3 CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY MYTHS DEBUNKED!!!
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Still believe these 3 CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY MYTHS? Maybe this video will make you have a second look?
Welcome to my Concert Photography How To Series. Over the years I have photographed Queen, Bad Company, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Charlie Daniels, Journey, Fleetwood Mac, The Moody Blues and many many others. In this series I will provide tips, tricks, stories and much more from my over 45 years of Music Photography Experience! There will be a lot of information that you just will not find anywhere else. Concert photography and music photography business and practices, concert photography gear with out breaking the bank, music photography must haves to name a few. My work has been published in newspapers, magazines and online world wide. Some of my latest work can be found at buddymagazine.... Last year we photographed 42 shows! Want to see some examples? Check out my music photography portfolio at robertcmaxfield.com, my instagram @robertc.maxfield and for more concert photography tips check out my RUclips Channel @robertc.maxfieldiiphotography and Subscribe! If your band is looking for photos we would love to talk with you! Send me a note at robert@robertcmaxfield.com
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Love 2 Tons of Steel man. Great band live 👍📸
@SloopJohnBee-vq6dw, Yes they are and a lot of fun. We shot a lot of events where we see artist for the first time. Some make an impression! Thanks for watching! -R
As for myth #2 about fast and expensive lenses. I do agree that fast and expensive lenses are not required but one advantage of fast lenses is that it gives you more latitude. And I have often found that lenses are very rarely the best at wide open. Getting an f/2.8 lens means that I can stop down, and generally get a better image, a stop compared to an f/4.0 lens of the same focal length. But a lot of my own images are shot at an f-stop that is closed down from the widest so a cheaper lens that does not open up as much as the more expensive lenses, but is the same focal length, can still work.
@rtdg4419, Yup very true! While faster lenses do help they are not always required and in some cases when they are used can cause their own set of issues. That is why I stated I did use my 80-200mm f2.8 for some of the shots but the aperture was f4 or higher. If you look at a lot of people on forums they tell you that you have to have fast lenses and high ISO to work and that is simply not the case. So if someone is looking at a couple lenses say an 85mm f1.2 at $2800 vs an 85mm f1.8 at $800 (still really fast) a person might test each lens for performance for the money. OR they can look at a 70-200mm f4 Nikon at $500 vs a 70-200mm f2.8 Nikon at twice the price. If you are on a budget but still need the job done a little sacrifice. Thanks for watching! -R
@@robertc.maxfieldiiphotography You can extend that from the use of zoom lenses compared to fixed focal length prime lenses. Primes are generally sharper than zooms but my collection of lenses is almost exclusively zooms for the advantage of the lens having many more options than going only with prime lenses. The cost of using only zooms would make it prohibitively expensive to cover the same ranges as zooms.
@rtdg4419, Lenses are funny. In the Nikon world there are very soft zooms such as the 75-240mm f4.5/5.6 or the 35-80mm f3.5/4.5. vs the extremely sharp 80-200mm f2.8's Even some prime lenses may be soft. In the older Canon world many Canon primes tended to be soft. I find picking lenses to almost be like picking watermelons. One lens I love that has a not so stellar reputation is the 28-105mm f3.5/4.5 In the Sony world there are a lot of people swearing by third party lenses. I am not totally sold on that situation. But anyway for someone starting out or on a budget even the cheaper lenses will work out. -R
It is 100% down to what type of concert it is, you do not need 2.8 for all but at least f4 so you have the option when lighting is bad. Any of the fast paced high movement concerts that are indoors you will not get by well at all without either a faster lens or a higher ISO in a lot of cases you need both. When you need to be at 1/800-1/1000 and sometimes higher in not the best light you will not get the shot without at least f4 and you will be sitting anywhere up to 12800 ISO. For example I had a shot at 1/1250 f2.8 and my ISO was still 6400 and the motion was still not all completely frozen.
Whilst true no one cares what camera you take a photo on. The camera and lenses you have greatly impacts what photos you can get. For example the inability to push a high ISO on a lot of older DSLRs and having WAY WAY worse high ISO performance on the ones you can push would make some concerts impossible. Most people don't care because they don't know what can and cannot do what. If I still had my old Canon 5D MK II I would be screwed.
That film B&W example you give is also really bad. You CAN take an amazing photo on any camera given the right circumstances. But for a high quality photo with flexibility in post as well as the means to get the shot the camera matters a lot. Because lets say you took that frame you showed and I don't know if there is an auto winder for the OM-1n but between making sure focus is right and the speed at which you can take the next frame you could possibly miss something. You don't need the insane best of the best but there is a minimum.
The second picture you show on film is either out of focus, cropped in a hell of a lot or there is just no detail there to begin with. It looks worse than most phone photos which is a very low bar. At the time I am sure it was fine when that camera was more the norm. But if you took that photo today it should never see the light of day.
On a base level yes no one cares the specific camera you use but depending on the artist I would not even consider the D800 for professional concert photography. It's just lacking in way too many areas, burst and buffer, ISO performance, EV+- AF in low light, no tracking modes/face or eye af, even just number of focus points, no articulating screen. The camera can take amazing pictures when presented with an easy scenario but will very quickly fall apart. Oh no IBIS is big as well.
You said it yourself no one cares as long as the photos are amazing, but all the cameras you mentioned will get few to no really great photos in any high movement/dancing concerts, any where people are moving around stage quickly or sporadically.
@JebSmith-3ehw, while having the faster lens it is not necessary in many cases. It does give you the latitude if needed. It's a luxury that people do not have to have in many cases. Having a higher shutterspeed to stop fast paced movement is a plus. If you don't have it I tend to underexpose and push the exposure in camera raw. Jeb I think you shoot in more caves than I do for sure. At one time 1/1000th of a second was the fastest shutterspeed on many cameras. I did a demo on a Canon XTI Rebel to prove it can be used in a lot of concert work. I even used the kit lens with it. Was it used in dark clubs with crap light ? No but it was in a park at night with stage lighting. The b&w film was of Charlie Daniels over 40 years old and the color was of Van Halen 45 years ago. Both were at 400 ISO. They were both scanned off of film. Really good for their ages. Doesn't matter what camera it was done with. The D800? Professional sports cameras at one time could only shoot 3 to 5 frames a second. ISO performance is excellent. I don't need to use the extreme ranges. I don't need an EVF or face tracking autofocus. Have no need for articulating screens. Not for stills anyway. I focus off and meter off the face of the person I am shooting.
And my technique is solid so I can live without IBIS. Once you learn the proper way to hold and use a camera IBIS is not needed. Most of the stuff you mentioned are modern things. Concert photography did not start in 2020. Concert photographers still got results as far back as the 1960's as far as I know of.
Thus the title of the video 3 concert photography myths debunked. You can look at my portfolio. 90% of the modern stuff was shot with a D800. NO IBIS, NO focus tracking, EVF, NO high ISO's, NO rapid continuous advances. NO articulated screens. I n places for alleys, warehouses, parks, dark clubs, city streets, and arenas Concert Photography can be done with out all of that. When people post the camera and the lens they used to do it with no one cares they look at the photo. Thanks for the comments and watching! -R Portfolio link www.robertcmaxfield.com
@@robertc.maxfieldiiphotography For sure not everyone has faster lenses but you suggest you are going to get top tier images with a kit lens with a variable aperture at a lot of shows is just false.
You can push files in post, however if you are having to push it a lot and on a less capable sensor the images will fall apart very quickly.
Caves? Indoor venues sure but you need a lot of light to be able to get clean images.
Something like the Canon XTI CAN be used for any type of photography, but it all comes down to what your bar for results is. I can tell you right now that Canon would be unusable in most scenarios. What I was trying to communicate is for the time those cameras might have been good, but they are not now. With no articulating screen combined with no subject tracking you are forced into very limited shooting positions/angels. And no subject tracking just means super super slow focusing even more so with the limited focus points of a DSLR.
Of course photos have been around for a while, but the quality of the images from the past are rubbish to be honest. Back then it was all you had but now it's an unacceptable quality. The results back them are equal or less than the results of a random phone happy snap now.
I looked at your work, I can see why you don't need those features because it's a lot of the same static shots over and over. Subjects are hardly moving, similar poses, similar composition. The angels hardly vary. Little to no wide shots, there is a couple of full body but as far as I could see no stage shots, no pyro no confetti no FOH shots.
There are limited circumstances where usable pictures can be shot with out dated gear yes, but you are really going to get as best a boring no movement portrait at best from those cameras and lenses. If your aim is to take basic portrait like shots in a concert environment of a static act then sure you don't need as much. But for high quality photos of not static subjects you don't need the most expensive camera and lens but a mirrorless with an f4 will be enough.
If you took great concert photographers and told them to produce the images they already do with a DSLR with slower glass they couldn't. They could try but the results will be worse. They would be forced kind of like you are to pick basic shots. Having a fast burst isn't essential but to capture those tiny moments if you are snapping 1-5 pics you are going to miss great photos often.
The D800 also does not have great ISO performance compared to the lower end full frame mirrorless options. Check dpreviews Studio scene Image comparison tool. I put in the Nikon D800 and 3 lower end full frame cameras from different brands. The Nikon Z5, the Sony A7III and the Canon RP. All set to RAW at 6400 ISO. 6400 is a good number to check because while you want to avoid being there it's no unreasonably high for a concert with mid to poor lighting. Now I will be the first to say that a hyper controlled tests only show you how they perform in a specific case, however the gaps in performance are usually bigger in real world and the D800 does not perform well on this chart compared to the entry level mirrorless full frame from all brands.
Most DSLRs are not "bad" cameras, in fact some like the 1DX MK III still hold up okay today. But overall the missing features in most of them compared to mirrorless means you are missing great shots and then shots you get could have been better had you had some of those features. One of the few things I wish my camera had that some others have is pre-shooting. The ability to take a few frames backwards in time so if you just missed something there is a very high chance one of those pre captured frames will be get the moment would be insane. Do I NEED it? No, would it make the 'quality' of my photos higher? No. But would it would do is give me amazing photos that I otherwise would miss. This is pretty much how a lot of the other features work and when combined allow you to have more great photos. This even extends to lenses where having a faster lens opens up options for higher shutter speeds and cleaner images with lower ISO on top of the baked in nicer bokeh backgrounds. Required? No. Difference between those with and those without, very noticeable.
You would be hard pressed to find any professionals in the concert field using DSLRs who's work rivals the quality of those using mirrorless. The person behind the camera matters as much as the camera. But give the D800 for example with f4 lenses or slower to the people producing amazing photos and they will not be able to reproduce the same quality work. They may get a few shots here and there but they will have to work 1000x harder for a couple of good frames.
Hi Jeb! I hope I didn't come across that you can totally live with the cheapest gear. While true you can get "DECENT" images with lower priced gear, better more modern and advanced gear makes things easier. You do not need the most modern and expensive gear just starting out. You can even use less expensive, older
more professional gear. In extremely dark clubs it will be a lot more difficult. A lot of concerts are also held outside in daylight. As for the articulating screen depends on how you shoot. If you are using the back screen YOU WILL need it as well as IBIS. I do not use liveview and I don't have my arms extended. Using this technique is very unstable..
The quality of modern concert photography in some ways better. In others like you say is rubbish. The point was it was possible even back as far as 60 years ago. Do modern sensors and technology make things better. In the right hands with a photographer that knows what they are doing yes.
In my shooting I rarely have FOH and wide angle shots due to I am mainly after a touring single artist. Thus my photos mainly have shots of the artist and not the whole band at once. I also do a lot of shooting from the pit.
The D800 for a lot of the work I do is, capable ISO performance and the 36.3 megapixels is a big plus. Would I rather have a Z7 II. Not really. Would I gain anything from owning one. Not really.
Jeb these comments solidify my video in that you don't have to have the greatest and latest gear to do most of the work out there. Would it make it easier? Probably so but for the people starting out in the business trying to get started they don't need most of it. You don't have to have the latest photo gear to get decent results. Would I want to use an XTI all the time? Not a chance. But if I had to do it in a pinch I know I could. You are right in the methods of using a camera have changed over time. That will continue. There a lot of really bad modern concert photos out there. Most of that stuff can be cured for the photographer with knowledge and practice.
The myth is you don't have to have expensive modern gear. AND you don't. Knowing what you are doing with your gear is the key and that is the same with anything you use. Lens sharpness varies from lens to lens. Cheaper lenses will work but no where near as well.
If you look at 85% of concert photos on the internet, exposure is wrong, out of focus, bad composition, and a number of other issues. Most of which have nothing to do with what camera they were shot with. That doesn't include the millions of cell phones either. You can put 20 photos on a table of the same concert from 20 photographers and the thing that makes the most difference is the pilot.
The purpose of my videos are to show people that they can do concert photography. They can do it on a budget to start. They can learn this skill and succeed. They can improve on things if they are already doing it.
Jeb I enjoy your input and comments! Thank you for them! -R
Where are your videos about your pictures on your You Tube channel. Or your website portfolio where we can critque your pictures you have shot in the past. Seems to me you just want to cause waves and Robert is being nice to you, because that is the way he is and is passionate about photography