AFAssist...

Interest was sparked by something a particular someone said in another thread.

How many of you use external flashes, set to not fire, with the AF assist function enabled when shooting at concerts? Does it work well? What is the general feeling of how ethical this is? Would it, in your opinion, piss of performers to the point of slashing you with their guitars, impaling you on their drumsticks, and destroying your earphones by tying your head to a 1000w speaker using a stray xlr cable?

x

I've done it a couple times and it worked pretty well...of course I'm generally relatively close to the subject. I don't think any rock act would take notice of the AF assist beam...most don't even seem to notice the flash. I probably wouldn't use it when shooting a folk artist in an intimate setting or something like that. Really though, in my experience I've found that if it is so dark (so little contrast) that I need AF assist, I'm probably going to be needing flash as well...that or maybe some artistic motion blur.

While the concept is good, Security in the pit at a major venue will generally stop you if they see you have a flash mounted. There will be flashes going off from the audience and they will not really notice the difference. An STE-2 should work fine and be less obvious.

-Scott

ive had my flash attatched at major venues before to help balance long lenses, and never had a problem with security so long as i dont fire it.

x

Um, if it isn't obvious, there is also the audience to think about.

Also, it is not simply a question of whether one artist will get annoyed if you do this on one gig - it is another way of beign a nuisance (if you can see the assist light on the artist - which you would for it to be effective - it is a nuisance to some extent, yes?), and this will lead to 2 and 1 song rules and so on. Since there almost never is a guy who makes sure the press behaves and is educated about assist lights etc, they'll just thigten the noose for everybody. And I'm sure it is enough to annoy some artists only once and after that it's one song rule for everybody.

This is of course a generalisation. For instance, some punk bands (playing at a small club) / their audience couldn't care less about such things (I'm sure).

Also, since the assist light can be used only in one-shot mode (if I'm not mistaken), isn't it anyways pretty easy to get a focus lock on a static subject when there is enough light to photograph him/her anyway?

As a side note, I've been to a few concerts where it was oblicatory to take the flash off camera before going in (this was at a festival so a number of people actually had flash on their camera for fill light for previously shooting general audience stuff or other bands).

You raise some good points Kalle, Anyone got any further comments?

x

Agree with Kalle on this one.
I've had images, ehm, turn out different, because someone in the audience used a P&S that projected an AF assist beam. Highly annoying, since it happened all through the show.

Then again, if it's the only way of getting an AF lock... Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do. But then do it only for one song or so. (Also, in that case, light levels will be pretty damn low to start with, so the best idea is probabely to dump the camera and enjoy the gig )

I agree rene, ive never used it myself but i thought it would be interesting to discuss the ethics of it as the ethics of flash use have been argued over so many time and this is another if more obscure ethical debate in gig photography.

x

Have you ever been hit in the eyes with them? I have and I think it's annoying. A little bit of fog and it lights up the beams like in a jewel heist movie.