My first Gig!

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lukewoodford

FYI, I am Luke Woodford.....by Luke Woodford
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Luke Woodford
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A friend of mine has asked me to take pictures of his band play at the Wintergarden in Eastbourne. Its a theatre with a nice stage and assume its going to be quite low light. Im quite new to photography and learning all the time. I have a D300 with 18-200mm vr, sb 800 flash (not sure if its allowed yet though), i might also pick up the 50mm 1.4 lens before. Any advice on good ways to take pictures/ settings etc would be very appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Luke
 
alright my advice is get some fast glass! the 50mm 1.4 would be ideal but if you didnt want to drop loads of cash (not sure how much they are i shoot canon) the 1.8 will be perfectly up to the job! your 18-200mm vr will be very useful, it will give you the chance to walk around the venue getting the whole gig so crowds and all. as for the flash most venues are ok with them, i would ask before hand and talk to the band letting them know. being low light you would obviously using a wide aperture so you can power down the flash so it wont be as distracting.

i would also highly recomend getting a ttl sync cord for your flash, it makes it possible to get creative lighting in hectic enviroments like gigs and events. i find on camera flash incredibly boring after a few photos.

as for camera settings just play around and find what you like! i personally dont like the slow shutter sterotypical gig images so i shoot with a faster shutter to freezing movment. at your first gig just play around and make the most of of the existing lights to add more colour to your photos. guessing there is the typical gig style lighting!

cant think of much else really, just go nuts and experiment. gigs are such fun events to shoot!!

good luck :-)
 
chris_tim said:
alright my advice is get some fast glass! the 50mm 1.4 would be ideal but if you didnt want to drop loads of cash (not sure how much they are i shoot canon) the 1.8 will be perfectly up to the job! your 18-200mm vr will be very useful, it will give you the chance to walk around the venue getting the whole gig so crowds and all. as for the flash most venues are ok with them, i would ask before hand and talk to the band letting them know. being low light you would obviously using a wide aperture so you can power down the flash so it wont be as distracting.

i would also highly recomend getting a ttl sync cord for your flash, it makes it possible to get creative lighting in hectic enviroments like gigs and events. i find on camera flash incredibly boring after a few photos.

as for camera settings just play around and find what you like! i personally dont like the slow shutter sterotypical gig images so i shoot with a faster shutter to freezing movment. at your first gig just play around and make the most of of the existing lights to add more colour to your photos. guessing there is the typical gig style lighting!

cant think of much else really, just go nuts and experiment. gigs are such fun events to shoot!!

good luck :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, it should be interesting. The good news is they do about 4 gigs a month, but alot are at pubs so with this one being at a good venue i want to try and do well. Hopefully ill get a few really good ones which can be the start of my portfolio! Is my best bet to shoot everything in manual mode of try all the modes out? im going to order the 50mm 1.4 now. its £180 on amazon which isnt too bad.
 
Good luck, i've got my 1st gig aswell at a local music festival at the end of august.

I've gone for a nifty fifty, plus a 85mm F1.8
 
I do gig photography for my freinds band as well, I ususally use the Nifty 50 on my canon and the Sigma 24-70 f 2.8

in the process of saving up for a sigma 70-200 f 2.8

I sometimes use a remote triggerd flash, I have 2 cactus triggers which come in handy

Mike
 
dj_myk said:
I do gig photography for my freinds band as well, I ususally use the Nifty 50 on my canon and the Sigma 24-70 f 2.8

in the process of saving up for a sigma 70-200 f 2.8

I sometimes use a remote triggerd flash, I have 2 cactus triggers which come in handy

Mike
Click to expand...

Triggered flas sounds like a good idea but i think i dont want to complicate things too much the first time! Its good to hear people using the nifty fifties im looking forward to having mine delivered!
 
definetely shoot manual and yeah like you said experiment and fin what you like.

good luck
 
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