Taking good photos at a big concert venue is always a challenge, not least when carrying in a ‘professional camera’ in with you is strictly forbidden and when you’re a very long way from the stage!…
Outside with friend Rob
Last week I put my recently purchased 12 mega pixel Panasonic DMC-TZ35 Lumix compact camera with Leica 20x optical zoom, lens through it’s paces. At only £99 (albeit well reduced in a sale) it wasn’t at all expensive. When you’re looking for a good compact camera for your holiday snaps don’t be bamboozled by the number of pixels. If it’s an unknown brand with poor internal software and a cheap lens, it’s unlikely to produce great results. Ignore digital zoom. That’s only internally ‘cropping‘ your photos and they will rapidly loose quality. ‘Optical’ is the important word and in simple terms; less than x10 is pointless, x10 is okay, x20 is great (see below)! The good news is that digital compacts are much better than they used to be and you needn’t spend a fortune.
Back to the purpose of today’s blog and Liverpool’s Echo Arena and my back seat position, where the great Sir Paul McCartney though sounding fantastic, was little more than a dot in the distance.
Atmospheric: Great stage lighting illuminates the crowd.
A Beatle on stage!
Apart from one or two wider shots, most were taken on maximum zoom. To reduce the risk of camera shake, I rested the camera on the arm of my seat and with powerful stage lighting, I didn’t need to set the ISO to more than 500, giving reasonable quality when enlarging pictures. I deliberately underexposed by a couple of stops to preserve facial detail.
Fairly sharp at 1/60 second!
I waited for Paul to be be relatively still, to avoid motion blur. And boy can he still strut is stuff on stage! He played non-stop for over three hours, albeit with a few ballads at the piano.
Cheating?…Probably, but shooting the giant stage screens was useful.
Rockin’ guitar duet!
Laser lights looked great on camera!
Pausing for a chat with the audience is a good ‘still’ photo opportunity.
Piano solo.
Wide shots to include the side screens.
And for Heaven’s sake turn the flash off! Unless you are on the front row, it won’t reach and may set the shutter speed too high, giving you a very underexposed image. If you don’t know how, read the manual before you go, or leave the camera at home! With a basic camera, ‘night setting‘ will do (the button with moon & stars!).
Close is good, but less so can capture the atmosphere.