The concert photography covers for me one of the most interesting and spectacular photography areas. You can either take place in confined spaces, in huge halls or outdoors, but mostly a lot of people and within a very short time. Many photographers want to shoot the best pictures at the same time, what a great artist with over 50 photographers in front of the stage is not easy, but what makes the concert photography
The photography of concerts begins earlier than the evening of the concert. In general, you should think about what you want to show with concerts images to the viewer. The photographer wants to capture with his camera, the emotions, so that the viewer thinks that he himself was on the spot and hear the music in his ears, what can be done by freezing with emotions, but unfortunately this is usually only possible to me a lot of experience. But I think with a few important tips, is it possible for a beginning photographer.
I myself take pictures of the concerts since 2005, large and OpenAirs mainly in Switzerland. Starting with the Canon 20D and the kit lens, I shoot today with two Canon 1D Mark II, a Canon 70-200 2.8 and a Canon 24-70 2.8. In particular, the open-air season during the summer is very stressful, but it gives me a lot of fun, because I meet always the same photographer. See you around, discussed, and drink a beer after a hard day together.
Emotions
But back to the original photograph: As mentioned, a photographer during a concert has very little time to shoot his pictures. So it can be a great advantage if you know the artist / the band and their music itself. Then one knows about, when the performer has time to play with the audience, the guitarist has a solo or just the music is quieter and more melancholy. Every musician has his own life on stage. Whether this is Eva Briegel of July now, which always keeps her eyes closed and holds fast to the rod or pink microphone that's acting on stage, flirting with the guitarist and very much seeking contact with the photographer. Generally, pictures, in which the singer photographer looking directly into the eye or the lens, the pictures with the most emotional and most meaningful. Unfortunately, many singers tend to close their eyes to what can cause a very beautiful picture moods.
They want to see sometimes in mind of the interpreter, as is also true for the concert photography: The eyes are the gateway to the soul. To prevent such closed-eye images, you can work with a series of pictures and hope that the artist opens his eyes briefly. A similar problem may cause the microphone and its stand, here are some of the performers literally clinging to the microphone and let go of this almost never. It is unfortunately only hope for a good day of the performers and the right moment pull the trigger.
In addition to all the emotional image content can destroy a technique very much. Since it is not usually take pictures with flash (which would also destroy the light situation), there is very little light, unless you will benefit from the simultaneous filming. Especially with film photography it is important that enough is available, and especially white light. To turn the light technicians, cameramen's sake, a white spot tracker more on what we photographers are not unhappy.
To deal with the most low-light situations, you come to a fast lens with a maximum aperture of at least 2.8 is not around. But even if the lens is fast, you have to work at high ISO values. I shoot with ISO 800 and increase in difficult situations to up to 1600 ISO. With the new cameras (Canon 1D Mark III, Canon 40D or Nikon D3/D300) are those ISO values luckily no longer a problem and they still bring back very good pictures.
With a little older cameras (Canon 1D Mark II, Canon 30D or Nikon D2/D200) such a high ISO values quickly lead to severe noise. With lenses, I am so far with a telephoto zoom and a 70-200 driven by wide-angle to normal lens of 24-70 very good. The message to the face of an artist well represent and the wide-angle around the stage or more persons to photograph on stage simultaneously. general, but to say that it goes into the concert photography to the emotion and get even with noisy or not technically perfect images to advantage.
