Second time shooting concerts - critique?

Just had an opportunity to shoot 3 shows and only my second time shooting concerts. Got a lot of great tips here and then more shooting along side some pros at these shows. I actually developed camera settings that I think work better for me than any others.

They were very small venues with low budget lighting. The best lighting was at the third show. Second show may not have ANY usable shots. I have only post processed and selected the best from that third show and put them up online for now. More to come.

I'd appreciate any critique and suggestions. Not looking for praise, though appreciated if you like them, as much as what could make these even better. I have viewed on two monitors now and I *think* several of them are too red and plan to adjust color temps on some of them tonight. So if you are viewing and things change or stop loading, I am likely uploading new versions. Also, does the site load reasonably fast enough? Anything broken? Anything cut off?

Pix are at www.in4m8n.com/pix Its the last album entitled Handijam -Whippany

Thanks.

~Bob

Bob ~ I feel that you are being a bit too hard on yourself and believe I am in a good position to say so. I also shot your third concert and LED lighting that they used was strongly saturated. The magenta/red spectrum is especially hard on Canon sensors and if you don't get it exposed correctly you will have a mess on your hands. I do suggest working with the white balance settings because I can also tell you that you can get it better. Were you the guy with the 5D MkII and the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS Mk I. I'm thinking that your were the guy that asked me if my 70-200 was the MkII.

That was me But with 1D MKIII.

And not trying to be hard on myself. Just trying to do the best I can. I did adjust the white balance on a half dozen of the shots. And in the Mexicali's - now up. Part of what I am trying to find out is if the images hold on othe rmonitors and iff mine is a good enough representation of what others see.

Mexicali had me at ISO 3200 much more than I would like. A lot of luminance and cleaning that loses detail. I need to find a way to shoot at lower ISO or maybe one just could not with the lighting at Mexicali.

But thanks for the comments. They are all useful.

~Bob

The Mexicali photos, to my eye, look better than the UCC photos...at least there was additional lighting sources on stage that add depth...makes me wish that I went to that show instead. As for 3200 ISO, with the MkIII I wouldn't worry about it. The photos look and will print just fine. One word of suggestion though. You might get more varied opinions if you go to the Performing Arts photo section and put up galleries and ask for feedback. That's where most people look for photos to look at and critique. Sometimes it moves slow over there but I'm sure you will get some comments in time.

Pretty good overall, just dont cut off the guitar heads lol

I am a huge live music fan from way back. I found that whole series to have captured not just the visual record of the event but the mood and feeling as well. Not sure you can do more than that. There were a couple of shots of the pedal steel player and the one shot of Danny Kalb where he is wearing slacks and suspenders that were my favorite of the group. Also, the shot of the guitars hanging is up there as well.

chrismallet wrote in post #11236917
Pretty good overall, just dont cut off the guitar heads lol

Agreed - the shots of the guitar players are cropped too tight and we get to feel of context.

This one number 16 - OTOH is compositionally excellent!

Thanks for the comments.

I wish I had more to post, but it is so difficult getting permission to photograph most shows. But I'll keep trying. And I'll watch for the guitar heads

~Bob