On Friday night my phone rang. My friend multi-talented friend Alister (physiotherapist by day, sound engineer by night) wanted to know if I could come to Al’s Bar that night to photograph a concert by a New Zealand Led Zeppelin tribute band, aptly named “NZeppelin“. Now, I don’t think of myself as a Zeppelin fan – for no particular reason other than I haven’t been exposed to much of their music – but I jumped at the chance.
My partner Brence Coghill recently bought a Canon 5D MkII and I wanted put its high-ISO capabilities to the test and photographing a rock band at Al’s Bar would be the perfect proving ground. In fact, photographing a gig like this is an absolutely excellent way to put all of your photographic skills to the test, because the conditions are fairly demanding, photographically:
1. It’s darker than the Batcave in Al’s Bar – ISO capabilities are generally maxed out in order to get any kind of breathing room for shutter speed and aperture
2. Did I mention how dark it is? I was shooting pretty much wide open on whatever lens I had on, which varied from f2.8 to f1.4 – therefore the ability to focus accurately on the subject would be key.
3. Nothing stays still. Rockers move around on stage. A lot. Unpredicably. Being able to get focus in the right place with a wide-open aperture can be less than straightforward. Plus, given that your subjects are all moving targets, having a fast enough shutter speed to prevent every picture being a mess of motion blur is no picnic. Did I mention how dark it was? I was lucky enough to push up to 1/250th in a few cases, but often my shutter was slower than that.
4. Totally Erratic Lighting. Even if you squeeze enough juice out of your ISO to get a vaguely usable shutter speed and aperture, and even if you mange to get focus in just the right spot, and even if you hit the shutter at the exact right time to capture an awesome expressive moment, you are still at the whim of Al’s Magic Light Show. You see, Al himself works the stage lights. Which essentially consists of Al standing behind the master control panel, totally rocking out on the spot and mashing the control buttons like a monkey on a typewriter. Essentially the light show is like a mood ring depicting just how rocked up Al is feeling at that given moment. So you could have all your photographic elements line up beautifully like a lunar eclipse but at the decisive moment Al might hit the ‘red’ light button and your photo looks like an over-saturated nuclear explosion happened on stage.
So here are some takeaway tips that I learned pretty darn quickly:
1. Shoot on manual because if the lights are flashing all over the place like an epileptic’s nightmare then your auto-exposure ain’t gonna be worth jack.
2. Max everything out. I spent most of my time on ISO6400, dipping down as far as 3200 now and then when Al was more in a ‘bright light’ mood. Shoot wide open. For me it was about maxing out every parameter in order to get as fast a shutter speed as possible. Grain/noise is preferable to unwanted motion blur, IMO.
3. Line up the shot, then: shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot. Hopefully one of the frames will have decent lighting. Expect a lot of dark frames or all-red blown-out burn-victim frames if Al is feeling particularly moody.
4. You will have Very Few Angles to work with. I shot some stuff from the near corner of the stage and then spent a set on stage behind the band. But the stage was so crowded with gear and general band stuff that my working position was pretty fixed and I just could not get some of the angles I wanted. Sometimes the best you can do is shoot loose knowing you’ll crop out the junk later. Here again, the awesome resolution of the 5D MkII is a godsend. I also happened to be right next to the smoke machine and spent a good deal of time Lost in the Fog. C’est la vie.
5. Get some shots including the crowd. A performance is all about connecting with an audience, so try to incorporate the audience into some of the shots. Not an easy feat – the band may be badly lit but the crowd isn’t lit at all.
6. Don’t forget to rock out and have fun! As it turns out, I love Led Zeppelin.
Here’s my faves from the night:
About the Author
