Critique Concert Photos from a Las Vegas Show

[lmtayl2]

Hey fellow photomaniacs.....:D

I'm new to photography and would like some candid feedback from you pros, especially the one and only Mr. Dwight McCann. I've been checking your photos out and I must say, they are off the chain. When I grow up, I want to shoot like you....

Anyway, you all are amazing with your work so I'm asking for you help in mentoring me so I can become a better photographer.

The subject that I shot is Brian Culbertson, jazz pianist. He performed this past weekend at the Boulder Station Casion in Las Vegas. He's 33 years young and moves around quite a bit on stage as does the sax player, Eric Darius.

Any feedback you can provide will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Lisa

www.allthingssmooth.com/Gallery1 (http://www.allthingssmooth.com/Gallery1)

[DwightMcCann]

Welcome to POTN. I'm here but see no pictures! If it is not worth your time to embed a few links to show me enough to interest me more then its not worth my time to go clicking (you have no idea how many times I've had to say this.)

[lmtayl2]

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8108/img26510gl.jpg (http://imageshack.us)



2nd one.

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8332/img28576dx.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[lmtayl2]

Here's another one.
Lisa

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9872/img26588rf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)



http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/4503/img26620ez.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Steve Parr]

Some nice shots.

I looked through the gallery, and all of them are pretty good. Composition could've been better on a few of them, and some are a bit soft, but they are, for the most part, pretty good.

If you're "new" to photography, then I'd say you're off to a pretty good start...

[lmtayl2]

Thanks Steve. Your comments are very much appreciated. I'll have to do some research on how to do better composition. I do struggle with sharpening the images in Photoshop because either I over or under sharpen the object.

Thanks again.

[DwightMcCann]

Lisa, I agree with Steve, for a newbie these are very good, so expect you have experience. I especially like the third one ... sharp, nice background, lots of energy. As for composition, remember, in all people photography you want FACES, Faces, faces ... compose for the faces whether closeup head shots or from back against the wall. Watch for times when you get everyone in the image looking out at the audience. When you have people in and out of light you generally want to concentrate on those in the light. There are often some members who never seem to get into the light ... they are difficult.

Your RebetXT can take fantastic pictures and you seem know what to do ... wide open lens, pretty good ISO (you can go to 1600 for images like the second one ... does the XT bracket?) and, of course, we always recommend that you get a 50mm f/1.8 and maybe 85mm f/1.8, but you seem to be using longer focal lengths ... what lens were you using - 70-200mm f/2.8?

Finally, if you are looking for a lot of general discussion of this genre, go to the link in my sig and chime in.

[René Damkot]

Very nice for a first try. I agree with the above posts regarding composition. Personally I always tend to keep a 2:3 aspect ratio to my crops, unless for a specific need. Some pictures might have benefitted from that. I really like the 3rd and 4th picture. Never mind the face there ;) Although I would've cropped it to about a 1/4 of it's size (through tehe middle of the keyboard, discarding the lower & right part....

[lmtayl2]

(you can go to 1600 for images like the second one ... does the XT bracket?) and, of course, we always recommend that you get a 50mm f/1.8 and maybe 85mm f/1.8, but you seem to be using longer focal lengths ... what lens were you using - 70-200mm f/2.8?

Finally, if you are looking for a lot of general discussion of this genre, go to the link in my sig and chime in.

Thanks Dwight...

Before I went to the concert, I read a lot of information/discussion on this forum which really helped. I've been taking concert pics since 2004 and started out with a lil Canon SD410. I recently upgraded to the Digital Rebel XT June 2005 and have been using the auto setting with the stock lens. Since last year, I've purchased a Sigma 2.8 35-70mm lens, a 50mm f/1.8 (Nov 2005) and just last week, a 70-200mm f/2.8. I played around with the settings through the concert but it was pretty dark so I really couldn't experiment like I wanted to. I went into the concert shooting at 400 exp and bumped it up to 800. I really wanted to play around with the bracketing but couldn't really figure that out at this point.

I'll post some questions on the other discussion site.

Thanks again.

[lmtayl2]

Very nice for a first try. I agree with the above posts regarding composition. Personally I always tend to keep a 2:3 aspect ratio to my crops, unless for a specific need. Some pictures might have benefitted from that. I really like the 3rd and 4th picture. Never mind the face there ;) Although I would've cropped it to about a 1/4 of it's size (through tehe middle of the keyboard, discarding the lower & right part....

Hey Rene,

I'm not sure what you're speaking about when you say 2:3 aspect ratio on cropping but I'll do some research and see if I can find some good articles about cropping that will explain it in detail. Would you mind recropping the 3rd and 4th picture so I can see what you're referring to if you have the time.

Thanks,

Lisa

[René Damkot]

With aspect ratio I mean width : length = 2:3. I don't make an oblong picture square.
On the crop of #4:

Also brightened the face a bit.
Might be a bit too close now. Maybe make it a 'portrait' orientation...

[cdifoto]

I would have cropped the last shot one of the following 2 ways (depending how big I wanted to print it). The first crop is in the 3:2 aspect to print a 4x6 or similiar, and the second crop is for an 8x10. You could also crop to a size for the web that disregards aspect ratio if you never plan on printing it.

[René Damkot]

Yep, portrait crop is better...

[lmtayl2]

I see, looks good....thanks again and I just keep learning and learning more and more each day.

Lisa