My first 'gig' - Your thoughts?

(Note; this thread was originally about WordPress plug-ins, but I didn't want to make a new thread to ask for opinions and I already figured out the WordPress issue, so I thought I'd just edit this instead)




Well I attended my first gig the other day as a friend was playing with his band. So I headed along to a place called The Purple Room and hoped for the best. Have never even attended a live music event before in my life. Closest was when I was on holiday in a pub I'd never been in before and two lads started up with acoustic guitars. Out from that, no experience whatsoever so hadn't a clue what to expect.


Anyway, I was wondring if anyone would care to give their opinion on my shots? I know they're not stellar by any stretch of the imagination, and it being my first time, I wasn't expecting anything worthwhile anyway, but I'm just kinda hoping to get other people's opinions as it will give me something to think about if I'm in such a situation again (or there may be things I have missed or should look out for in future).



The pictures can be seen on my Pix account.


I'll post three or four below.


I carried both cameras, the Olympus E420 with it's 40-150 lens and a flashgun, and the Canon 20D with the 50mm 1.8 lens. I think focusing was the biggest issue I had. The Canon seemed much more capable than the Olympus, but I was using manual focus on both of them at different times in the night.

I ended up using the Canon more than the Olympus as the pictures with natural/stage lighting looked generally better I thought, but I did use the Olympus a bit, too. Enough to justify having it, anyway.


Cheers

Chorcai

"Anyway, I was wondring if anyone would care to give their opinion on my shots? I know they're not stellar by any stretch of the imagination,"

You need to have more faith in yourself buddy, I'd be dam happy with those photos.

What did the band think of them ? Like 'em / Hate 'em

Will they ask you again to do something ?

What did you learn from this ?

I'd say this type of photography will suit you to a T !

1,2 look spot on, the first being my fav out the set. 3rd one just a pity about the flare, had it have been bigger flare it could have added more to the picture. 4 maybe try B+W to lift it ?

Cheers Chorcai.

Can always rely on you to give a sympathy reply when no one else does :P


I like the first shot, too. The band members like it aswell, I believe, but they're upset he dressed as Captain America in it (as am I, could've been a better photo otherwise).

Also like the second image, but I'm annoyed that I didn't realise at the time that I had cut of fhis feet. I'd have really liked that image if it were framed properly.


Don't really know the band that well, only the bass guitar player ("bassist"?) from one of the bands. There were four bands playing. I knew a guitarist from one of the others, but only really to say hello to and such. Everyone else was a stranger to me, so I never got, nor asked for, feedback.

The bassist I know seems to like them though. He's doing bass for another band on friday and asked if I'd like to come along (I know him quite well, so he's aware it's a learning experience for me and doesn't expect pro-like results... thankfully).


I think my biggest issues were that my most used lenses are a 50mm and a 40-150, so I feel like I'm too tight in some of the images (a lot of the images I took were scrapped because, aside from the strap of the guitar crossing over their shoulder, you wouldn't even know they were playing music).

I think I just panicked a lot and fired off as many shots as possible. Focusing was a nightmare. I've plenty to learn as I go along, so I only hope to try and photograph at more, similar, events.


EDIT: Just tried that photo in black and white and it looks a lot better, actually. Will keep it in black and white. Cheers!

AnimalRights

The pics are very dark yet you used f1.8 and iso 1600, the lighting must've been terrible?
The gigs I do are pretty similar why I have to use flash.

As for pics I find the Drummer one the best of the 4, not sure how much you know about PP but I'd also adjust the colour cast/tones...
Lightroom 3 is what I use for PP.

mehfesto

Not a bad start, at all, at all!

Honestly, you could get yourself in with some online-publication if you kept getting shots like these. Given such poorly lit conditions, you'd do much better in the bigger venues. You seem to have a good eye for framing and lighting positions!

I'd say the only thing you need to improve is your post production. This is criminally over-looked in gig-photography generally.

Your pics are very red/orange. If you shoot in raw (and you should if you shoot gigs!) you can tinker with the White Balance to make it a little cooler. If you have them in RAW, no.3 could be a belter - brighten up the singer, play with the shadows and highlights, tweak contrast slightly and give it a smart sharpen mask and you'd be done.

So that's my main advice - shoot raw. It's really saved my arse a few times!
Also helped me change this to this the other night! I know which one I prefer.

Regarding PP, I had a not so legal copy of photoshop before. I don't really care for photoshop as I find it difficult to get used to, but I did use the heal tool in it a bit, when cloning in paint would be awkward.

But it came with Camera Raw 5 and I liked that program. It let me make basic, radical changes to the images and save them as JPegs so i could do whatever I wanted with them then in Paint.net (my preferred editing program).


I reformatted my PC a while ago though and never looked for camera raw again (to be honest, I only remembered the name of the program when i was writing this) so i only used JPeg since.


I will look into going RAW.


AnimalRights; The lighting was pretty poor alright. I had the Olympus and flash gun with me, and i used it for a few shots, my favourite being this one;






But generally I decided to stick with the flashless canon/50mm 1.8 combo as I think the shots look a lot more atmospheric. Focusing was a pain in the jock though. A lot of photos came out very soft or blurred. I only got lucky with a few shots I'd say that got the focus spot on. Unfortunately a lot of these shots were poorly composed and were just photos for the sake of taking photos (ultimately, they got binned).


I assumed the lighting would be as bad in the vast majority of places? (Again, must stress, I don't really go out much, nor do I attend gigs or such, so I've really no idea).



Mehfeso; Cheers! Anything good that came out of the photos, I'd put down to beginners luck, really. I'll update this thread the next time I take photos and hopefully they'll be somewhat decent too (should be photographing again on Friday, but unsure at the moment).

I think the reddish look ofthe pictures is due to a red light that was on either side of the stage lighting up the singers. I thought to try and reduce that, but I think a custom white balance setting would be the way to go next time? Take a few shots of the guys on stage with different CWB settings and see which looks best?

Or will that just ultimately backfire on me, if they walk into a different colour of light on the stage?


Might sound strange, and by no means is this meant as an insult or anything, but I think I like the first picture you posted marginally more. Both nice shots and all, but I like the red, hellish look to the first one. That said, the second one looks a lot crisper and clearer. If I were going to actually use either in an online or offline publication or such, i'd go with the black/white one, but i do have a fondness for that evil red kinda colour you picked up in the first one.



I am curious though; how did you take that shot? Drum kits aren't that tall, so unless he was higher up than the stage, i can only picture you lying down on the stage? Or holding the camera down low and shooting on burst and hoping for the best?


Cheers again, all

mehfesto

Deleted User wrote: »

I will look into going RAW.

Do it!

Deleted User wrote: »

I think the reddish look ofthe pictures is due to a red light that was on either side of the stage lighting up the singers. I thought to try and reduce that, but I think a custom white balance setting would be the way to go next time? Take a few shots of the guys on stage with different CWB settings and see which looks best?

Or will that just ultimately backfire on me, if they walk into a different colour of light on the stage?

Yeah, that'll kill you. Stick with Auto WB unless you *KNOW* the lights are going to be exactly the same. The joy of raw is that colour balances can be changed drastically without ruining the shot at all.

Deleted User wrote: »

I am curious though; how did you take that shot? Drum kits aren't that tall, so unless he was higher up than the stage, i can only picture you lying down on the stage? Or holding the camera down low and shooting on burst and hoping for the best?

It was in Tripod - the stage is about 3-4 foot off the ground there (I was in the photopit), and he was on a platform too, so I only had to lean slightly in to get that shot. Unfortunately the angles didn't work out so that I could back light him with the two lights there, behind him!

ditpaintball

Just to jump in on the WB bandwagon..

Don't use auto, pick a temperature and stick with it. Auto can get it wrong and it will get it wrong in a setting like this where it is seein a lot of blue and red lights. It *may* vary the results through out the shoot. Get out of the habbit of using AUTO buttons. Now is the time to learn how to shoot manual

Stick it to flash WB mode and leave it at that. That way when you open you RAW converter, you know that all your images have the same colour temperature and once you fix one correctly, you can then just apply that setting to all the images and not have to go through each one.

If you want to put a CTO gel on your flash to balance for the majority of light, then you can set your WB to Tungensten and leave it at that. Your colour temper should be closer to that you want.

Hope that helps a bit.