 85mm f/1.8 lens. This image was made with ISO 2000, f/5.6 @ 1/125th of a second with my 85mm f/1.8 lens.

There were a few close-ups made with my 135mm f/2 lens:

This last one was made with my 135mm f/2 lens, ISO 1600, f/6.3 at 1/100th of a second. You can see how much better the sharpness and resolution are with these settings. She was the one with the most light on her and it made a major difference in the quality of the shots. When you are in a concert situation, the main, stage white light is usually directed at one performer. The others, who are off to the sides, often receive little or not enough light to make really decent images, so you have to do the best you can. Often, I have to lighten up the faces of subjects closer to the edge of the frame in post-production.

I also have to add, that most of these images were made with the help of a MONOPOD for extra stability. Even though no slow shutter speeds were used, it definitely helps to have the camera mounted on  a tripod or monopod especially when using longer lenses. In addition, when shooting events of any kind, it also helps to use two camera bodies as I did here. Since I use all prime lenses, I don’t have to waste time and potentially miss any good shots while switching lenses. I had my medium telephoto (85mm f/1.8), the longer 135mm f/2 and my wide angle (20mm f/2.8) to capture this show.

So, when capturing musicians on stage in a concert situation, knowing what to expect in the way of lighting is extremely helpful. My experience has taught me several things:

• Most small clubs have inadequate lighting for making extremely sharp images.
• Arenas have an abundance of light on their stages so chances of coming away with many sharp images is enhanced.
• Small clubs require higher ISO settings but you can still obtain images that are grainy (noisy) but sharp. It’s called “sharpness in grain.”
• It helps to have two camera bodies so you don’t have to change lenses when using primes instead of variable focus lenses.
• Depending on how far you are from the stage, sometimes a longer telephoto is helpful. Many of my early arena and club photos were made with a 200mm f/4 lens on my old Nikon F bodies.

As an amateur musician (I have played guitar since I was 11 years old), it is great fun to photograph musical performances of almost any kind.