Have you ever refused to shoot a band because....

of appalling lighting?

One of the support bands for Bloc Party had dark blue lighting which was so dark it wouldn't even make good silhouettes i.e. pitch dark apart from the lighting itself. I refused to shoot and on the third song, the same lighting and I walked instead of waiting for them to put up the lighting

The other support act, unbelievably, was the Joy Formidable. They had superb lighting throughout their half hour set

Wow, sounds like someone wasn't thinking. I'm sure support will get the message once the photos (or lack thereof) start getting back to them.

PhotogNY wrote in post #15642076
Wow, sounds like someone wasn't thinking. I'm sure support will get the message once the photos (or lack thereof) start getting back to them.

Exactly my thought, if they want photos to show that they have done the gig, they might get more popular, not guaranteed though because they were reasonably good. Couldn't understand it, was standing there wondering what the heck was happening, even asked the security where their lighting was, lol. Another one asked me if I were taking photos, I said, I couldn't under the extreme non existent lighting

yes, crappy light has done this to me.
extensive use of fog machines is in the same league.

If I have a fast lens with me and there's at least some light, I usually try to see what I can make of it, more as a personal challenge even if I don't intend to publish them. Concert photography is like hitting a baseball - you see what you can do with what's given. If the pitcher is too fast, you can give up or you can try to see if you can hit the ball anyway.

90c4 wrote in post #15646387
If I have a fast lens with me and there's at least some light, I usually try to see what I can make of it, more as a personal challenge even if I don't intend to publish them. Concert photography is like hitting a baseball - you see what you can do with what's given. If the pitcher is too fast, you can give up or you can try to see if you can hit the ball anyway.

Even if you had a f/1.0 at maximum ISO and a 30 seconds exposure, you wouldn't of got anything out of it

Ask them if they will allow you to use a flash or even better yet a remote flash. Many times I break out the flashlight app in my cell phone and use that light, works excellent if you can get close.

I think you may have given up too easily. I shoot at a local club/bar in Tahoe called the Divided Sky and all they have is a stringer of Red LED's around the small stage with a couple more Red Tunsten spotlights above! I've asked the owner several times to add some white light but all he said is I'm trying to create a "mood". Fortunately nobody really minds if I use a flash but I don't like that effect much either.

To give you an idea the first photo is what a shot looks like without doing anything, this is using a f1.2 lens at 6400iso:

The 2nd photo is using my cell phone flashlight app which provides a small amount of white LED light and then editing the crap out of it in photoshop with Curves, Screen Blend, deSaturation, deBrightness and Contrast.

It's not great but you can get 'decent' results in very crappy lighting situations. You can also get good B&W results from most colored shots.

It was a lot worse than the top image, I didn't even bother trying to get silhouettes because even that was impossible

Who was the band so I never shoot them?

Icona Pop opened for Passion Pit as MSG and there was really no lighting for them.

CosmoKid wrote in post #15661495
Who was the band so I never shoot them?

Icona Pop opened for Passion Pit as MSG and there was really no lighting for them.

This is the thing, they never introduced themselves and security weren't much of a help

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #15661799
This is the thing, they never introduced themselves and security weren't much of a help

Old Men

http://www.songkick.co​m …bloc-party-at-earls-court

This was shot with a very fast f/1.2 lens at less than 1/30th of a second (I forget what the next 1/3 step down is, I think it's 1/20th) at 6400ISO just to get enough light to make out any detail at all.

The one thing I know for sure is if you don't take the shot you have no possibility of getting it...

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #15661087
It was a lot worse than the top image, I didn't even bother trying to get silhouettes because even that was impossible

CosmoKid wrote in post #15662160
Old Men

http://www.songkick.co​m …bloc-party-at-earls-court

Orite, I thought they were talking about some "old men" on stage and they didn't know the name, lol, but thanks for that