 BetterPhoto Member |
Flash photography Hi, I am trying to take shots of bands playing live. The lighting I am getting is good because I am not using flash, and I am using available lighting, but all the shots are blurred, obviously the musicians are moving around a lot. can anyone help as to what I can do???? thanks ...kathie.
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David A. Bliss |
When I shoot live bands, I use my 50mm lens, which is a 1.4. I am at work, so I don't have the exif info in front of me, so I can't give you exact settings right now. On my 10D, the 50mm effectively becomes an 80mm, which works very well if you can be in front of or on the stage. I generally can get shutter speeds that are fast enough to stop the action with little or no blur. Remember that with an aperture that large, you have a very narrow DOF, so if you are trying to get the guitarist in the foreground and the drummer in the background, one of them will be out of focus. I will push my ISO setting to 200, and once in awhile 400, also, to help get a faster shutter speed, though I always prefer to shoot at 100.
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Jon Close |
Camera meter is often fooled into a slower than necessary shutter speed by the usually black/dark stage and background. Try to meter on the brightly spot-lit performer (use spot or partial metering). Otherwise, as David suggests, use faster film (higher ISO setting in digital) and/or a faster (larger maximum aperture) lens. For more info on concert shooting, see http://photo.net/learn/concerts/mirarchi/concer_i
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David A. Bliss |
Jon, that is a very good point. In shooting live bands, the background is rarely important, in fact, the shot will usually look better if it is darker, bringing more attention to the subjects. So making sure your metering is of the performer, and letting the background exposure fall were it may, is a very good idea.
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