Shooting a Rock Concert any tips?

[jamesgignac]

It entirely depends on how you want to shoot it - of course, getting up close is always best.

The last concert I shot was split between a Bronica ETRSi on 220, hand-held, very close to the stage and a Hasselblad 503cx with a 250mm lens on a tripod stationary at the back, just for another perspective.

I should mention that a crucial point was that my bronica had a remote flash slave attached to it which was linked up to two tripod-mounted flashes on either side of the stage. For these hand-held, low-light shots it was definitely necessary to blow the place out with some flash. I shot the hasselblad with longer exposures and sometimes triggered the flashes by hand to paint in the photos...it worked very well.

#1 Tip: Pay attention the the action more than the framing.

Uh...okay, well I answered the question instead of paying attention to the flow of conversation - nice images! Glad it all worked out.

 

[darinwc]

dereck|james|gignac: have any examples of those shots? We would love to see em.

 

[jamesgignac]

dereck|james|gignac: have any examples of those shots? We would love to see em.

And I'd love to show them. This was an evening of folk music at the Aeolian Hall in London, Ontario, Canada that took place last February. Unfortunately I'm now in China and all of my negatives are back in Canada. I scanned a few of these and emailed them out to the band 'Olenka and the Autumn Lovers' but I don't have access tot he scans anymore...not really sure what to do about that.

I'm going to try to get myself setup over here in Beijing and hopefully catch some local/international talent in this city. I will certainly post some images when that happens...but that's probably not going to be for a while as I sort of abandoned ship when I came over here and am starting from scratch. I don't even have a single film camera with me right now - it's terribly depressing but I hope to resolve that soon. Another Apuger 'Colin C' promised he'll be coming out to Beijing soon so I plan to hit up the WuKeSong camera market when that happens. Right now I'm just earning money teaching art, English, math, etc.

Uh...yeah, that's the long version.