Honkeytonk Homeslice, 6/2/07, Stage Stop Inn, Rollinsville, CO

[col4bin]

This was my first attempt at concert photograpghy. The venue was a 139 year old bar/restaurant with terrible lighting. I have been to about 500 live music performances and this place was one of the darkest I had ever been to. It was very small and I was in the front row. My lenses were a little too long to be as close as I was (I could rest my feet on the stage) but since this was my first try I did not worry about it too much. All photos were at iso1600. Please provide me with some critique and remember it's my first time so go easy. :)

1.) Billy Nershi (from string cheese incident)
50mm, f/1.4, 1/50s, iso1600, spot metering on the face, focus on the face

http://fsquared.smugmug.com/photos/159250996-L.jpg

2.) Jillian Nershi (Billy's wife)
50mm, f/1.4, 1/50s, iso1600, spot metering on the face, focus on the face

http://fsquared.smugmug.com/photos/159250611-L.jpg

3.) Scott Law
50mm, f/1.4, 1/30s, iso1600, spot metering on the face, focused on guitar (in error)

http://fsquared.smugmug.com/photos/159251373-L.jpg

[johnstoy]

Great shots... The composition, framing and the creative subject captures make these excellent pictures really special...

[johnstoy]

Great, the EXIF is a lot of help...

With the 50mm f1.4, you can at least get the entire guitar into the picture... The 85mm will get you lots of #2 type of captures, (detailed faces)...

Was each pic taken at f1.4?

[col4bin]

Thanks John. All pictures were taken at 1.4. I was so close to the stage that I really could not back up (otherwise I would have been sitting in the lap of the person behind me. I did move about the crowd with the 85 1.8 attached however I have not processed those pictures yet (and I do not know if there are any keepers there).

[theupsetter]

No 1 is fantastic. Great expression, lovely colour and framing. There's a nice softness to the image - not in terms of sharpness but the overall effect, if you know what I mean. Maybe it's just his hair :)

[johnstoy]

Frank, you might be interested in posting some of these pics and/or a link with the post to this thread, here...

LINK TO: Post your Canon 50/1.4 @ f/1.4 images!
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=139085

The "Post your Canon 50/1.4 @ f/1.4 images!" is a popular thread in the "Lens Section" of POTN... It's not often that you'll need to shoot at F1.4... I'm usually shooting in the f2.2-3.5 range with the 50mm f1.4...

[col4bin]

Thanks. I will post the first two in that 50 1.4 forum.

John...i guess you can see by the EXIF data that the conditions I was shooting in would not allow me to shoot at any slower speed. The lighting was really poor.

[DwightMcCann]

They could all use a little more pop. I touched the first one as an example: color cast, saturation, levels ... about 30 seconds work.

[col4bin]

Thanks Dwight. Color saturation is one are in RAW processing that I struggle with. I am always worried about over doing it.

[DwightMcCann]

Thanks Dwight. Color saturation is one are in RAW processing that I struggle with. I am always worried about over doing it.
Be sure to read posts by Rene ... he seems to be a technophile in the post processing arena.

[davesrose]

A lot of PP is just asking yourself what is the picture missing....are the colors faithful to what you remember or want to depict? Are the shadows too dark? Is there any blown highlights? How are the midtones looking? And lastly, especially with digital pictures, I'm always asking...are the whites really white? :lol: Those are the criteria I use in evaluating a photograph, and how I'll improve it. So as others have stated, I like how your photos are composed. IMO, the thing that needs the most improvement is color balance. I went ahead and edited the 1st picture.....I reduced the amount of red and bumped up some of the green and blue. I also slightly adjusted saturation and contrast. Saturation and contrast is always a preference: I notice the "in" thing right now is to really bump up contrast and saturation.

The other thing in the first photo that's distracting for me is the odd purple fringing going on at the top. So I decided to crop that and crop in a little closer to the guitar. For my tastes, the left side seemed a little too cropped in and a bit unbalanced. But anyway, this is my take on it:D

http://www.rosenberg-illustration.com/files/photos/guitar.jpg

[col4bin]

Thanks for the feedback. I am generally happy at my first attempt but look forward to continued feedback from the forum. Up until now I have been a regular poster in the landscape forum.