Concert Photography, Part II by Steve Mirarchi for photo.net.

Home : Learn : Concerts: One Article

Now that you have your assignment, photo pass, and some thoughts on how to act when you get there (covered in Part I), it's time to get down to the physical, technical aspect of exactly how you're going to shoot the concert. We'll start by thinking about equipment: primes vs. zooms, fast aperture lenses, camera bodies, and a recommended basic setup. Then we'll move on to basic exposure: stage lighting, metering systems, shutter speeds, and aperture settings.

"I will laugh in the face of shallow depth of field; I will harness all available light with super-fast aperture lenses; I will handhold my 200/1.8 wide open and smile." --Anonymous unemployed concert photographer

If you haven't played around with your camera indoors without flash lately, now would be a good time to take a hard look at those meter readings. Set your ISO rating to 400, your meter to spot (which you should have if you're serious about concert photography; more on that in a minute), and your mode to aperture priority, wide open. Point around your kitchen, bedroom, wherever. How often are you getting a reading of 1/125 or faster? Unless you have a very fast lens mounted (f/2.0 or wider), my guess is not very often, if at all. Now point directly at the skin of your palm; what's the reading? You're going to need at least that amount of light to capture the detail in a skin tone under those lighting conditions. Since most outdoor concerts have some kind of ceiling over the stage and indoor concerts need spotlights for the crowd to even make out the performer in the first place, you're looking at a very similar situation to what you've just metered. No wonder there are ISO 1600 films and 400/2.8 lenses: one stop of light means the difference between a motion-allowing 1/60 and a motion-stopping 1/125.

Does this mean you should go out and spend a fortune on all those super-fast lenses, like a 50/1.0 or an 85/1.2? I wouldn't. In fact, I've never seen a lens that fast in use at a concert, and that's probably because of: 1) Shallow depth of field; and 2) Stage dynamics.

Note: The thumbnails on this page link to much larger scans for you to view.

So I should rush out and buy $5000 worth of pro zooms??

Yes and no. At any given arena show I photograph, a great majority of the photographers rely on 70-200/2.8 zooms. Granted, those on newspaper staffs didn't have to shell out $1500 for them, but that's what they were using nonetheless. If you're going to get serious about concert photography, at some point you will need to buy a 70-200/2.8 or equivalent. It's the lens I use 2/3rds of the time I shoot concerts. The wide aperture, especially at the long end, allows great close-ups and background blur, and the zoom range allows you to step back from the stage, zeroing in from the sides for more flexibility.
If you can't afford one now, rent one for critical events; even smaller camera shops in Boston rent them since there's reasonable demand. In the meantime, you have two choices. First, you could try to find a 70-200/3.5-4.5. Compared to the f/2.8 zoom, you lose a full stop for most of the range and another half-stop at the long end, but you'll get the flexibility of the zoom as well as optics that significantly outperform consumer zooms. You'll probably have to use ISO 1600 film (or push-process 800 film) to make up for that extra stop, but sometimes you'll have enough light to shoot wide open at f/4.0. During my early years of shooting concerts I used Canon's EF 70-200/3.5-4.5 USM to good result, though I found myself longing for that extra stop quite a bit.
What you don't need, however, is a wide angle zoom like a 20-35/2.8 unless you plan to photograph primarily groups of artists that are constantly together onstage. You will want to have a wide-angle lens eventually, but wide-angle zooms have their best applications in close quarters and tight photojournalism, both of which are rare conditions at concerts.
I'd also be hard-pressed to recommend a short-range zoom like a 35-70/2.8. Try the following experiment the next time you have any kind of short-range zoom handy. Mount the zoom on your camera, set it to 50mm, and position yourself at a marker--a line on the floor, for example. Now, zoom to 70mm and take careful note of exactly what you can see in the viewfinder. Next, slowly zoom back to 50mm while moving your body forward, keeping what's in the frame constant. When you get to 50mm, notice how little you've moved forward, judging by that marker you initially set. Now repeat the process, this time comparing 50mm to 35mm. Unless you're very stiff, you'll discover that you can keep your zoom at the 50mm mark and simply lean forward or backward and attain pretty close to the exact framing that the entire 35-70 zoom range affords you. You'll rarely have such tight quarters that you'll absolutely need a short-range zoom; a 50mm prime will work fine most of the time.
A note: if you do go out and get a long zoom right away, you'll miss out on learning how to compose the hard way; you might be tempted to let the zoom do the composing for you, rather than your having an idea in your head of what shot you want and using the zoom as a tool to compose that shot. Composition is difficult to teach, since everyone should have a unique style; in fact, the easiest way to learn composition is to 1) study a lot of photos (do your research); and 2) restrict yourself to primes. Which brings me to...

What's the least amount of gear I can get away with?

This is actually an incredibly relevant question, since the last thing you want at a concert is a lot of gear getting shuffled, banged into, and shoved around. It's also an important question for beginners and those wishing to shoot one-time events. So here, in order, is what I recommend:

• 1. 50/1.4 or 50/1.8. It's the time-honored way to get started, the so-called "normal" lens. With a fast prime you can experiment with depth of field and capture sharp images when you use high-speed films. Only a professional zoom can compare in terms of optical quality; in my experience, the $350 Canon EF 50/1.4 is just as sharp wide open as the $1400 70-200/2.8 wide open. That's economical quality for you.
  One of my first assignments for a bigger newspaper was covering the progressive rock band Tool [left]. The arena was so dark that I had to rate the Fuji SG+ 800 I'd brought at 3200 (and push-process it 2 stops) and shoot at 1/90 at f/1.8. Now at the time the only prime lens I owned was the $80 Canon EF 50/1.8. Yes, I was shooting it wide open with the film pushed 2 stops--a less than ideal condition, to be sure. But, as you can see in the larger image, the setup made for publishable images. As for depth of field, notice how even the tip of his elbow is out of focus. When you consider that the full frame contains his entire body plus about a foot of space over his head, you begin to realize just how important precise focus is with very wide apertures (and, to be honest, out of two rolls of film, I had only sixteen or so frames in ultra-sharp focus). But the main point here is that with an $80 lens I captured a sharp photo for which a pro zoom would have been at least one stop too dark. Had I not had the 50/1.8 with me, the shoot would have been a total bomb. Currently, I carry a 50/1.4 with me at all times.

  

• 2. 85/1.8 or 100/2.0. You'll be amazed at how close a 100mm gets you when you're even a short distance from the stage. An affordable telephoto is the next logical step in your system, and since those 135/2.0 models run upwards of four figures, your best bet is to grab a fast 85mm or 100mm, for which you'll pay no more than $450 (exception: the Nikon AF-D 105/2.0 is wicked expensive).
  With only a fast 50mm and 100mm at your disposal, you can adequately cover most small and average-sized shows without flash. In fact, for about two years near the beginning of my pursuit of concert photography, that's all I used for lenses--those two. It would have been nice to keep each mounted on a separate body, but honestly I don't think I missed any crucial shots while changing lenses.
  Right: Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters with a shirt on his head (long story). Notice the detail in the cheeks and the goatee. This is heavily cropped and blown up to show what a 100mm prime can do. 1/125 at f/2.8, Kodak Ektapress 1600 film.

• 3. Either a wide-angle prime (20/2.8, 24/2.8) or a long telephoto prime (180/2.8, 200/2.8). After going to a lot of shows and switching off between your 50mm and 100mm, you'll have experimented enough to know where you need to go next, and that's either much wider or much longer. If you're enjoying small club shows, you'll probably want a greater sense of perspective, which a 20/2.8 can easily render; you'll pay around $450. If you're moving up to arena and large theatre shows, you know your 100mm just isn't cutting it anymore, and you need that 200/2.8, which will run you around $700.
  At this point you're getting pretty serious about concert photography if you're outgrowing your 50mm and 100mm setup by considering $500 to $700 for yet another lens. You might want to consider holding off until you can afford a 20-35/2.8, if you'll be working mainly in very small clubs and bars, or a 70-200/2.8 if you're stepping up to large arenas. There are advantages to both primes and zooms, of course. You'll get better optical quality with the prime, and since it won't be nearly as heavy as the zoom you can probably get away with somewhat slower shutter speeds. If your subjects aren't that active of musicians, the prime is probably the best choice for you. If you're finding yourself moving into rock, rap, punk, or another kind of high energy genre, the zoom's flexibility will be invaluable to you, and you'd be best served saving up for that.

Yes, but not for the reasons you might think. Let's take a slight digression into stage lighting.

Slight digression into stage lighting.

Most concerts will have one of two setups: 1) there'll be a spotlight on the performer and little light elsewhere; or 2) there'll be lots of flashing, unpredictable, tungsten-balanced, multi-colored lights going off, mixing in with a spotlight on the current lead musician every now and then. In both cases, you need to be able to isolate what part of your subject you want to base your meter reading on; both conventional center-weighted and more current evaluative/matrix metering systems will not deliver the precise information you require.
What you can rely on is a spot meter, one that measures 4% or less of the subject area; this area is usually outlined by the center circle on a standard viewfinder screen. With an in-camera spot meter, you can select precisely which area you want to see detail in, make up your mind about the subject's reflectance (is it too bright? too dark?), adjust compensation accordingly, and shoot from there.
Let's take two examples. The first follows number 1 above: a musician in a spotlight, while everything else is dark. The camera is held vertically; the artist's head, shoulders, and trunk fill the frame. How do different meters read the scene?

• Center-weighted: The reading will be heavily based on the artist's clothing. If she's wearing a very reflective dress, the reading will underexpose her face; if she's wearing all black, the reading will overexpose her face. Only if she's wearing clothing that has similar reflectance to her skin will her face come out correctly.
• Evaluative/Matrix: If you place the circle that determines the reading over the subject's face, the reading will overexpose her face since it will read a lot of darkness around her head.
• Spot: As long as the entire circle that encompasses the spot meter area covers her face's skin tones, the meter will accurately read only the reflectance of the artist's facial tones.

• Center-weighted: Here's where a center-weighted meter can be of use, since flashing stage lights at the top of the frame will have little effect on the center of the frame, where the majority of the reading is based. Again, though, the reading will be mostly based the on the artist's clothes. Many photographers will, at the beginning of a show, compare readings between the artist's skin tones and clothing, and then simply leave the meter on center-weighted and adjust accordingly. For example, the artist's face might register as 1/125 at f/4.0 (skin tone compensation included), but the neon clothes reflect 1/125 at f/8.0. Since this is exactly a two-stop difference, the photographer sets the exposure compensation to +2, the meter to center-weighted, and doesn't bother with exposure from thereon in.
  There are limitations to this method: the clothes might be mixed and unreliable for a reading (a black vest over a white shirt, for example); the lighting might not always hit the face and the clothes evenly (in which case the figured +2 difference is off); the artist might remove some of the clothes (in which case you have to scramble for a new reading); there may be lasers or disco lights that surround the artist's chest, which will seriously throw off your reading.
• Evaluative/Matrix: You run into the same problems as with the scenario 1: if you're reading from the subject's face, any stage lights that shine into your meter's field of "vision" will cause it to seriously underexpose.
• Spot: Again, as long as your spot metering area completely covers the artist's facial tones, you'll get an accurate reading of the skin tones, despite whatever the stage lights might be doing. There are times when a stage light will be so bright that it will affect your meter regardless; in those situations you have to trust your instincts and compensate by increasing the exposure.

• If you have a telephoto zoom, get close for the most accurate meter readings. Artists with beards, long hair, and hats won't be showing off many facial tones, so you'll have to get close enough to accurately read them. That's the downside of spot metering: if you don't place the facial tones within that circle (if you read part of a dark beard, for instance) your exposure will be off. In those situations I look at the neck or at a bare arm under the same lighting conditions as the face.
• Take notice of how often the lighting changes versus the variance in your meter readings. Often the lights might change color, but the output will stay the same, and that means your reading will be the same as before. Artists generally prefer to keep the lighting for a particular song restricted to one or two levels of illumination, which means you won't have to re-meter with every frame.
• Tungsten-balanced lights are much darker than spotlights. When an artist moves towards the back of the stage, you can count on his being lit by tungstens; spotlights are usually reserved for when the artist takes command of the front of the stage. When in doubt, be sure to re-meter.
• If you underexpose C-41, it can be printed lighter, but you'll see increased grain, lack of detail in shadows, and grayness from reduced saturation and contrast. If you overexpose C-41, you'll lose sharpness, blow out highlight details, and lose color balance from excessive contrast. The same goes for E-6, but to a greater degree because of the film's narrow latitude. Obviously you can't print E-6 lighter if you underexpose; you'll just have a very dark slide with reduced detail and contrast.

Examples: Exposing for Stage Lights

To the right is then-teenage country star LeAnn Rimes, in concert in 1997 in D.C. Notice the lens flare in the lower right corner; that's a telltale sign that a stage light was in my face, especially since I always use lens hoods. LeAnn had been singing when she suddenly hit this pose. I spot metered her face, simultaneously autofocused, and shot it. When I could see through the viewfinder again she'd already turned around.
If I'd been in any other metering mode this shot would have been lost. Most of her face is in shadow; the detail we see is a bit grainy, which tells us that we had to pull those features out. I did this by spot metering her facial tones despite the fact that they were in shadow. The very bright stage light would have caused another metering method to severely underexpose, and by the time you compensated for it LeAnn would've been gone. On the other hand, if we'd overexposed this shot any more, the stage light would have totally taken over and blown out the shot. Thanks to the spot metering of the face, the shot was saved.
Composition note: it's a plus to have another band member in the background, as the guitarist is in this shot. Notice how he's lit by tungstens, which adds some pleasing color to the image.
Composition note #2: I cropped this frame specifically to put LeAnn a bit to the left, as that's the direction her body seems to suggest. Just reframing a shot a few inches in a different direction can give an artist a whole different look; off-center images work particularly well with performing musicians.

All that said, I should mention that the "shadowdance" image would most likely never be published. Her face is simply too dark, and the only way to lighten it and preserve the scene would have been to use fill flash, which of course was prohibited. The group scene to the right, in which LeAnn shares a telling moment with both her guitarist and bassist, has been the most often requested image from this particular shoot. This moment was brief; recognizing its potential, I shot 10 frames of it in the space of about 3 seconds. In only this one particular frame of the ten do all three of them appear to be sharing the same moment.

Here's another example of what is publishable and what is not--and how to recognize that while you're shooting. To the right is Sean Puffy Combs, the Puff Daddy himself. At the end of one of his songs, he struck the pose you see here, which he held for 5 seconds or so. It's a powerful pose, and the light streaming around him creates a beautiful effect. His face, however, is in shadow, about which there was nothing I could do. An image like this, though aesthetically pleasing, simply doesn't have much of a chance of being used to accompany an editorial article.

This image, however, has seen some publishing activity. First, Puffy is well-lit, as is the woman. Second, Puffy is engaged in an activity that contributes to and illustrates his bad boy image. Finally, that's Mase in the background, which increases the value of the image already now that Mase has come into his own, and on top of that his expression seems to be making some kind of statement about what Puffy's up to. The image may not be artsy like the lightstream photo, but it offers the kind of illustrative meaning that the other cannot.

That's Marty Friedman of Megadeth to your left. I had my 70-200/2.8 on one body and my 50/1.4 on the other, the latter of which I switched to when Marty walked over to this side of the stage. The red stage lights behind him were angled somewhat towards where I was standing, but not enough to overly influence a spot meter. They would have easily caused underexposure with an evaluative meter, however, because of the large portion of the frame they were illuminating more brightly than Marty's face. I spot metered Marty's face, backed my exposure compensation down to neutral because of the slight interference of the dark hair, and waited for him to lean in (he'd done so once already that night; I figured he might again). Having locked in my exposure with the AE lock button, all I had to do was focus and shoot once he struck the pose. Kodak Ektapress 1600 film.
Composition note: I backed up a bit as he approached to make sure I got both of his hands in the frame. Unless it's a great shot otherwise, guitarists look best when you can see both their hands.

Also to your left is Kevin Cadagon, formerly of popular alternapunk upstarts Third Eye Blind. This shot was actually pretty difficult. The stage light that's not flooding--the one that's just a sun-like circle--was throwing my meter and my autofocus way off. I tried metering off his face but got absurd interference from the stage lights. So I zoomed into his neck area, spot metered that, overexposed that reading a full stop because of how dark his clothes were, and autofocused just above his ear. I shot four frames of this scene, and this photo is the one in which his head is tilted most interestedly toward the lights, as if he's basking in them. Fuji SG+ 800 film, 70-200/2.8 lens, 1/125 at f/2.8.
Depth of field note: See what I mean about artists leaning back? He looks like he's standing straight up, but when you notice how out of focus his hand is, your mind makes the connection that he must be leaning back pretty far.
Exception note: This photo would never have worked had I included his other hand, which was way up at the 3rd fret.
Composition note: You either love or hate the way-out-of-focus microphone in the upper left. I hardly notice it because it's so blurry. The truth is that to get rid of it I would have had to have moved farther to the right, but it turns out there was a huge row of seats there. As it was, I was practically leaning over into some guy's lap. Sometimes you have to turn your constraints into unusual components in your photos; in this case I think the effect is cool, thanks to how blurry the mic is.

So...I guess I'll still need an expensive camera body.

Cameras with built-in spot meters are near the top of the product lines; among the EOS bodies, only the A2/EOS-5 and the pro bodies have true spot meters, with the pro bodies also sporting a 2.3% fine spot (the Elan II/EOS 50 offers a "partial metering" mode, but it reads nearly 9% of the frame, which is too imprecise unless you can get very close to your subject). Nikon's N70 and better bodies have precise enough spot meters. You could always buy a handheld spot meter, most of which are ultra-precise all the way to one degree, but I find them useful only if an artist is remaining somewhat still and I don't expect too many lighting changes (pianists are prime candidates).
While we're on the subject of camera bodies, we might as well delve into what camera mode you'll be best off selecting. Many modern cameras boast Image Programs or Zones or other algorithms that assure you the best results for sports, portraits, or what have you. Ignore them--or use them without film so you can see what they think are appropriate settings for those programs. You really only have to worry about three modes, explained below.

• Aperture Priority. In this mode you specify the aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed you need based on your meter reading. I use aperture priority in extreme situations: very dim light and very bright light. In very dim conditions, I need all the light the lens can gather, so I'll shoot wide open and make sure I use film fast enough to get appropriate shutter speeds (see below). In bright conditions, narrow apertures might end up rendering the ugly pipes in the stage's background visible, and since I want to focus on the performer, I'll shoot at an aperture effective at blurring the background.
  Which apertures work well for concert photography? Nothing narrower than f/5.6, I'd say, since you want to isolate the musician and provide some perspective. You've heard the story of what they teach the very first day in Photography 101: "an image must have a clear foreground, subject, and background." You can create a foreground by throwing a guitar's headstock out of focus, for example; a blurry guitar will concentrate the viewer's attention on the sharpness of the artist's face. To achieve that effect you need to shoot at f/5.6 or wider.

• Shutter Priority. The opposite of the above, now you specify the shutter speed you want and the camera chooses the aperture you need based on your meter reading. I almost always start shooting in Shutter Priority mode at 1/125. I take a look at the readings I'm getting, and if there's not enough light I'll switch to Aperture Priority and shoot wide open; if there's a decent amount of light (readings between f/2.8 and f/4.0) I'll stay in Shutter Priority at 1/125; if there's a lot of light (f/5.6 or more) I'll switch to Aperture Priority at f/4.0.
  Which shutter speeds work well for concert photography? If you check the Kodak Professional Photoguide, you'll find that the fastest shutter speed you need with a 50mm lens for stopping the action visible in an 8x10 print of someone jogging across a stage is 1/1000, and that's assuming you're not panning and are about 12 feet away from the artist at the time. True, you will oftentimes be closer, and you'll often be using lenses with double that focal length and more, but how often do artists literally jog across the stage? Not often.
  With artists who just stand at the mic, you can generally get away with 1/60 as long as you're strong enough to steady whatever lens it is you have mounted. You know the "rule" of sharpness for shutter speeds: 1/focal length (thus 1/180, at slowest, for 200mm). I find that a bit too limiting for concert work, and so do many pros. If you can strengthen your arms, shoulders, and traps just a bit, you can handhold a three-pound 70-200 zoom at the long end at 1/60 with no camera shake. A simple exercise I do in the gym is to grab a 15-pound dumbell and hold it as I would a telephoto zoom lens. When I first tried this exercise I couldn't hold the weight for more than 60 seconds or so, and only for one set at that. A year later I do three sets of two minutes each with only a 30 second rest in between them. It's been quite effective in helping me wield heavier lenses with steadiness. Of course, don't start or perform any exercise without first consulting your doctor.
  With artists who move around a bit, bob their heads, jiggle their hips, or otherwise, I find that 1/125 does the trick most of the time. I watch my meter readings for a while, and if I'm consistently getting apertures narrower than f/4.0, I'll go to 1/180 and maybe 1/250. I've never had a need for anything faster than 1/350, even with a 300mm lens mounted.
  An exception to a lot of what I've written here is slow-sync flash photography, which I've covered separately in Appendix I.

• Manual Mode. This is most useful if you're shooting a show where the lighting stays somewhat constant. If you have a camera like the EOS-5 that shows how your manual setting compares to what the camera would choose at that given moment, you can make a decision on the fly. This is most helpful under conditions in which the lighting changes only slightly; I'd never go to manual mode when lights were flashing everywhere. There's no sense, though, in taking constant meter readings when there's one spotlight on a performer that doesn't move or change in luminance.

On to Part III: Film.

Or back to the Concert Photography index.