Mark Wills Concert

Digital Illusions · May 17, 2008

On very short notice the newspaper I work with asked me to shoot a country concert (Mark Wills). Although I have been shooting since a child I have never professionally had a gig like this. So, In another thread http://digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=94034 I asked for advice on how to shoot a concert. Unfortunately there were no replies before I needed to leave for the gig.

Using educated guesses I tried my best. Below are some of the images that I captured during the first 2 songs of the event. Please note I had the follwing lenses with me (It did not take long that I needed a zoom with much faster glass)
EFS 18-55mm, f/3.5-5.6
EF 75-300mm, f/4-5.6 and
EF 50mm, f/1.8

Note: all photos were shot in RAW and processed/touched up in CS3

1 - 50mm, f/2.2, ISO-800, exposure 1/60sec

2 - 75-300mm @ 280mm, f/5.6, ISO-1600, exposure 1/40sec.

3 - 50mm, f/2, ISO-400, exposure 1/60sec.

4 - 75-300mm @ 150mm, f/5, ISO-1600, exposure 1/125sec., exp bias -0.7

Rate or Hate. :thumb

Skippy · May 17, 2008

Digital Illusions wrote:

On very short notice the newspaper I work with asked me to shoot a country concert (Mark Wills). Although I have been shooting since a child I have never professionally had a gig like this. So, In another thread http://digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=94034 I asked for advice on how to shoot a concert. Unfortunately there were no replies before I needed to leave for the gig.

Using educated guesses I tried my best. Below are some of the images that I captured during the first 2 songs of the event. Please note I had the follwing lenses with me (It did not take long that I needed a zoom with much faster glass)
EFS 18-55mm, f/3.5-5.6
EF 75-300mm, f/4-5.6 and
EF 50mm, f/1.8

Note: all photos were shot in RAW and processed/touched up in CS3

1 - 50mm, f/2.2, ISO-800, exposure 1/60sec
2 - 75-300mm @ 280mm, f/5.6, ISO-1600, exposure 1/40sec.
3 - 50mm, f/2, ISO-400, exposure 1/60sec.
4 - 75-300mm @ 150mm, f/5, ISO-1600, exposure 1/125sec., exp bias -0.7

Rate or Hate.

Sorry there were no replies posted in your first request.
I would have been no help to you if I had of seen it.

I'm guessing fast glass is the way to go with these kind of Events.
Gus has done a couple, but he's been away overseas for the last few weeks.

I imagine the lights would be hard to contend with changing constantly?

You did pretty darn good considering you went in fresh with no previous experience.

Skin tones don't quite look right to me.... Well Done

.... Skippy

.

Mr. 2H2O · May 17, 2008

Brian,
I think you did a fine job. I am assuming the paper will print in B&W so color cast with skintones is no big deal. Just a little more sharpening prior to going to press should make it look cleaner on the page.

In future shows, consider trying tungsten white balance settings either in camera or post to get some true revelations of the color applied with the theatrical lights. Focus is really hard to get so pop off a number of shots from whatever persepective you have just in case some don't turn out the way you want. You did a good job with exposure compensation and the images look soft to me - random sharpening which introduces some fine grain could help this out a little bit but won't show up in prints.

- Mike

ziggy53 · May 17, 2008

I think your experience did help and you learned really quickly what was going to work.

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier.

It does look like your paper should have images to work with so I hope they are happy. Please tell them "ziggy" says you need a little more notice next time.

Klamath Falls? I don't suppose the name "Weyerhaeuser" means anything out there?

I love that part of the country, Oregon in general. It's kinda like California, except you get to slow down a bit.

More parks per capita than any other state (I read that a long time ago) and no state sales tax. WooHoo.

Digital Illusions · May 18, 2008

ziggy53 wrote:

I think your experience did help and you learned really quickly what was going to work.

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier.

It does look like your paper should have images to work with so I hope they are happy. Please tell them "ziggy" says you need a little more notice next time.

Klamath Falls? I don't suppose the name "Weyerhaeuser" means anything out there?

I love that part of the country, Oregon in general. It's kinda like California, except you get to slow down a bit. More parks per capita than any other state (I read that a long time ago) and no state sales tax. WooHoo.

Thanks for the comments guys, i will check into those suggestions. i had submitted these 4 photos (and 2 other autography session pics) to the paper from about 200 captures. the other 194 all had something wrong, (blurr, blow-out, shadows, camera shake, etc). So the keeper rate is incrediablly low but for only having 10 minutes or so, i am happy. an it looks like you guys are too.

As for the color, they run about 50% of my photos in color so i never know which are going to be in b/w.

Ziggy, i agree with what you say about Oregon; but then again i guess i am a little biased

. Weyerhaeuser, was the largest lumber mill in the area until the local plant was bought and changed its name to Collins Products. the new company shutdown about 50% of what was active under Weyerhaeuser and retooled the rest to be a "small log" mill. they are still one of the largest employeers in the town but the number one (by a good margin) is Jeld-Wen. Have you heard of them?

Anywho thanks for looking, any other comments out there?

Mark Wills Concert

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