Common Ground Underground Hip-Hop Scene

Got a few from the event the other night. I am by no means pro or even good, first time shooting something like this, the light was difficult to work with. Comments and critique welcome. The main feature was Propaganda, christian Hip Hop Artist.

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I love the background/set they have there! 2nd, 3rd and 5th are my favorites for composition.

I shoot lots of local church coffee house concerts with 7D's, similar lighting. Look through my Flickr pages. I have found if I am shooting wide open, that i rarely have near enough depth of field to capture the faces in the narrow plane it provides. Singers like this are constantly moving! Even with my 24mm/2.8, it isn't enough. I usually shoot ISO 3200, sometimes 6400 with the 7D's and get decent results. i also am shooting in Raw and use Lightroom to edit and output the JPEG's. Bump up the ISO, to get f/4 and shoot every opportunity you can. Looks like a good place to go back to! There are some great images to be had there!

Thanks for the advise! This will help a ton if I ever go back there.

A 30mm lens even at f1.4 should have sufficient DOF, but the low shutter speeds aren't helping. I almost never shoot anything but f/2.8 and at least 1/160. Use spot metering rather than evaluative to help with better exposure.

Yea I was trying to not do slow shutter speed but the exposure was difficult. Thanks for the tips though, I'll try that out next time!

As stated above, don't be afraid to push ISO. It's better to have a noisy image than one OOF, or not at all.

^^ Definitely, thanks! I think the noise is what I was afraid of.

Hmmm, these are slightly underexposed for my liking. A little soft too? I know it can be hard in some venues - hope you stick at it!

Yea the Noob in me def shows in these photos lol.

It's all good man! We all had to start somewhere!

BJWOK wrote in post #18288175
Hmmm, these are slightly underexposed for my liking. A little soft too? I know it can be hard in some venues - hope you stick at it!

And just I know, what does "soft" mean? I Keep seeing people use that terminology. I'm so new tot his lol.

Ok cool, it means they missed focus but only slightly

Got it!

BJWOK wrote in post #18289137
Ok cool, it means they missed focus but only slightly

Or a shutter speed too slow to stop movement.

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