Concert Shots with The D200

[Cre8tivepixels]

Hey,

Would be interested to find out others experiences with this cam for live stuff..i found it well below par....these are some of the better ones...

It was a paid gig and i feel i have let my client down badly....






Dan

[Kyle]

The 1st one is a standout I love it!

All are great though, Got some of the bad ones to share?

[Underload]

I don't mind the first 3, they look quite all right. The final image, imho, might lend itself to being a black and white conversion, but without the addition of the 'grain' effect. For me, it just doesn't add much to the overall pic. JMO though!

[macka]

What exactly about the camera caused a problem?

[byrt_001]

ooh i really like the 3rd one with the red!!

the second one i can see the focus is in the microphone.

what was wrong with the other ones?

thanks for sharing

[PiroStitch]

#1 - The backlighting in the first is very nice though the singer looks like he has a gun pointed at his back. Not much you can do there except wait for a different moment where the pose might be different.

#2 - Nice use of backlighting again but adjust the WB a bit. He looks a bit yellow unless he was lit using a yellow spot.

#3 - nice composition

#4 - weakest of the lot. Did you add the noise or was it naturally like that? Has mood but a bit too noisy. Doesn't have to be noiseless just a bit less would be perfect.

[methd]

i dont particularly like the (intentional) noise in the last. the 1st three are really nice tho.

[radar]

Dan,

I certainly like the photos you posted. I'm also interested to know what let you down in the D200.

Looking at the photos, you don't have any exif data on them, so it is also hard to comment from a technical point of view as we can't see the exif so we can't see WB, lens, shutter, etc. Could be useful.

On a mailing I'm on, they are just having some discussions about band shots. This is a Nikon pro list and they all use Nikon gear and get some great results, so it can be done with Nikons.

Cheers,

Andre

[Nnnnsic]

I find the only good one is the second one.

The first one has nice lighting but fails because you've cut off a hand playing the bass which... is kind of the point of a shot of the bassist. (Go to portrait position for shooting next time).

The third is good, but for Bob's sake, learn how to crop. Having a lot of black space on the left hand side for no reason has no point. You can center him in artificial black, that would be fine, but sticking him to the right of a black space... just absolutely pointless for composition.

Your fourth is almost good too. The angle is somewhat superficial and the focus looks to be more on the mic stand than the guitarist, not that that's a major problem. As such, the angle bothers me most about the image because there's no reason for the angle to be like this... not for this picture.

As for the black & white conversion in it, you've blended the hair into the background, which is the first thing you don't do in a band shot in pure black and white. Your composition would be better straight, and the image almost works... but it just doesn't pop.

[Cre8tivepixels]

but for Bob's sake, learn how to crop

Lol....thanks....i will try!

[Thommo]

Pretty much all i shoot is live music. I use a d200 and 28-70 f2.8 and find it quite a nice combo, ofcourse it isnt a 5d so noise is going to be the main issue, but the noise on the d200 is FAR better than that of the d70 i used to shoot on.

I just find the d200 has really bad shadow noise which can be a bit irratating but generally is fixed by levels.

[Hudo]

Thommo,

I have a D70, D70s, D200 and now a D2Xs. A variety of lens from the kit lens, 80~200 f2.8, 24~120VR & 17~70 f2.8 for example. When I have shot in low light situations such as performances, bands and even models I am amazed at the variety of results when it comes to noise based on the camera and lens combination. The 80~200mm f2.8 with the D70s has been personally one of my favourite combo's providing sharp and reduced noise at times.

Does any one else had experiences like this or am I dreaming?

Thanks,

Mark

[Cre8tivepixels]

The 80~200mm f2.8 with the D70s has been personally one of my favourite combo's providing sharp and reduced noise at times.

Def agree with this that lens prduces less noise than others in my collection, maybe i am getting "artifacts" confused with noise, but its def true, another is my 50mm 1.4 noiseless at all times!!

[Hudo]

Thanks Dan,

I'm not dreaming lol.. I've always wanted to gove DX Optics Pro a bash to see what improvements can be made. Interesting to note others experiences as well. Not always is it about the MP of the camera we own.

Mark

[Cre8tivepixels]

In fact i would go as far to say that i used to get better shots in A mode with my D70s than i am achieving currently with my D200 (another reason to jump ship at the years end if you ask me)

Dan

[Hudo]

opps Dan forgot to mention doesn't it hurt when it's a paid job and you feel you have not delivered. The stress of it. My partner and I filmed a piece for one of the Comedy festival shows on Monday and delivered the 58 second promo that night around 11PM so it was a long day but a paid gig.

With stills such as with the news paper guy there shooting medium format and the photographer shooting promo stills it's all staged. Lighting poses ect ect. With video you get the scraps and that we did. The performers not well lit for video, mixed white balances and variable audio. I was shit scared we where not going to be able to produce the outcome we where expecting to deliver.

Well the outcome was the client approved it and liked it. We again as we always do learn't alot and next time we do it we'll approach it a little differently. This time we made it other times we haven't. It's challenging projects like this that some of us thrive on when other prefer the K-Mart portrait work, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Mark

[Pehpsi]

these are ripper shots. never shot a gig before, but i'm sure it aint easy..

[Hybrid]

I don't get to do live music stuff too often but when I have, I've been happy with my results from the D70 and later the D200. I guess it depends what you were expecting... By its nature, concert photography is very unpredictable and you have no control over the conditions. You've got to learn to look for the right moments with the lighting and sometimes the lighting just plain sucks.

As for the noise issue, it is true that you will get noise in the shadow areas at high ISOs but that comes down to the lighting conditions and how you choose to expose for them. The lighting is generally very high contrast and when you're exposing for the main subject, you'll get underexposed backgrounds. Often the backgrounds will be too dark to see much noise but smoke sometimes diffuses the light just enough to make the noise show up... You can't always avoid it so just think of it as adding character to your shots

Worry less about the camera and more about capturing the right moment

If you want some good resources, check these sites out:

http://www.photocritic.org/2006/live-ba ... otography/
http://www.boudist.com/archive/2007/02/ ... rclass.php
http://www.boudist.com/archive/2006/02/ ... graphy.php


And if you want to see a couple of my recent efforts with the D200 and 70-200VR:

http://www.hybridvision.net/photolog/in ... 2007-02-08
http://www.hybridvision.net/photolog/in ... 2007-02-03
(more in the archives)

Cheers,

Stephen