Hilltop Hoods, Australia

[SakeMan]

Last Friday it was finally time for the Hilltop Hoods to play in Brisbane again, I had been looking forward to this gig for a mega long time and was stoked to get some tickets before they sold out.
We lined up at the venue for a good 1.5 hours before doors opened as I was keen to be in the nosebleed section, 5DII and 50mm in tow. As I got to the door a bouncer told me I can't bring in 'that camera' and told me to take it back to the car, I was being nice and told him I'd had it in the venue before, he called the tourmanager out and she was only too happy for me to take as many shots as I'd like! Of course being in the front row has it's drawbacks in that I was very limited in the angles I could try being stuck in one spot and having close 1000 behind me pushing and shoving. Either way this is what I came up with, c&c as always very much appreciated.

1.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop01.jpg

2.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop02.jpg

3.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop03.jpg

4.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop06.jpg

5.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop08.jpg

6.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop09.jpg

7.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop10.jpg

8.
http://www.motorsportphotography.com.au/images/hilltop12.jpg

[René Damkot]

I like #2, even with the mic blocking the face. #7 would have been nice as well if exposed & focused well.

In general, it looks like your exposure (and / or post processing) needs some work.

[Kidmat]

I looked around for face I'd know
I fell in love with peope in the front row *oh ho*

Awesome Im so jealous right now. Raging on my chair!

My favourites are (from best to least) 7-2-8-3-4-5-6-1.

Colours are really nice on the #6, I love the different hues of green. That might also be one of the most dynamic. #7 is particularly well-framed (well I think, at least) it looks like he is choosing somebody to save from the pit, all the hands risen toward him. B&W is also more dramatic.
The orange+green on #4 is very very nice, too bad the upper half of the picture is a bit empty... I also like #2, the thing hes doing might add more sense to the picture (I mean I can hear them rapping in my head, just by looking at this picture), too bad his face is really really hidden my the mic.
#8 is a nice conclusion to the set, congrats for this one as well, I like the "rise from the ashes" style with the pitch black gradient in the bottom.

[SakeMan]

I like #2, even with the mic blocking the face. #7 would have been nice as well if exposed & focused well.

In general, it looks like your exposure (and / or post processing) needs some work.

Thanks for the feedback, had a look at your page and it seems like you get some great shots, could you maybe give me some tips as I mainly shoot motorsport and processing and shooting music still has a lot of blanks left to fill in for me.

I was shooting these basically in the moshpit as I did not have a photopass for this gig, so was getting shoved around quite a bit, I was shooting in AF servo, shutter priority, keeping the shutter speed above 1/160 if I could some of the shots were also at 1/320. ISO was always around 1600 or up 3200 at times.

I use the AF button on the back of the camera to focus on the subject and then grab my exposure from where I need it with the shutter button before taking the shot.

As for processing, the only thing I really did was to make sure that none of my highlights or blacks are clipping so added fill light etc where needed.

- Kidmat, glad you liked the shots mate, I see you are in Grenoble? How come you know the hoods?

[BJWOK]

nice work on 06, but i would have cropped it a little tighter.

i'm shooting their show in adelaide directly for the guys on sat. i've shot them a number of times before, but never at a show, so i'm really looking forward to it!! your pics have geed me up :)

[SakeMan]

Ah you bastard hehe. That's awesome, would love to have the oportunity to work for them directly, alas it'll never happen hehehe. I have actually sent these shots to their email address as well (publicist@) maybe they would like to use them, if not I am not too phased either, just love HIlltop and photography so combining both seems like a sensible thing to do :lol:

[BJWOK]

yeah nice move, you never know what could come of it! how was the show? some of the new tracks will be interesting to see live (eg the light you burned).

[SakeMan]

yeah nice move, you never know what could come of it! how was the show? some of the new tracks will be interesting to see live (eg the light you burned).

Light you burned was awesome, crowd went off to it, I really do like their new album but have been into them since 'a matter of time' (I am originally from germany and started getting into hip hop back there in the 90's) it was great to see they still play some old school stuff as well and that their new work is still true to what they have been about for years.

I'd say a large part of the crowd were fans that were on the actual mailing list and got the presale link that way, the atmosphere in the place reflected that as well and it seemed like to roof was going to lift of the place a few times haha. Be great to see them in Adelaide for sure, I was going to call into the Obeese Records store a few years ago but didn't actually make it into Adelaide on our roadtrip.

P.s: Just had a look at your gallery. Wow. And the pics on the homepage aren't too shabby either hehe.

[BJWOK]

cools, i'm really looking forward to it now!

thanks for the comments man :) i work hard!

[René Damkot]

I was shooting in AF servo, shutter priority, keeping the shutter speed above 1/160 if I could some of the shots were also at 1/320. ISO was always around 1600 or up 3200 at times.

I prefer to use Av or P* over Tv : In these circumstances, the lens is bound to be wide open anyway.

(*: with program shift. Used to be very nice on a 1D(2(n)). My 1D3 doesn't have the PFn "retain program shift", so I don't use P mode on my 1D3)

So: Use Av, wide open, and you'll get the fastest possible shutterspeed with correct exposure.
If you set Tv, 1/160s and for a correct exposure "wide open lens, 1/60s" is needed, you end up with an underexposed image. (Unless you have set "Enable Safety shift" in your camera).

I prefer Av and minding my shutterspeed over Tv, Safety shift and forgetting to mind the shutterspeed.

Also, IMO DoF is a more important aspect: The difference between f/2 and f/4 is very visible. The difference between 1/125 and 1/500 is not. (If your subject isn't moving).

Then again, most of the time if the front light is more or less constant (which it is surprisingly often) I use M. :)

[BJWOK]

i'm 100% on M mode and vary shutter speed accordingly as I am nearly always wide as possible at f/2.8

[SakeMan]

Thanks to both of you for the advice, I was actually shooting on Auto ISO as well so I found the lens would pretty much stay around f/2 to f/2.2 in most cases anyway, ISO1600 to 3200 in this case and I tried to keep the shutter speed around 1/160 to 1/320.

I shoot music probably every 4-6 months, as my main photography revolves around motorsport so it's interesting to hear the techniques people use. Last gig I shot in aperature priority and kept the lens pretty much wide open as well, however combined with auto-ISO the 5DII keeps shutter speed fairly lowish around 1/40 to 1/60 which was way too slow for what I was shooting and resulted in fairly soft images, when I looked through my data later I actually noticed that ISO was also staying low, even though as you know the 5DII is very happy around ISO1600 and ok with ISO3200. So to comabt that I tried to shoot in shutter priority this time which pushed the ISO but kept the lens fairly wide open.

Will definitely have a go of full manual next time, seems to be the way to go, set ISO at something I'll be happy with, drop aperature to f/2.8 to have a decent DOF and adjust shutter speed as I need.

[Kidmat]

- Kidmat, glad you liked the shots mate, I see you are in Grenoble? How come you know the hoods?
I have a few mates down under, we talked a lot about music, and it turned out I fell in love with the Hewds, Butterfingers, etc. The soundtrack to my High School days ;)
Missed them in London last year...such a loss wont happen twice, trust me!

[Nidz]

Hilltops rock.. I saw these on OCAU as well..