Tips for taking photos of a concert/gig (in a club)

lucyloo

I need to take photos of artists/bands performing and moving on stages in small clubs and on big festival stages. Any advice for the best camera settings?

I have three lenses: the 50mm (best for close, atmospheric filming I find), the 70-300mm (not sussed this out yet) and the 17-85mm (which I use for most things).

I don't want to use flash, as the lighting is usually really atmospheric and have managed to get some sharp shots with the SPORTS setting, but it's a big hit or miss still. Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

Moose

Howdy @lucyloo - As you alluded to, it's best to capture these types of shots when you're close to the action. If you're trying to capture musicians and bands from a distance, especially in low light...you're going to struggle.

I'm assuming you have the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II? The reason this lens produces the best results, is because it can obtain apertures down to f/1.8. This allows more light into the 60D, when compared to your other lenses. By allowing more light into the camera, you're able to use faster shutter speeds at lower ISO's.

Faster shutter speeds freeze subject movement, which gives you sharper images. Lower ISO's, reduce the amounts of image noise (grain), which gives you better color and clarity.

If you want the performance of your 50mm in a longer lens, you'll have to pay for it. When you couple zoom power with the ability to use lower aperture f-numbers, the price and size of the lens increases greatly.

One of the most popular musician/band lenses is the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L (see here). It's razor sharp, quick to focus and gives you the ability to zoom from 24mm to 70mm while maintaining a low f/2.8 aperture.

As for settings, I would start with the following...

1. Get as close as you can to the stage.
2. Enable Aperture priority (Av on the mode dial).
3. If using your 17-85mm, adjust the aperture to the lowest available f-number based on your focal length. If using the 50mm f/1.8, I would set it between f/2 to f/2.8.
4. Set the focus mode to AI Servo.
5. Set the AF point to the center focus point.
6. Adjust the Drive mode to High-speed continuous shooting.
7. Set the ISO to Auto.
8. Set the metering mode to Partial metering.

With these settings in place, half press to continuously focus on the artist/musician. When you're ready to take the shot, fully press the shutter and hold it down to fire off a burst of images in quick succession...this will improve your odds of finding a keeper.

While shooting in Aperture priority, keep an eye on your shutter speed. If it drops below 1/125, I would manually set your ISO to a higher value until you're getting shutter speeds above that mark (it will depend on the amount of ambient light available).

That should get you going in the right direction. Happy shooting! :)