It is time to learn something new about the basics of photography. No, I am not going to give you the long extended version of photography 101. I expect you have done most research already, you have read all the basic instructions, even took a class or two, and practiced all the things learned.
This is going to be about the things I learned while practicing all the basic rules on concert photography. It wasn’t a linear gain of knowledge, it never is as you have to fail to really learn and see how to improve, and I am too stubborn to listen to advise much but sometimes there are the brilliant aha moments.
So here are some of my aha moments…
Rules of composition!
Yes, learn them! Study them and try to apply them. Once you know them, break these rules until you develop your own style. The rules of composition are good to know, especially when you consider participation in competitions or when you delve into things as commercial portraits, landscapes or product photography, compositions are what makes or breaks a good picture.
However, especially in concert photography, sports or other fast moving settings, you do not always have the time to aim for the perfect composition. Chasing these compositions can be a loss of valuable shooting time when you only have three songs or a fifteen second action on the field. I found it far better to develop your own style of photography instead of clinging to the composition rules.
While letting go of the standard compositions, you do need to take into account that it is smart to include the whole subject in the picture, including instrument, or sport equipment, etc. Or are you going to make the conscious decision to make it a good looking crop? If you have a full frame camera, cropping in post-edit make this decision even easier. But still, this is all depending on a conscious decision from you.
My most important tip in this one is to think about your compositions when you have the time. Get to know the ones you are most comfortable with, and if you do not have time for it, rely on the style you have or are developing to become yours.
RAWs versus Jpegs
While this topic almost needs a post all for itself, I am going to keep it short and simple. If you plan on edit your pictures after wards, always shoot in RAW. It will give you tons of extra data that will help you make your pictures look amazing in post-edit. You will have so much more control over highlights, low lights, colors, and sharpness.
If you do not plan on editing them, shoot Jpeg and save yourself the trouble of big storage. In many camera’s of viewer programs there is build in software to convert to jpeg automatically and they aren’t half bad.
If by any chance you are shooting an event where you need to provide a bigger amount of pictures on the spot, like a live photo feed, shoot in RAW and Jpeg. For your live feed, select the jpeg ones you are okay with to share unedited and use the RAWs for when you have more time to edit a decent album.
Triangle of light.
Aka, this light technician sucks!
Nah, I am not complaining anymore about bad light on stages. After many years of complaining about that light at concerts sucks, I decided to stop nagging and start learning.
In the end, there is a difference between show light, photo light and video light, and the light tech is there to make show light. So you just have to work for it.
However that doesn’t mean that there is nothing you can do but accept bad and dark pictures. Nope, consider the three elements of lighting in your picture you can play around a lot with your settings and angles to get the best out of your pictures.
For me the most important one to learn was that a properly lit picture will not have tons of noise, no matter how high you push your ISO. If your picture with a high ISO is slightly over exposed your noise will be a lot less than when you have the same picture a little under exposed. So go out, test your camera’s limit with the ISO and see how far it will get you.
Another element is your shutter speed… in a lot of cases a higher shutter speed is nice to have. It will capture the musician or the athlete sharp and unmoving, however, it will either make your picture dark or if you are at a concert with LED lights, make your picture showing bands of black or heaven forbid rainbows.
This is because the frequency of the LED is incompatible with the frequency of your shutter. And as not all LED lights have the same frequency, you will see that not all shutter speeds work the same.
My experience is that as soon as you move above the 1/350 you will start to see banding in your pictures. Play around with the settings to find the best solution.
So here are a few of my thoughts on things I have learned about the basics of photography. Many books or sites only explain the technical part but the real result is in trying, failing and trying again.
Let me know if you have any questions, or basic photography things that you want me to discus!
コメント