I recently attended a birthday celebration for a close friend of mine. His fiancée arranged a surprise for him, which involved all of us joining them at a very nice club, where a fantastic band was performing live.
Overall, the evening was very enjoyable, with a lot of hit covers being played with gusto.
It was also a fantastic opportunity to try out the new D3s in that type of shooting conditions. Overall, the D3s performed admirably. For the purpose of this evening, it was paired with a Nikon 24-70mm/2.8 (or “Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED NIKKOR AF-S“, if you want to feel the full marketing department’s attack). Finally, additional illumination was provided by a Nikon SB-900 Speedlight.
The three items made for a killer combination.
From a photographic perspective, there were 2 distinct types of shooting involved.
- Shoot the band.
- Shoot the people.
When shooting a band, you need to take care to put it into context. This involves carefully considered framing. You need to ensure that appropriate props are included in your shots (drums, mic, guitar – whatever it is that defines the artist you are capturing).
You also need to make an effort to provide a refreshing view of the artists. Aim to position yourself somewhere where the regular audience may not think of going.
You also should ensure that the mood of the show is conveyed, primarily by eliminating the use of flash.
This, unfortunately, means no flash use. As a consequence, you would be faced with the need for
- A fast lens
- High ISO capability
Preferably you would have both. In this case, all these shots were shot at f/2.8, and at speeds ranging between 1/40 to 1/60. The required ISO ranged from 2500 to a staggering 12800.
Obviously you get achieve acceptable results with a really fast prime, such as an f/1.4, or even f/1.2. However, in these cases you would, quite likely, suffer significant chromatic aberrations with your aperture wide open, especially in such contrasty light.
Your other concern is shooting people. The requirements here are substantially different. There is no stage light, and, usually, there is no precious artistic context to preserve. All you need to focus on are your subjects, and, if possible, the moment they are in. This will, almost always, involve the use of your flash.
Overall, you are more concerned with not blowing highlights or burning shadows of the main subjects, than anything else.
You may wish to attempt shooting using both a longer exposure, and firing your flash. You would, essentially, be shooting using second, or trailing, curtain flash. This allows for a compromise whereupon you take a long enough exposure to capture enough of the background that is beyond your flash’s physical reach, and then fire the flash to illuminate, an highlight, your foreground subject. The result, if done right, is a shot that looks a lot like what you actually see.
Most DSLRs, and your upper echelon P&S, should be able to provide this level of control.