When digital just won't do... dark music venue.

<p>A few weeks ago I went to a local show and brought my camera. Now typically when I shoot a show I bring lots of important gadgets like mini tripod, cable release, reflective meter and possibly a bounce flash. But armed with only the simplest of tools... an OM-1 with a broken meter, a 24mm f/2.8 prime lens, a single roll of Ilford Delta 3200, and an incident meter, I took my chances. Granted, the meter was a Minolta Flash Meter IV which has a dramatically better lower-end range than many in-camera meters, I forgot the reflective attachment, so I was stuck with incident metering. This was also my first foray into Delta 3200 and super high speed films in general, so I really didn't know what to expect.</p>

<p>As the guitarist was tuning up, before the crowd gathered, I hopped on stage for a quick meter reading right beside his mic. Being a small venue with fixed lighting, and it being incredibly dark as it was, I was not worried about the lighting changing. 1/30th @ f/2.8 for 3200 ISO. Now that felt like serendipity. I shot the show in 36 frames with plenty of time for a couple of beers. One thing I've learned about shooting music is that unless something crazy is going on, or there is a lot of room for me to setup lots of different angles, there really isn't much point in shooting more than one roll. Even with my one roll, many of the photos look the same, there just were not that many places to shoot from.</p>

<p>While I shot, I was careful to watch for other photographers. Beside me and the girl shooting video (it was a CD release show, so they wanted it recorded) there was only one person who seemed to be shooting. He had a digi SLR with a zoom lens on it... it didn't look big enough to be very fast and if anything it looked like a kit lens. If it was faster than f/3.5 I would be very surprised. He shot a little but didn't move around much and he was def looking for a place to support his camera. That guy seriously needed a tripod, or a super fast lens, or high speed film. ;)</p>

<p>So here's a sampling of what I got, the band liked them so much they want to put them on their website:</p>

<p><br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_01s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_02s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_03s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_09s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_12s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_13s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Delta%203200/kovacs3200_25s.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <a href="http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=2959411&blogId=506894304"><br /> </a></p>

<p>Why, exactly, would digital 'not do' in this situation? I've got 3200 on my DSLR. The latest bodies are going to 12800 (APS) and 25600 (full frame). A Canon 50D with a f/3.5 kit lens would have 1.5 stops more light gathering ability than you had.</p>

<p>If I did dark music venues for a living I would have a 5D mkII and a f/1.4 prime lens. Now that's a low light setup!</p>

<p>Well....perhaps Larry didn't have the 3K for the Canon digital rig. But he, like many of us old timers, already had everything needed on hand to go ahead and shoot the set. Sure, digital is amazing.....if you have the money, for myself, an (almost) fixed income retiree I sure don't.</p>

<p>If you read the post, you would understand. The digital shooter in the audience wasn't shooting hardly at all, and wasn't even bothering to move off of the floor. I guess he didn't have the extra $3000 sitting around to get the 5D. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Why, exactly, would digital 'not do' in this situation? I've got 3200 on my DSLR. The latest bodies are going to 12800 (APS) and 25600 (full frame). A Canon 50D with a f/3.5 kit lens would have 1.5 stops more light gathering ability than you had.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think the actual low light gathering abilities are in question. It's more to do with the ability to capture the detail in both the highlights and the shadows.</p>

<p><em>Very nice tonalities indeed. Clearly nothing any digi can hope to capture.</em></p>

<p>??? What tonality? These shots show over the top contrast. Black, white, and 2-3 shades of gray aren't difficult to capture.</p>

<p>Very nice pictures, and sounds like you had a nice evening also. Without getting (too much) into the film vs digital, your setup is a lot cheaper than the ones suggested by Daniel. And (more importantly), for most of the users in here, a lot more fun to use.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>2-3 shades of gray</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Maybe you need to have your monitor calibrated?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Maybe you need to have your monitor calibrated?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Even if it is calibrated, I expect the prints will look much better than any monitor can manage.</p>

<p><em>I don't think the actual low light gathering abilities are in question. It's more to do with the ability to capture the detail in both the highlights and the shadows.</em></p>

<p>70% of each photo is pure black. Highlights such as skin and shirts go pure white. There's not much gray in between. The contrast on these is beyond excessive.</p>

<p>Go to flickr, type low light concert, and review some of the results. People using digital Rebels get a far better tonal range and pick up at least some shadow detail.</p>

<p><em>Maybe you need to have your monitor calibrated?</em></p>

<p>Here's a screenshot of the levels dialog for one of your shots. My monitor doesn't need to be calibrated, and the levels read out verifies everything I said.</p>

<p>If that's the look you wanted, fine, great, more power to you. But if you're going to tell people what digital won't do, have better examples than this.</p><div></div>

<p>The only pure white in these images are the light bulbs above the stage. Four spots directed towards the lead singer, clearly illuminating the carpet below him. A fifth directed at the drummer. Low wattage globes for decoration only on the stage, the globes clearly show variations in brightness and even modeling shading. If you see pure white anywhere but inside of the spots, then it's your eyes, not the images.</p>

<p><em>The only pure white in these images are the light bulbs above the stage.</em></p>

<p>Try the eye dropper tool in PS. Skin and clothing also go pure white. I suppose it could be your scan, but these shots show extreme contrast never the less.</p>

<p>Now if that's the look you wanted, great. But you didn't post "Check out my dramatic, high contrast, B&W music shots." You specifically said digital won't do for this type of photography and shared with us your feelings of superiority over another shooter at the venue based entirely on the camera you were using. You opened the can of worms...</p>

<p>Wow, so you have produced the histogram from an image taken with a wide angle lens pointed at a predominantly dark stage, taken on super high speed B&W film, scanned at home, resized, compressed, and uploaded and compressed again. Congratulations! you have just presented evidence that says that a photograph shot in such a way will have alot of darks in it, and a lump of whites at one end representing spot lights. Believe it or not, but some people actually like shooting high contrast and even do wacky things like add orange filters to make crazy blacks! And even weirder, some people find "even" tonality to be flat and incredibly boring to look at!</p>

<p>If you would kindly read the actual original post as I have already suggested, then the secret mysterious code of the meaning of the title of the post will be revealed to you.</p>

<p>Here's one just for you Daniel, the classic example of an impossible photograph, a snow scene photographed from inside a cave. Histogram, mistogram.</p>

<p><img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Megan Snow OM-1 FP4/megansnow04.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="464" /></p>

<p> </p>

<p>Patrick, someone from the peanut gallery said these shots have tonality digital can't match. I pointed out that they're high contrast shots with little tonality. You told me to calibrate my monitor. So I posted a histogram to prove the point, and it was proven. To match this look a digital shooter under similar circumstances would have to <strong>throw away</strong> tones and detail back home in Photoshop. So much for the "digi can't match" comment, which you didn't make, but which I was responding to when I brought up the tonality.</p>

<p>I read the post and I get the title and it seems childish. Just show your work. No need to feel smug because you think some other photographer didn't move enough. Did you see his shots? Maybe you would feel humbled if you did. Maybe not. But if he was having trouble it was due to a slow lens, not due to the fact that he was shooting digital.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Try the eye dropper tool in PS. Skin and clothing also go pure white. I suppose it could be your scan, but these shots show extreme contrast never the less.<br>

Now if that's the look you wanted, great. But you didn't post "Check out my dramatic, high contrast, B&W music shots." You specifically said digital won't do for this type of photography and shared with us your feelings of superiority over another shooter at the venue based entirely on the camera you were using. You opened the can of worms...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>In the fifth image, where the singer is clearly perpendicular to the spot light, there is pure white mixed in with shades of gray in his shirt. That is what I would call an acceptable amount of white. Nowhere in any of these images is there evidence of blown-out whites as you are apparently alluding to. The guy is wearing a white shirt, obviously extreme highlights directly under a spot light are going to show pure white. In most cases, the faces in these images are below 160 on the 256 scale of gray. What that means is that your statement is just a flat out lie, and anyone who cares to look is free to look and can see that for themselves. Unless there is some magical reason that the images you are pulling off of Photobucket are different than the ones that everyone else is seeing.</p>

<p>As for your other two statements, these are both lies as well. I am not sure what you gain by attempting to place words into my mouth when anyone can read what I've written and see that I clearly have not written what you assert. What it seems to me is that you are continually reacting to the title of the post and not bothering to read my post, or my subsequent explanations of my post, and completely overlooked the tongue-in-cheek nature of the original comment about the digital shooter. I'm not saying anything about superiority, in fact I made it plainly clear that I lucked out in a big way. If the scene had been 1 stop darker I would have a roll of camera-shaky photos, or I just wouldn't have shot.... which is likely the options that the young man was faced with. It was luck of the drawl.</p>

<blockquote>

<h2 >his⋅to⋅gram</h2>

 

<a id="us" onmouseover="linkOver(this);" onmouseout="linkOut(this);" href="http://ask.reference.com/web?q=Use+histogram+in+a+Sentence&qsrc=2892&o=101993" ></a>

 

<p>–noun Statistics . a graph of a frequency distribution in which rectangles with bases on the horizontal axis are given widths equal to the class intervals and heights equal to the corresponding frequencies.<br>

- dictionary.com</p>

</blockquote>

<p>All that a histogram shows you is how frequently little squares in the image are a certain tone. If there is a heavy bias towards a certain range of tones, then the graph is overloaded and less frequent tones are compressed out of visibility. It is not a graph of ranges of tones, it is a graph of frequency.</p>

<p>Patrick, There is just something cool about high contrast Band pictures. here is one of mine. Shure the lights get blown out, but that is expected. It makes bleached pockets stand out too.</p><div></div>

<p>Cool man! It's one of the only way I like band shots... either that or crazy gel color flash stuff.</p>

<p>Rock on Patrick and don't let the Nay-Sayers get to you! Here's another.</p><div></div>

I think the point that may have been missed by the posts here (sorry if I overlooked it) is that with a film camera you can update the "sensor" technology with a new roll of film, which is why even a camera from the 1950s can do as well as one decades newer. With digital, the camera is what it is and will never get any better.

 

Digital SLRs that can shoot in low light (e.g., Nikon D700/D3/D3x) cost in today's dollars almost exactly what a Nikon F cost in 1959. But even a $100 rangefinder in 1959 could use exactly the same film as the Nikon F. A pro in 1959 would not be using a $100 camera, which for all I know is the equivalent in today's dollars to what that other guy with the zoom was shooting with.

 

Having said the above, I do find the title of this thread annoying. But, I love the pictures and the story! Nice work, Patrick!

 

--Marc

<p>Patrick - your images are high contrast with relatively few tones. Period. This is not difficult to replicate digitally, a statement I make in response to comments from other posters. And digital would not have been at a disadvantage in this situation given a f/2.8 or faster lens, a statement I make in response to you.</p>

<p>I'm not telling you high contrast images are bad. But I am saying the written context in which you posted these images makes no sense.</p>

<p>By the way, if you check the histogram on my two shots, it is nearly identical to yours. And I do agree that the title of the thread will attract a lot of digital defenders.</p>

<p>You should try Tri-X pushed to 1600ish, and developed in Diafine. It's a compensating developer, and will help bring out more shadow details. I used to shoot it in 6x6 (Rollei 3.5E or a Norita 66 with the sweet f/2 80mm lens), and always got better results than the 3200 labeled films.</p>

<p>Film vs digital is silly as usual. It depends entirely on the abilities of the photographer and processor to make either work in low light. Pick the tools you enjoy using, and don't worry about what the other guy is using. I always got a kick out of the stares when I pulled out the Rollei TLR. But you are kidding yourself if you think it can't be done with digital. Below are a couple of examples of the EOS 5D (which is $1500 not $3000 these days) raw pushed to ISO 25600. Admittedly you can probably get a Norita 66 with the f/2 lens for under $300.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.henrypeach.com/gallery/albums/music2008/winfield08/Winfield08_079.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="600" /></p>

<p><img src="http://www.henrypeach.com/gallery/albums/music2008/keno081008/kenojam081008_19.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="600" /></p>

<p>I'm sure that the hardcore film geeks will find lots of flaws. I regularly show these as 8x12 and 12x18 prints, and they look fantastic even with your greasy nose pressed right up against them. They look better than anything I was ever able to get from medium format, high ISO films (my flaw I'm sure).</p>

<p>#1 reason why digital is better than film for live music? It's much easier to share the photos with the bands. :) I've still got folks griping that they never saw the film shots of their band I took years ago. Keep shooting; the bands love us! :)</p>

<p> </p>