Mogwai (C&C welcome) - loads of pictures

[narlus]

any comments and critiques are welcome. i took a load of pictures, and felt these were the best. i shot pretty much full open @ 1.8, mostly an 85 but also popped my 50 on for a bit, and ISO 1600. for the strobe shot i used manual exposure and focusing and did continuous shooting; doing anything in auto was a disaster. attached is a short review of the show as well. enjoy!

Mogwai and Torche, at Avalon 14May06
Torche are a Miami Beach 4 piece you could tell that had some Slayer and Melvins permanently welded into their tour van cd player...fun music to rock out too; kinda like cock rock in the metal world. you could definitely tell they were having a good time; this is a fairly crappy pic and i got someone's head a little bit, but it's pretty indicative:

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/4848/img73624lt.jpg

here's the singer barking one out:
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/7023/IMG_7349_torche.jpg

after Torche were done (a little goes along way for me, but overall i'd give ''em 3 out of 5 stars for effort), we pressed our way up to the front, just one person in front of us and the stage. while that meant i'd get little to no heads in the way, the 85mm lens i'd rented would be too long for most single player in the frame shots, nevermind stage shots.

after making us wait for 45 minutes, mogwai strolled out triumphantly, wearing matching lime-green adidas tracksuit jackets, the Young Team emblem embroidered on the right breast; Dwight would have been pleased. :) immediately launching into "Hunted By A Freak", their instrumental prowess was unleashed, no stopping it. the last two songs of the regular set were absolutely incendiary..."friend of the night" into "glasgow megasnake" was blinding...in GMS i felt like i was in the middle of a jet engine...truly a powerful moment. i high-fived the guy standing behind me.

the encore couldn't match that, esp since "my father my king" nor "christmas steps" were trotted out for flaying, although it's hard to argue w/ helicon pt 1 and 2. anyway, on to the mogwai pics:

3
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/6272/IMG_7440_stuart1.jpg


4
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/1012/IMG_7541_dom_gtr.jpg

5
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/9438/IMG_7439_2nd-gtr.jpg

6
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/1236/IMG_7495_mogwai_gtr_strobe.jpg

7
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/5923/IMG_7440_stuart2_bs2.jpg

8
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/5260/IMG_7457_stuart_5.jpg

9
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/2209/IMG_7432_drummer.jpg

10
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/6902/IMG_7413_mogwai_gtr.jpg

11
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/6991/IMG_7536_stuart2.jpg

12
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/6255/IMG_7440_stuart2_bs.jpg

13
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/5442/IMG_7532_stuart.jpg

thanks for indulging me.

[JCR]

Some good stuff, dunno about indulging you, I would likely say thanks for sharing them.
You got his attention in number 3.

[DwightMcCann]

I like 3 and 6 but I only see one guy with a matching jacket and he is wearing it! So, how did you get #6? I like the hair in #1, too! :-) Oh, and nice write up ... we need more of that for the bands. ;)

[narlus]

well they all did traipse out on stage in the jackets, but most ditched 'em pretty quickly (i think the drummer took his off before he sat down!). had i a wide angle lens in my bag, i'd have tried the shot, but no dice. i did see pics of another gig where they were all wearing blue service garage worker jumpsuits, complete w/ name tags reading "Mr Beast" which is the name of their new record.

to get #6, i had to set exposure manually, and put the lens into MF as well; the strobes were playing absolute havoc w/ the automatic controls. oh, and i put the camera on continuous shooting, to increase the odds of getting a decent capture.

i like the feel of photo #10 quite a bit myself; not the sharpest pic i took but there's something about it.

a few things i was thinking about after taking the shots and sorting through them last night...

- i am tempted to either ditch my 50 f/1.8 for the 50 f/1.4, or keep it and use the $ for a fast wide prime, like the 24 or maybe the 35. for shows where i'm very close, it would be nice to be able to get a wider shot, but in the end it may not really be all that effective since i'd probably have to shoot wide open, and the resulting shallow DoF wouldn't yield great full stage shots.

- i wouldn't mind a better body (wouldn't we all)...using only the center AF point w/ primes means that getting decently framed shots is pretty tough, esp when you are wedged in a crowd w/ little chance to move. but getting a new camera is not gonna happen for me for a while, so i'll have to live w/ it.

- my typical mode of shooting is ISO 1600, aperture priority wide open, and then frame the shot and push the button. should i be experimenting w/ either changing the exposure compensation, trying out different metering modes (evaluative is the default, but for some reason i was on partial for all the pictures in my Michael Hurley thread), or other minor tweaks?

any suggestions are appreciated.