These were outdoor shots but I used the same settings as shooting indoors, even on the crowd. The campground I shot in auto.

S mode (1/500), auto iso, D7000, 24/120 & 10/24 NIKKOR lenes.

The first half were shot on Friday and I may a huge mistake my shooting in jpeg because I couldn't edit the exposure. Sunday I shot in Raw, the sun was still brutal but I was able to edit the exposure somewhat.

Bland said:
Any of you tried out the D7000 ISO yet shooting low light concerts (no flash)?

Yep. Most of the time I shoot in M mode with AUTO ISO allowed to go up to 1600 if necessary.

D7000 and Sigma 85mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM @ around f/2.0 in a dimly lit club -
Most of the shots come out at ISO 400 or 800 and boy, the Sigma can do good beyond f/2.0 - unbelievably sharp where the sharpness needs to be.

I'd shoot A Mode with Auto ISO.

Thanks Jeri and to the others for suggesting shooting in S Mode with the Auto ISO. Even at ISO 6400 I had very little noise. Shooting this way allowed me to be able to concentrate on only two things while shooting, composition and metering.

Here's last nights shoot:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3404999177570.142805.1647615973&type=1&l=aa5c62a5b1

S Mode / Auto ISO / AF-C / AF & Metering ~ Single Point / 1/500
NIKKOR 24-120 & 10-24

Tip: use trap focus at the mic positions for spastic performers.

Awesome shoots, Jyri. I like your setup and I'll try it next month. I was concerned about shooting over ISO 3200 but after seeing yours I'm eager to try it.

I shoot quite often concerts indoor with D7000, usually with 70-200 2.8 VRII, sometimes with 105 2.8 VR or 50 1.4 depending how close I am to the stage.
I almost always use S mode with 1/500 and auto ISO up to 6400, and always RAW only.
You can find some of my indoor concert pictures here: http://jyrilaitinen.fi/tapahtumakuvaaja/

Here's my findings after 4 indoor concerts, and it took the forth concert to come with this conclusion. I tried everything suggested and they all worked great, thank you to all.

I'm not saying my findings are absolute but just what works me. I do think if someone is shooting an indoor concert for the first time this would be a good starting point and then they could tweak this info from there.

AF-C, AF single point(manual move to desire focus area, I recommend the face), Metering single point (highly recommend metering the face, obviously it'll be the same as your AF single point). White Balance ~ Auto 1, ISO 3200-2500, Aperture F4 is my favorite all around shooting in A mode, fast Burst Mode and rip off at least 3, raw is a must.

Stage lighting consist of two types of lights changing constantly, white light and color lights. Because of that you need a neutral setting and that is what I posted above. In order to capture the shot in the first 2-3 songs it doesn't give you time to adjust because of the lighting changing constantly. Your results will be under exposed shots, good exposed shots and over exposed shots. The only one of those three that are bad is under exposed because at ISO 3200 when you edit them they'll become extremely noisy when trying to bring light back to them. Over exposed you can darken, make black and white or something artsy.

Don't expect anything better than 1 good shot to 4 bad shots, so take a lot of pictures. Also, get as close as you can to what you're shooting as possible, this is huge.

Anyways, there's my results and I thank you all again for your suggestions. I just want to add as tough as this stuff is to shoot the rewards are great, you have the best seat in the house and the nonsense going on backstage is priceless! :-)

The show was just canceled......$%#^

Anyways, thanks for the info everyone as I have more indoor concerts to shoot this winter.

I use the D7000 in theaters a lot. I do the same as Mike and shoot in aperture mode, normally wide open. ISO set as high as I can stand (normally 3200 or lower). I also use f/2.8 lenses exclusively.

The one thing I have found helps is to set the exposure compensation to -1.3. The reason for the minus is the backdrops I shoot against are almost always black with some lighting on them. The camera is always trying to get them up to neutral gray and that over exposes the picture by 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 stops.

Then I have a Lightroom pre-set that I use 70% of the time that has a noise reduction and sharpening combination that I have found gives the best results for what I want.

Hi,

@Yoan, using shutter is a good idea to control blur and I'd agree with you, but I'm also watching my viewfinder and monitoring shutter speed and should have mentioned that to Bland. I use faster lens and use Aperture mode to ensue DOF control along with adequate blur control. Truth is you can it either way as long as you monitor DOF control by watching how the aperture is done by S mode or how the shutter is done by A mode - different strokes.

@Aperazzo, good points, a lot of shows go wild with pyrotechnics and the like, and how you choose to shoot them and how your viewer or client will want to view them is a mixed bag. I would likely stop down with longer exposure, where the A mode would be my friend.

To all, one of my basic assumptions that might have gotten lost in my lack of clarity is that I expected a lot of light in a show. It is most possible and probable that I've been lucky to shoot in venues that have afforded me a lot of light. In my reporter days, that was quite true as the rock & roll legends always carried enough power to knock out the sun, and the theatrical group uses hundreds of lighting instruments for each show.

@Bland, here's wishing you great success!

My best,

Mike

Thanks for the added info everyone. That gives me some new ideas to try out. I've had bad luck with auto-iso before but I'm going to do some practice shots at F4 1/500 and see what it does.

Why I say 1/500 is that's the speed I have to get outdoors shooting in daylight to freeze rock musicians playing. It'll be interesting to see if the iso can stay under 3200 in shooting at that speed.

@ Yoan:
I try to keep (as much as possible) the "feel" of a serie of pictures consistent. Darker areas I choose to be shown darker, lighter as lighter depending on the lightning that's there (flood lights, spots, "laser effects" etc.) If I put it to auto-ISO I loose that control. Sometimes I choose to have rather subtile lightning effects to have the upperhand to capture the athmosphere...

Aperazzo said:
Both cameras on M and Raw. Manual ISO, auto white balance. Usually I start out with both cameras on ISO1000 and 1/100th of a second. After doing some test shots I play around with the settings on both cameras, trying to keep them the same. I used to never go over ISO1600 but on my D7000 I now feel very comfortable at ISO2000 or even 3200. Most of the time I end up at 1/60th of a second and ISO1250/1600.

If I were you I'd use shutter priority mode, set it to about 1/200 (otherwise blur might occur) and use Auto ISO (you can set it in the range 100-3200). Nowadays cameras are smart and I think it's better to let them choose the settings while you concentrate on the shooting ;)

Hi,

Bit more info from my side.
I too have both a D90 an a D7000. When I go to an inside concert I take both with me. Typically I'll put a Sigma 30mm F1.4 on my D90 and either an old beast 35-70 F2.8 Nikkor or a Tamron 60mm F2.0 on my D7000. When I do a Salsa party (many folks dancing and moving fast, doing turns all the time I normally only have my D7000 with me and end up using my 30mm F1.4. (And crop afterwards...)
Both cameras on M and Raw. Manual ISO, auto white balance. Usually I start out with both cameras on ISO1000 and 1/100th of a second. After doing some test shots I play around with the settings on both cameras, trying to keep them the same. I used to never go over ISO1600 but on my D7000 I now feel very comfortable at ISO2000 or even 3200. Most of the time I end up at 1/60th of a second and ISO1250/1600.

Just also upped a serie I made at a salsa party. Just to give you an idea of what settings will give a which results.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aperazzo/

I'll second the AUTO-ISO with Manual exposure mode: set the shutter speed to your focal length or movement present (if you have VR), your aperture as wide as you can go (and accept), and let the D7K ride the ISO within your stated bounds. Adjust as needed, repeat until satisfied, and watch out for the metering mode, matrix, center or spot, depending on the light. Matrix may be unable to keep up with full stage lighting differences and wash out faces, but will do a good job on tighter shots.

Thanks everyone, this info is huge and very much appreciated. I'll have 3 opening bands to test all of this out on before the main band starts.

The shoot is in a small bar that seats about 100 people, not sure what that's all about but it may be they're shooting a video. That might also explain why the concert is on a Sunday night.

I'll be using my 24-120 F4 Nikon with my D7000. I'll post my results and hopefully have some good pictures to show. They also wanted a lot of crowd shots so that will be a good exercise as well for my D7000, in multiple lighting situations.

Thanks again, got my fingers crossed! :) The main band is Rev Theory.

Hi,

Have a look at this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aperazzo/6522729593/in/photostream/lightbox/

ISO 4000, 1/60th F4.5

These are also made using high ISO settings:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aperazzo/6522807259/in/set-72157628448625675/

Good luck,

Jaap.

Hi Bland,

I shoot a lot of theatrical settings which are somewhat similar, but I have the luxury of doing them during rehearsals which allows me the opportunity to move around and shoot from different vantage points.

In the past, I also shot rock and roll bands with film, but that was for press coverage. I recall shooting concerts in the 70s with pushed Tri-x and Extachrome at 800 or so and getting satisfactory results, too.

Color temperature (white balance) should be for tungsten (indoors). The lighting instruments are all gelled for something (or should be), so you'll get various color effects that the lighting designed wants you to get with the WB for 'indoors'.

Usually, I use a tripod, but then I shake a lot. I'd recommend a monopod at least, even for very short exposures. While some would use manual, I usually set the camera for aperture priority and ride the exposure compensation. The stage is often a mixed bag of odd lighting, frequently dark - especially band concerts, meaning several stops of + compensation since the 'darkness' fools the meter. Radical changes in the lighting will occur as you shoot, too, which I'm sure doesn't come as any surprise.

Again, this is where a tripod or good support can really be a friend. A small split second exposure of 1/10 second on a tripod can be razor sharp, but blurry hand held... ;-)

Make sure you use a single point in the auto focus and keep the DOF deep enough to focus for the depth of the band members/singers/characters on the stage.

ISO likely doesn't have to be too high - that is completely dependent upon how much light the band brings, and upon the lenses used. For the theater I work in, most of my work is done with f-stops no smaller than f4 and ISO 1600.

One think that you *could* do is set your camera to do automatic ISO with a limit of something like 1600, and use a minimum shutter speed of 1/125 or so. That would ensure some limits in your range. It could also mean that all your pictures would be at ISO 1600 and 1/125.

My best and good luck!

Mike

Hey Bland,

By no means am I an expert at this, but given the nature of where I live (live music capital of the world, so they say) as well as what my friends and I like to do, I have been shooting a lot of indoor concerts lately. What I have found is that the most important factor is one we cannot control: the quality and amount of the band's/venue's lighting. Obviously, if there is a lot of light that hits the band well, high ISO is not even needed. For the other 99% of the time, I find the quality and color of the light plays a huge role in how much ISO I can tolerate. Blues, greens, purples all seem to be okay at high ISO, even up to 6400 (although I don't know if it would be good enough for publishing at 6400). However, I shot a concert once on a small stage that was almost all reds and oranges and even at ISO 1600, I was very unhappy with the way it made the performers look. Where the light hit there face, I just got this reddish distortion. Even after heavy PP, I didn't care for the results. Anyway, my .02 on that.

As for tips, I second a lot of what Jerl said. I personally like tight shots of the performer's faces and instruments. I generally don't like full stage shots (unless there is something interesting to it), what with mic stands and such, so being close and at an angle to the performer is helpful. I have had good results with my 70-300mm VR for this (given there is enough light), especially for those times when I can't get too close to the stage. And being able to go to the dress/tech rehearsal is a major help. I haven't been able to do it often, but when I do, I have a lot more usable shots from the main event.

Well, as far as how high ISO goes, that really depends on the end use of the image and what image quality you will expect. If you want to make giant poster size prints, you'll have different requirements that for making pictures for album covers and those might be different from pictures you will just post online. And even that depends on who is viewing them.

In general, I find that I can go up to 3200-6400 on my D90 (depending on what I want), and with the D7000, I can probably push that a little bit more, maybe 0.5-1 stop, but again that depends on a lot of things, so you will have to do your own testing to see how much is enough.

As far as advice goes, I can give you two sets of advice. Technically speaking, you will want to make sure your AF is up to the challenge. This is not just a matter of buying a good body and lens but more that you know how to set the camera up so that it does what you want when you want it to. This is just practice and experimentation. I'd also suggest the use of faster aperture lenses rather than slower ones, I prefer shorter, faster primes myself, but this is more a personal preference. Your shutter speed may have to be higher than you might think it would need to be- sometimes 1/500 or faster is necessary, but you can help this a lot by good timing and shooting at moments when people are paused for a split second.

As far as my other (less technical) advice goes, I would say that there are more important issues other than equipment which determine how good your pictures are. Of course there are compositional and creative concerns which I assume you can handle on your own. I should also mention that you should pay attention to how the lighting is set up and how the singers are interacting with it. As far as where you stand goes, I generally find that closer vantage points tend to give better results than ones further away, as the pictures feel more "involved", but this is also a matter of preference. This particularly works well if you can get permission to shoot a rehearsal (preferably a dress rehearsal) on stage, but of course, this is only applicable very rarely.

Any of you tried out the D7000 ISO yet shooting low light concerts (no flash)? I'm interested in hearing when the quality of picture starts to fade.

Also in tips or tricks in shooting low light concerts would be appreciated. Thanks!