Local Band @ Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis, MN - 1st time concert

Just thought I'd share a few from a few from my first time shooting a band. It was a friend's band that I was just doing for fun, didn't end up with anything spectacular but at least it's better stuff than what they already had for using on the web and whatnot. I wasn't going to post here till I had something better to share but it might be a bit before I shoot another show so I wanted to share in case anyone is kind enough to offer some tips.

It was quite the learning experience, and I think I know a lot of the mistakes I made and what to do different next time. My biggest mistake (on the rest of the shots not shown here mostly) is that I wasn't able to get good enough framing for clean shots, a lot of them have way to much junk in the background - railings, cords, equipment, other people, etc. I'm thinking part of the issue was that this was a smaller venue with a stage that's only raised up a couple feet. Seems like with a tall stage where you're shooting up toward the band it might be easier to isolate the people with a clean background.

Also, the light was pretty tough. They have good lights at the venue, but since it was a small show they didn't have a lighting guy working. They just set the lights to cycle colors while aimed the same way the whole time, which led to very uneven lighting. I had a tough time figuring out what to meter off of or what setting to try. If I got the exposure good enough to show everything properly, the hotspots under the lights would be blown out and 2 or 3 stops higher... I'm guessing there's not really anything that can be done about this other than wait until they step into even light. This was kind of annoying though, I missed a lot of shots that would have been better than these because of the uneven lighting.

I edited most of them color and BW but posted the BW ones here since they came out a little cleaner. I don't think the exif is showing from flickr but most were shot 1/125th, f/1.8 or f/2.8 at iso3200 on a T1i. 3200 is pretty high on the T1i, for anything other than low light performance shots I wouldn't dare go that high but I didn't know what else to do.

Full-size through the link or click the photos

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what is the name of the band, i like the twin cities music scene especially the jayhawks, saw kraig johnson (ex jayhawks) in that venue on a trip to the states from scotland 4 years ago.
also like the pictures

Thanks
Band is called Ohm of Omega. I'm not really sure how to describe the sound other than unique rock/ metal. The Mars Volta is the closest comparison I can think of. Just your regular small band for now, but pretty talented. I like the music scene here too, I wish I managed to get out and catch shows more often. Even if it's not like the big city scenes, we have tons of bands and an impressive variety.

Oh, I've seen the Jayhawks a couple times too, they put on a good show

#2 is nice.
Pity about the mic in #3 and 5. Apart from that you did pretty well in not having people blocking view of people.

Move about a bit more next time.

For your first time out you actually did quite well. No chopped guitar necks.

Lighting at venues is always tough. You can pretty much count on the histogram showing all of your shots as underexposed. Don't worry about it too much. Shoot 1/125 at f/2.8 ISO 1600 or 2500. Stay in Manual. Forget metering. As you shoot the show and the lights change you'll learn when to adjust your ISO.

-Charles