Bruce Robison at 8.0 Fort Worth - C&C welcome

[badgerW]

I went with my wife as a spectator/fan and brought my Crumpler 6MDH full of stuff. 8.0 is a bar/restaurant in downtown Fort Worth that has an open patio with regular concerts in the summer. Bruce Robison is a well-known Texas singer-songwriter who has written a few #1 country hits performed by Tim McGraw, Dixie Chicks, and George Strait.

He played with his band: a guitarist/pedal-steel player, a bassist, a keyboardist, and a drummer. Unfortunately the lighting was set up so that Bruce was quite brightly lit compared to the rest of his band, and it was pretty packed so I didn't feel comfortable moving around much. On the bright side (so to speak), the bright lights on Bruce make it pretty easy to edit out background junk to make it uniformly black, which I have done for a few of the shots here. Fortunately we were able to stand pretty close stage right. And actually, the more I look at these, the more I realize that I lucked out because my angle was pretty much the only one that would get me Bruce against a solid dark background with no distractions, which I think adds a lot of impact to these images. Most of my shots were at ISO 800 with the 85/1.8, but I also bumped it up to ISO 1600 for shots with the 70-200/4 and 24-105/4. I kept the shutter speeds in the 1/100-1/200 range mostly. Lastly, I was shooting medium/fine JPEGs with my 5D because I stupidly left the house with only the CF card that was in my camera, only 1GB! So I lowered the quality to be able to fit more shots.

Oh, and when I say "C&C welcome," I mean it! I am trying to build a portfolio and will be sending these pics to the performer, the venue and the radio station that sponsored the concert in hopes of getting more gigs lined up, even if they're just pro bono. So if you can say something that will help me improve these images, please do!

1. Edits: removed mic
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2189/3529917337_72dc416bf8.jpg?v=0

2. Edits: cropped, removed mic
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3634/3530733030_3038b1688e.jpg?v=0

3. Edits: cropped
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2124/3530733096_c4fdab5e0f.jpg?v=0

4. Edits: cropped, removed mic (can still see stand+cable against guitar neck, oops)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2390/3530733140_74581e8833.jpg?v=0

5. edits: cropped, removed background reflections and lighting equipment
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2206/3530095935_254616ef2f.jpg?v=0

Bigger set here, with unedited/uncropped/full-EXIF versions of all the above photos, plus a few more shots:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/badgerw/sets/72157618040760993/

[DwightMcCann]

Have you read the FAQ for PA (in my signature)? There are a few tips in there that you may benefit from. These are way better than my first shots! :-)

[badgerW]

Yes, I have read some of it :) But it was after I came back from the concert. I am kicking myself about a couple of things.

1) not bringing a larger CF card so that I could shoot in RAW (part of this is due to a current reshuffling of my CF cards; 3x new 8GB cards came in today, and I am selling my old ones)

2) Cutting off the head of the guitar in #1 (although I do like the composition as it is, and widening the crop to include the head would throw it off)

3) Not moving around a little more to get some different angles

4) I really need to learn about sharpening. I don't even know how to do it to my RAW files, although these were all JPEGs out of the camera, which should have some sharpening applied, right? I usually shoot RAW and I think I need to work on my "workflow." I am mostly using iPhoto to store/manage my photos now; I need Lightroom or something similar with actions that can be applied automatically.

5) I've never overly concerned myself with white balance. When I do correct it, I usually do so by hand. I tried it with #1, turning the temperature down to 2500K or so. The flesh tones do look more realistic, I have to agree; but the fact is, at the concert he was standing under red lights! So do I want to "cancel out" the red lights and have him look like a normal human, or do I want him to look like he did on the stage -- somewhat red tinted? I don't know what's the best answer to this question. What do you usually do?