Shooting my first show- Concert Photography
On June 13, I shot my first live show! I’ve been an avid concert go-er for a while now and I have been into photography for a bit now too. Now I do have a lot of people I know who are concert photographers and I absolutely love their work and definitely is inspiring to see the magic during a show. Since live shows are coming back, that magic is coming back! Though, I am still new to show shooting I thought I would share how my first experience once at a local show and give some tips!
To start, you gotta make sure you have a camera. Now that could even be a phone, I first started show shooting on my phone honestly and its crazy what you can capture still! I personally shoot with a Canon EOS rebel T5 but any type or brand works!
Settings for the camera, at least what my fellow concert photogs told me which was so true and worked amazing. You want to shoot in Manual. That way it gives you the freedom of setting certain things the way you want to capture those awesome moving shots. Also, shooting with Continuous drive helps get those moving shots too. You might seem like you are taking a bunch of pictures at a time, which you are but there will ALWAYS be those few that turn out amazing.
Next for setting, ISO is important, aswell as shutter speed. ISO is how sensitive your cameras sensor is to the light. I had my ISO between 3200 and 1600. The lower the better.
Shutter speed though, the higher the better. That is how quick the shutter of the camera is open for the shot..
Aperture, is how big or small the opening your lens is. You wanna have this wide, f/1.4-f/2.8.
There really is no perfect camera settings though for concert shootings. You just wanna make sure it captures the clean shot. Also another tip, you never want to have your flash on during a show. If you are shooting someone back stage though, a flash is great.
These are tips also from an amazing article from a photographer, Matty Vogel,
Mode-Manual
Shutter speed-1/250 or higher
ISO- low as possible, 3200 maximum.
Drive mode- Continuous
Autofocus- Al-Servo
Quality- RAW
Aperture- Wide: f/1.4-f/2.8
White Balance : Auto WB
When it comes to editing, if the lighting at the venue is really bad, which the venue I shot out it was, black and white is your bestfriend. The lighting at the venue I was at, which was a small theater, the lighting and color on stage was awful, but you gotta deal with it! But black and white saved some of my photos honestly, they were really dark and the purple of the lighting made it seem/look bad. When it comes to that, you just got to lighten up exposer, mess with some other settings like blacks and highlights and shadows. But somethings can change each photo!
You can read so many articles to learn about this stuff, and at the end of the day, its all about practice and getting your foot in the door!
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Below are some more photos from the show,
