Roling Stones in Hyde Park - A Learning Opportunity

[Edward]

With due respect... It’s in the makeup of some people to try and detract from things the rest of the world likes. Faced with a huge institution like the Rolling Stones they can’t resist the urge, any more than a small boy with a stone in his hand can resist a huge barn door. The Rolling Stones had more on-stage energy than any other band yesterday – and the others were about half their age, or less. Performance of crowd-pleasing favourites was excellent. Proof it was needed that watching something on TV doesn’t give you any real authority in a subject.

Anyway... after ambiguous information on the ticket and the web site, my wife who had gone up earlier was advised I’d be OK to take my camera in. The Nikon D3 ahead of me had no problem. They objected to 5D II and my collection of lenses on the grounds that it was “professional”. For good reason, I’ve never sold an image in my life so what makes my camera professional? Anyway, I agreed to settle on only 1 lens for the whole day. That makes me acceptably less professional. I knew the 100-300 would have been best but mine is first generation; at least my new 24-105 had IS which I thought would be useful when the light faded. Actually, IS was handy when the whole crowd was bouncing and I was trying to snatch shots between the arms holding up mobile phones to take shots (Thankfully, the iPad and tablet brigade who did this got “retired” fairly early – a flying water bottle in the case I saw).

I’ve dumped the compressed and resized, images from the day here http://www.web-ordering.com/HydePark13Jul/Page1.html

My reason for this posting is primarily that I need serious constructive advice:
1. Is the lens a known bad performer in high humidity? There were times when the image through the view finder was foggy. If I pumped the lens a few times, it seemed to clear enough to continue. Does it really work or was I kidding myself?
2. Is the image on the display panel known to go cloudy at around 30 degree? I ask because when I saw them during the action, they were so depressing I just has to try adjusting settings to see if they improved (actually, they made things worse). Camera still under warranty
3. Does holding the lens by the focusing ring impact in auto-focus, or was I deceiving myself on this one too? I noticed a few shots jumping out of focus at the last moment (I had AI Servo enabled).
4. I’m not sure that many of the in-focus ones are as sharp as they should have been anyway. Am I expecting too much, even given the circumstances?
5. What would forum contributors advise as being the optimum mode or settings for a concert like this?
6. Apart from getting yourself to the front row (sometimes impossible), what advice would contributors share on taking photographs at a concert?
7. Finally, I’m reducing and compressing using XAT’s Image Optimiser, which seems to remove the data from the image, unfortunately, because it would help people advise me on what I’m doing wrong. I’ve also got a web-page generator that lets me make a page in about 5 minutes. II dump them on a server I have sitting around here. Can someone suggest a better way of presenting images, please?

Big ask, but I’m hungry to learn and from what I’ve seen in these fora, contributors here could help a lot.

TIA.

 

[mrtoad]

you may have suffered from camera shake
if you want to test lenses and body workings, set up a 'lab'..even if its outside but essentially
use a tripod
dont use too many parameters
check each test separately...and at different times
if you have way of showing these to the supplier they may be more inclined to help rather than just verbal instruction

best of luck
geof

 

[Edward]

Thanks Geoff,

Camera shake? The surrounding crowd, the camera and I were pulsing and, even for a moment when I wanted a bit of stability, it was mostly momentary.

I tried compensating but raising the ISO rating which gave me better shutter speed which helped freeze the action but what did I miss as a consequence? When I used film, fast shutter speed equated to a lot more grain. It doesn’t seem to do that with my 5D but if Canon keeps these slower ISO ratings, they must be there for a reason. What is it?

I was hoping to get images sharp enough to crop. I tried for a few stopped to around F11 which in the fading light proved to be a bit optimistic. I ended up at 5.6 and eventually 4.0. It seems to have frozen movement better but I wouldn’t say they were sharp.

More help needed, please.

 

[mrtoad]

Thanks Geoff,

Camera shake? The surrounding crowd, the camera and I were pulsing and, even for a moment when I wanted a bit of stability, it was mostly momentary.

I tried compensating but raising the ISO rating which gave me better shutter speed which helped freeze the action but what did I miss as a consequence? When I used film, fast shutter speed equated to a lot more grain. It doesn’t seem to do that with my 5D but if Canon keeps these slower ISO ratings, they must be there for a reason. What is it?

I was hoping to get images sharp enough to crop. I tried for a few stopped to around F11 which in the fading light proved to be a bit optimistic. I ended up at 5.6 and eventually 4.0. It seems to have frozen movement better but I wouldn’t say they were sharp.

More help needed, please.

with film you get grain from high iso ratings not speed...but the high iso rating films give you speed and hence grain...ergo..forget the film analogies

stopping down is for depth of field...sharpness occurs at any f no...its to do with focus...dof is to do with acceptable focus over a range
for these type of occassions you want high speed...and therefore open apertures 4.0 would be ace!! so you were on track then.. even so lack of light may not have afforded acceptable speeds for the lens you were using...so.....you need to use higher iso's which...depending on the quality of sensor...leads to noise...which..surprise surprise...can be removed to some extent with software

for your situation i would have probably wished to use at least 1/500 wide open and as low an iso as i could afford to get those settings...and when i wanted a shot dig my elbows in tight and hold my breath for the shot
another final problem is auto focus which will disregard your subject and merrily go for area with high contrast close by...ie lighting sources
so manual focus is a must..

cheers
geof

 

[SarahLee]

Hi Edward,

I'm moving this into Talk Photography for you.
As it's not specific critique on a particular photo that you want, I think you'll get more help there.

 

[Edward]

Thank Sarah,

The quality of help I've been getting from Geoff is excellent but if I get more people involved, it can only be to my benefit, so, again, thanks.

 

[Willid1]

Echo what Geoff sys in #4.

Holding the focusing ring on that lens can alter the focus as the lens has full time manual focus - in that you can adjust the focus manually at any time irrespective of what the camera AF is doing.

Not aware of any issues with this type of equipment and humidity - well not the type we get in the UK

I don't think linking to a gallery of several hundred photos and asking for advice will get you very far. There are some good photos there. I would suggest you edit them a bit and show a couple of dozen at the most.

Perhaps also a few of the ones you want "what happened here" explanations for.

If you were holding the camera over your head to get these then bloody well done

If I were in that situation I would have had the lens wide open all the time (looks like you were far enough form the stage for the DOF to not be a problem) and used as high a shutter speed as possible at all times, raising the ISO as required.

Not sure if you have spot AF on your 5D II but as Geoff sys the camera will often pick up more contrasty areas than your subject, something to be aware of.

HTH

David

 

[Stumpy]

Hi. What everyone else has said plus;

Don't think the 5 is weather sealed like a 1 series, so all those sweaty body's might well have been too much!

While they're a good memory jogger for you, they don't really do anything for me. The overall composition gives too low an angle cutting off feet and cant see the stage floor, crowd in way, equipment clutter in way. The ones you've zoomed in on aren't tight enough.

Blown high lites. Stage lighting is SOOOO contrasty. Always underexpose and pull up later. Once the detail's gone its gone for good.

The stage shots are too tight and don't give a feel for the gig, the ones were you've turned round and shot the crowd do.

I think the best by far are two at the end, in the tube. The look of tired/boredom on the blond and the smile on the young girl....THOSE I shall remember and want to see again, the rest.....Maaa.

PS. As its a 5D2, did you video any? Sound and screen movement often hide many of the minor technical criticisms made here.

Thanks for shareing, hope it helps.

 

[PMN]

While they're a good memory jogger for you, they don't really do anything for me. The overall composition gives too low an angle cutting off feet and cant see the stage floor, crowd in way, equipment clutter in way. The ones you've zoomed in on aren't tight enough.

Blown high lites. Stage lighting is SOOOO contrasty. Always underexpose and pull up later. Once the detail's gone its gone for good.

The stage shots are too tight and don't give a feel for the gig, the ones were you've turned round and shot the crowd do.

I think the best by far are two at the end, in the tube. The look of tired/boredom on the blond and the smile on the young girl....THOSE I shall remember and want to see again, the rest.....Maaa.

Hi Edward,

I hope this comes across as constructive but I can only agree with Paul's comments above, the main issues I see here are more to do with content than quality. It's all very well wanting the images you've shown there to be technically perfect but even if they were they's still be quite poor photos. I know how difficult taking photos can be in the middle of a gig crowd but sometimes you have to just accept that circumstances are against you and you're trying to chase something you can't realistically get, and maybe this was one of those situations for you. Given space/pit access I'm sure they'd have been 1000 times better but from where you were it seems getting compositionally great images wasn't all that easy!

Personally in that situation I'd have put the camera down, avoided the frustrations that can sometimes come from not being able to get what you want (no Stones-related pun intended!) and just enjoyed the gig.

 

[tdodd]

1. Is the lens a known bad performer in high humidity? There were times when the image through the view finder was foggy. If I pumped the lens a few times, it seemed to clear enough to continue. Does it really work or was I kidding myself?
2. Is the image on the display panel known to go cloudy at around 30 degree? I ask because when I saw them during the action, they were so depressing I just has to try adjusting settings to see if they improved (actually, they made things worse). Camera still under warranty
3. Does holding the lens by the focusing ring impact in auto-focus, or was I deceiving myself on this one too? I noticed a few shots jumping out of focus at the last moment (I had AI Servo enabled).
4. I’m not sure that many of the in-focus ones are as sharp as they should have been anyway. Am I expecting too much, even given the circumstances?
5. What would forum contributors advise as being the optimum mode or settings for a concert like this?
6. Apart from getting yourself to the front row (sometimes impossible), what advice would contributors share on taking photographs at a concert?
7. Finally, I’m reducing and compressing using XAT’s Image Optimiser, which seems to remove the data from the image, unfortunately, because it would help people advise me on what I’m doing wrong. I’ve also got a web-page generator that lets me make a page in about 5 minutes. II dump them on a server I have sitting around here. Can someone suggest a better way of presenting images, please?

I'll answer where I can....

1. I don't have the lens in question, but I've never heard of any such complaints. High humidity should not matter so long as the camera body and lens are at ambient temperature and there is no condensation forming. If your gear is fogging up I can't imagine why or how that would be when everything is up to temperature.

2. I've never noticed anything like that on any of my cameras - even my little old 30D when shooting in Egypt at air temperatures of 40C and the sunlit camera hotter than that.

3. If you were using AI Servo without back button focusing then maybe focus/recompose was causing the focus to be thrown off. TBH, at the distance involved and with the nature of movement of the subjects (jumping up and down rather than running towards you) I reckon One Shot would have been perfectly fine. AI Servo should be OK as well (possibly better on rare occasions), but only with BBF to cease focusing when necessary. With the 5D2 the outer AF points are definitely not the best when you have to focus and fire quickly, so I'd be on centre point only, probably.

4. I've reviewed a few images and some look decently sharp to me, but probably would benefit from some extra sharpening as part of your workflow. When you resize (downsize) photos they normally benefit from additional sharpening as the final step before saving. This should be a standard part of your workflow if you want the images to look their best.

5. A bit glib, but "whatever works for you". People have their own preferences, lighting conditions vary from day time to spot lit darkness and different gear has different capabilities. Then there are artistic considerations as well. I don't think you can prescribe a one size fits all solution.

6. Pass. I've never shot one.

7. I've never heard of the software. I shoot raw only and use Lightroom to process my files. For display of individual images I use Google's Picasaweb. I don't generally share entire galleries of images, but when I do it's Picasaweb that I use for that too. You do have to watch out for websites which re-edit your photos for you, adding their own artefacts and sharpening, and possibly stripping out EXIF data. I can't recommend a solution, because recently Picasaweb has changed and where once the EXIF was available it now seems to have been hived off elsewhere by the site. STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! If I cared enough I'd look for an alternative solution. One thing I do know is that Flickr would not be it. They strip EXIF as well.

 

[Eddzz!!]

Echoing the thoughts of other people here, but to avoid that motion blur you needed a much fast shutter speed. With the 5D MKII you shouldn't be afraid of pumping the ISO up to 3200 and 6400, the images will still look great with that FF sensor. This allows you to raise your shutter speeds much higher which is the only thing you can do to avoid camera shake in a situation like that.

 

[Edward]

Gents, I’m indebted to you all. It probably took a lot of experimentation and reading for you to have developed the knowledge you’ve so generously shared with me here. That has saved me at least as much time and, perhaps more importantly, set me up to make better use of an opportunity like this again. Thanks you. It takes more time to craft a diplomatic and constructive response, rather than dash off first thoughts. You were kind enough to do that too, for which I’m also grateful. Thank you again.

As you’ve seen, I’m a recorder rather than an artist. When I edit this lot I could go either way:
Keep the few that are the classic/cliche shots, or throw away the 25% that are clearly poor, (blurred missed the target completely…) leaving the 75% that perhaps better capture the essence of the event, with everyone hell-bent on getting as much enjoyment out of the occasion as possible, with arms raised and waving, blocking the view of those behind them, oblivious of everyone else, especially the old coot with the big camera.

Rather than submit one response that dwarfs War and Peace, I’ll split stuff a little. It’ll help me raise my quota so I can view the Classified section to find more kit to take bad photos with.

All, truly, I’m grateful.

 

[Edward]

Thanks for the reminder that depth of field is quite different from focus on the focal plane, Geoff. A shot that was fast enough to freeze the action is far better than one with a much greater depth of field but all blurred by the camera shake. I’m going to remember the tip about digging my elbows in and holding my breath in. I wonder if exhaling does the same thing, it does when I fire a rifle.

 

[Edward]

Thanks David for the advice about the focusing ring. It’s definitely going to take some relearning because no other lens I’ve owned does this. You can be sure, I’ll put the effort into relearning my grip.

The rationale for dumping all the images, unedited, comes from the way I interact with my doctor when I think something is wrong: if I tell him about all the areas I feel good about, I’m equipping him well to diagnose my problems – he needs it warts and all. True, I could have dumped at least 25% without damaging the diagnosis of systemic problems like bad framing habits etc. I’ll edit them in future.

Your comments on depth of field and proximity to the subject will send me off on a course of experiments on the limits of this, so again, thank you.

 

[Edward]

Paul, your comment about the weather sealing helps. I’ve had the camera and lens sitting in a drying room for the last few days, just in case there really was moisture ingress.

The reason there aren’t any stage shots with feet in is simply that I was so close I could only see the underside of the stage, or would have if there hadn’t been a wall of subs and equipment in place.

You’re right about the cropping. I hadn’t particularly notice because I was slightly frustrated that I couldn’t change to the 100-300 (OK, I could have but I’d agreed to use only one lens as a condition of being able to take my camera in at all, and not to shoot in movie mode. If the official had found out he would probably have been less kind to the next photographer he encountered. Any, upon analysis, I found images like 3294 were at 24mm but doesn’t give much of a sense of the concert. The ones where I’d zoomed in are, alas, only 105mm but that was a restriction of the lens, or have I missed your point here? I think you’re right too, about shooting from above my head – it might have given a better shot of the stage area.

The tired blond dragged her Mother up to London at 6:30 in the morning to be in the front of the queue, hence the tired expression. Her face occupied the whole of the image on the backdrop and side images at one stage. The shocked look when she realised it was her face up there was priceless. I missed the shot 

 

[Edward]

Paul N, alas you still presume too much art on my part. Given a great opportunity, they probably wouldn’t be 1000 times better, but after a few months in such helpful company, that will improve. Rest assured, I thoroughly enjoyed myself though: after sex and drugs, what: acceleration in a jet, the visceral thump of big subwoofers, live music from performers I rate highly when at their best… two out of three aint bad.

 

[Edward]

Tim, thanks for the attempt to answer all questions. No prizes but the effort is appreciated.
The only time I’ve seen fogging like this before was when I walked out of an air-conditioned hotel, into a flower garden in South East Asia, camera blazing. OK, not for long. This time the front filter wasn’t foggy so where lies the problem? If people here don’t have an answer to this on I’m going to have to talk to Canon’s Service Department 

I don’t generally share whole dumps of a memory card either. When I used film, I was more careful so felt less discomfort in showing a high percentage, but this time was different.

I’ve seen some of what people here have managed to recover from Raws. I really must learn Lightroom – the descriptions read like it’s a good tool. Won’t help me take much better photographs but it seems like it’ll help me make the best of what I caught. It seems to have a web page generator. Am I correct that it allow you to produce compressed and resized images as well and that EXIF data is retained throughout? It would have been really useful in this situation if it did.

 

[Edward]

Eddy, thanks for the advice on the ISO rating. I’m still not clear what the slower ISO ratings contribute other than slowing down exposure.

 

[PMN]

the visceral thump of big subwoofers

Oh yes. It's usually me sending the signal to those big subs so I can certainly appreciate that!

 

[StewartR]

I’m still not clear what the slower ISO ratings contribute other than slowing down exposure.

You make it sound like slowing down the exposure is not something that you'd ever want or need to do.

But there are all sorts of situations where you would reasonably want to do this for artistic effect. For example:

• running water
• aircraft propellors or helicopter blades
• flocks of starlings
• moving cars (blur the wheels, and blur the background by panning)

It can even be surprisingly effective when photographing things like athletics. Compare the two photos of Usain Bolt winning the 100m at the Beijing Olympics from the Guardian and the Daily Mail to see what I mean. Those two photos were take in the same split-second from almost identical vantage points, but the Guardian one is much more interesting.

 

[Edward]

I'm not against slowing the exposure time; I just can't see what value comes from lowering the ISO rating. I mean, I can dial in the exposure I want directly.

A slow ISO seems to limit my ability to set a high ASA, but does a high ISO limit my ability to set a low ASA?

If not, why would I not shoot with a high ISO permanently?

The examples are good ones, Stewart, and thanks for sourcing them to make your point. In this instance, I think I prefer the less interesting one

Swine and pearls I hear you say.

 

[Nod]

Edward, ISO and ASA are to all intents and purposes the same - ASA is an older American standard while ISO is ... well, ISO, the international standard.

 

[StewartR]

I'm not against slowing the exposure time; I just can't see what value comes from lowering the ISO rating. I mean, I can dial in the exposure I want directly.

Well, if you want a slower exposure, there are basically three ways of achieving it.

1. Reduce the quantity of light. This can be achieved by using an ND filter, for example, but it isn't always practicable.
2. Close down the aperture. But that increases the depth of field, which you might not want to do.
3. Reduce the ISO value.

Here's another rather different situation where low ISO can be useful.

On Sunday, I was out shooting a sheepdog trial. I wanted to shoot with the lens wide open - f/4 in this case with the Canon 200-400 - to minimise my depth of field. In the bright sunlight I was getting exposures like 1/2500th even at ISO 200. If I'd been shooting at ISO 3200 say - not unusual for concert photography etc - then the photos would have been horrendously over-exposed even with the fastest shutter speed my camera could achieve. It was necessary to use the low ISO to slow down the shutter into the range that the camera could manage.

ISO 200, 1/2000th at f/4

 

[martsharm]

I don't think anyone's mentioned shooting in manual mode. You really need to meter skin tones with the camera's spot meter, and set the exposure manually for this sort of work. Otherwise the dark stage will lead the camera to overexpose faces, and also use a too slow shutter speed giving blurry results like you've got here. Your exposure is all over the place.

A tricky set to analyse, I know it doesn't help much, but my approach would be, "don't start from here"! Shooting a mega-gig way back in the crowd is a recipe for disaster, unless you get your settings spot on and take a ruthless approach to editing, and a decent helping of luck wouldn't go amiss. I would personally have taken a tiny Olympus with 45mm f/1.8 lens in my pocket and left it at that. Very surprised you got through security with a pro-level SLR.

I would seriously ask you to consider whittling these down to the best 10 or 12 shots from the whole evening, and pick the one you like the best. Nobody needs or wants to see loads of heads chopped off and motion blur. If you can get 10 shots that you're really happy with, then I would consider the evening's shooting a success. If not.... Well you live and learn!

 

[Edward]

Thanks marsharm. A fair number of the problems probably arose because I was tinkering, rather than flying with auto-pilot. I've been doing quite a bit more playing with settings because of the feedback provided in this thread. A few small victories but nothing I need to share yet.

Can you point me to somewhere I can learn more about metering skin tones? If I can find a way of doing it and setting up my camera in the few seconds when the subject is lit in one way and can get a few more shots in, I'll definitely be better off. I think the camera does a reasonable job when skin tone makes up a good percentage of the composition but at any kind of distance without a telephoto lens…

You’re absolutely right, starting with the Rolling Stones isn’t ideal; I should have practiced with a lot of no-bodies I could get a lot closer to. But not, at, least trying when the opportunity presented itself because I hadn’t had the opportunity to practice, would have been madness.

I’ve had a shot at whittling. The first approach I took was to just grab those I was pleased about but there were less than 10 and they didn’t capture any sense of having been there. I decided instead to just throw out the worst half, and those that were hopelessly blurred. There is perhaps still enough for someone to be able to identify systematic problems.

I’m not yet convinced that I should have bought a little camera with a 45mm lens even if it can go to 1.8 - I was struggling to get close enough at 120mm. I’m looking for a 50mm 1.5 EF lens for my Canon. If I’m in a situation where I can’t take that, I think I’d use my mobile phone.

 

[tdodd]

One very easy way to meter for skin tones IF YOU ARE IN THE SAME LIGHT AS YOUR SUBJECT is to aim your camera towards the subject and hold your own left palm out in front of you facing back towards the camera. Meter from your own wide open palm at + 1 1/3 stops (good starting point, but prepare to fine tune from there) and that should give you a good exposure for your own palm. If your own palm is well exposed then it follows that any other skin tones IN THE SAME LIGHT will be equally well exposed. Pale skin will remain looking pale; tanned skin will remain looking tanned and dark skin will still look dark.

For me, since I mostly shoot with manual exposure, once my exposure is locked in then that's job done, unless the lighting changes. If you prefer to shoot in an autoexposure mode then you'll need to set EC to +1 1/3 and then exposure lock on your palm before switching to your main subject.

Clearly this technique won't work if your subject is in different lighting from your own palm.

 

[StewartR]

Meter from your own wide open palm at + 1 1/3 stops (good starting point, but prepare to fine tune from there) and that should give you a good exposure for your own palm.

If you have access to a grey card, even fleetingly, you can do a one-off calibration of the palm of your hand. Photograph the card and your hand in the same light, compare the exposures, and that will tell you whether you should be dialling in 1+1/3 stops or some other value.

Clearly this technique won't work if you try to use it with dirty hands, unless your hands are, in a constant and unvarying state of dirtiness.

 

[HyperD]

Compare the two photos of Usain Bolt winning the 100m at the Beijing Olympics from the Guardian and the Daily Mail to see what I mean. Those two photos were take in the same split-second from almost identical vantage points, but the Guardian one is much more interesting.

I think if you compare that guardian one with this BBC one... Although a different race, you can see the effect better.

BBC

 

[StewartR]

I think if you compare that guardian one with this BBC one... Although a different race, you can see the effect better.

BBC

You've lost me there, I'm afraid. The two pictures I pointed out were exactly the same, except for the shutter speed. Isn't that the best possible comparison?

 

[HyperD]

You've lost me there, I'm afraid. The two pictures I pointed out were exactly the same, except for the shutter speed. Isn't that the best possible comparison?

My point was that the BBC one shows the same angle with the same field of view but it does not have the movement which the Guardian one has.

The BBC one was with a faster shutter speed so the blur is not there.