[UnknownVT]

However, I've always felt that for concert photos, flash is rarely necessary, because the stage lighting (IMO) is usually adequate and produces a better mood, that flash wouldn't help anything. But that's just me, and don't take that the wrong way, your pics are great, just for the subject matter, I prefer not to fill flash. I just prefer to let the stage lighting do its thing.

I would agree - if you look at my (long) thread Kx in Use ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
you can see I hardly ever use flash with the K-x - as its HighISO performance is so good,
that is also why I can report I average over 1,100 shots per charge on eneloops.

However that night the lighting was predominantly red - which destroyed all details.
I tried all the likely white balance settings - to no avail - the only way to mitigate this was to throw some white light on to the subject - hence the use of flash.

The bigger sized pic was a rare moment of sanity when the lights changed - but if you care to take another look - the shadows are very, very strong forward of the subjects - which meant the faces are in the shadow/silhouette - so again fill was necessary to bring out the faces - but that was at -1.3 stops compensation.

One would be surprised how useful the little built-in pop-up flash can be -
I do music shooting almost every night of the week - one only has to hop over to my web page to see how much I do shoot. In small clubs I use almost exclusively a compact - and its on board flash often, albeit at a very weak -1.7 stop flash compensation - I have been doing this since year 2000 - hopefully I have learned a few things in all that time......

Some examples of the use of on-board built-in flash
(slightly OT from compact and p&s cameras)
from 2002 -

EXIF attached
- this was used on a CD cover
Mr. Frank Edwards: Chicken Raid
(yes, that's from a 2Mp Canon Digital ELPH S100 p&s auto-everything camera!)

here's another:

EXIF re-attached (caveat PhotoBucket sometimes drops metadata)
most probably can guess now because of this discussion, it's a flash shot -
but I don't think it looks like a typical/obvious flash shot.

EXIF: Canon G10 compact - ISO250, f/2.8, 1/8sec and flash fired, auto mode -
but with -1 2/3 stops flash compensation/bias.

While I'm at it -
there is another very good use for flash -
to be able to use slow-sync flash "dragging" the shutter to allow for movement:

Canon PowerShot S80 p&s, on board flash
ISO100, f/3.5, 1sec; 8.56mm (41mm equiv)


Canon PowerShot S80 - on-board flash
ISO100 f/2.8, 1/5, 5.8mm (28mm equiv)
this photo is currently used for the profile pic for his memorial fund on FaceBook.

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Last edited by UnknownVT; 06-03-2011 at 07:38 AM.

[Ryan Trevisol]

Yeah I looked through your pics and I much preferred the ones without flash. As I said your examples were good for showing what fill flash can do, but the OP (from what i gather) wants this for "everyday" use meaning probably indoor snapshots, and for that, he should bounce.

[UnknownVT]

Yeah I looked through your pics and I much preferred the ones without flash. As I said your examples were good for showing what fill flash can do, but the OP (from what i gather) wants this for "everyday" use meaning probably indoor snapshots, and for that, he should bounce.

Well, flash is merely a tool which can be applied, or not -
there is no fixed rule that says flash is always good or bad -
like any other tool it can be applied to degrees of success -
eg: the 4 shots in Post #16 above, I don't think would be possible without flash.

Those all were with on-board flash and I don't think they look like the typical deer-in-the-headlights shots that one often associates with flash pictures -
well, at least I hope they don't....

I'm impressed and flattered that you manage to wade through all of my photos - they number in the 10's of thousands (and that's just from Oct/2007 to date), must have taken hours.

Please give us a link to your photos -
would love to check out your other concert shots.

[Ryan Trevisol]

Oh, no I don't have any really good concert shots. I really only have a few good ones from that one show (the Lifehouse show linked above) and a couple I took from some John Mayer shows with superzooms. Nothing I'm really proud of.

Here's that Lifehouse show. It was at this great anything-goes venue where I could get my K100D in with a couple of lenses no less. I was just learning at the time but I like a lot of the results I got that day. The trouble with that venue is it's a mosh pit and there's no way to move for a different perspective. You have to settle in and get all your shots from one angle. Besides that, it's not a nice place to enjoy music with my wife, and I think all my friends would be far too intimidated by the atmosphere.

The only other small venue around here is the Revolution, and they don't allow DSLR's unless you're a cute, bubbly female under 20, which I'm not. I swear I'm gonna start bringing my ME to those shows and shooting film.

Most of the time I'm relegated to bringing my wife's terrible point&shoot or borrowing my dad's superzoom. Which I did for these pics.

Yours are really quite good and I'm envious of all the great live music you've gotten to experience! So are you a house photog at a local venue? That would be like my dream side job.

And don't get me wrong, I agree with your assessment of when to use Flash or not, and I use my flash quite a bit for outdoor fill. Those second set of shots you posted are much better examples of flash in action, I think.

BTW I love this photo, as a Trucks fan, a guitarist, and a photogapher:

[UnknownVT]

and they don't allow DSLR's unless you're a cute, bubbly female under 20, which I'm not. I swear I'm gonna start bringing my ME to those shows and shooting film.

Yours are really quite good and I'm envious of all the great live music you've gotten to experience! So are you a house photog at a local venue? That would be like my dream side job.

And don't get me wrong, I agree with your assessment of when to use Flash or not, and I use my flash quite a bit for outdoor fill. Those second set of shots you posted are much better examples of flash in action, I think.

BTW I love this photo, as a Trucks fan, a guitarist, and a photogapher:

Thanks Ryan - good eye on your photos.

No, I'm not an anything special -
but because I shoot just so much locally I am known at most venues
(despite trying to have a moniker of "Unknown" )

I think although natural talent helps,
it's sheer experience and doing it (intelligently) that really counts -
that's how I discovered the use of the dreaded on-board flash
despite lots of advice to the contrary.

Dragging the shutter with slow-sync flash was almost a trademark of my photos - but not all shots can be like that, or even they'd get boring/same-y -

anyway another one of my on-board flash shots -

EXIF re-attached - on night scene mode with slow-sync flash and a 1 sec exposure.....
flash freezes the image while the long shutter speed captures the "trailing" image movement/blur.

This is one of my favorite artists - Unknown Hinson -
where I stole my moniker from -
I hasten to add with his approval -
he even has a link and credit on his image web page

Lastly - ha! I'm credited with photos on two of Derek Truck's CDs (credits on AllMusic.com)
they've also posted some of my photos on the Tedeschi Trucks Band FaceBook page (no flash on any of those shots )


check out the EXIF attached

[Ryan Trevisol]

I love that technique and you posted it somewhere else on PF, and I have been dying to try it on something. I didn't realize it was you!

So where in the US are you? I'm in Palm Beach/Broward and we literally have NO good live music here.

[UnknownVT]

I love that technique and you posted it somewhere else on PF, and I have been dying to try it on something. I didn't realize it was you!
So where in the US are you? I'm in Palm Beach/Broward and we literally have NO good live music here.

Almost any town has major acts passing through or close-by -
with this modern day and age of mass communications -
a lot of acts tour all over.

Atlanta, GA - where one might not think there is all that good music -
but I have been known to do up to 25 gigs per week - yes, that's 3-5 gigs/night, 7 nights/week -
so there's plenty going on -
my saying is that I'd be "stoopid" to want to take photos of anyone I didn't like
- which is a kind of reverse/backhanded compliment to anyone I do shoot.

Despite my near obsessive photography -
I do go out mainly for the music -
photography is secondary -
but almost at any venue I get asked "where's your camera?"
when I am shooting with my compact.

In fact, it was a standing joke at 500 Songs for Kids
(500 songs/bands over 10 days -
that's 50 songs/bands per night -
= 7minutes per song....)
which I've now done for all 5 years in a row -
that I shoot with a cell phone
and whenever I am asked -
I just hold my camera to my ear!

500 Songs for Kids - 2011
500 Songs for Kids - 2010
500 Songs for Kids - 2009
500 Songs for Kids - 2008
500 Songs for kids - 2007 (first year) are on another web page

[benhai]

Hi, I am thinking on getting a little flash for my k-x but I have no understanding of how it works.

Since the hot shoe on all DSLRs are the same, does that mean all flash will work on the camera? Will I be able to get a nikon flash and hoping it will work just fine on my k-x?

And what is different between those 40$ flash and those $400 one??
I know the flash power output is different, but what else?

Last but not least, does anyone have any recommendation on a cheap flash that works on regular everyday uses? (I am on tight budget)

Thanks!

If you don't mind 3rd party then mecablitz 50 AF-1 TTL Shoe Mount Flash for Pentax SLR is a very good flash.


I am using an even older model Metz 54MZ4 with S3702 m2 module that works fine in metz's A(auto mode). It can deliver aperture to Metz and Metz measure the light by itself.





I think you might be able to use a Nikon flash in A mode. You need to try. No one can guarantee.





Most people use external flashes due to the ability of bounce(tilt head hor or ver). So better not to take Pentax 360G cause it can only tile up/down.

[Ryan Trevisol]

Almost any town has major acts passing through or close-by -
with this modern day and age of mass communications -
a lot of acts tour all over.

True, but a lot of good stuff only makes it down to Orlando - 3 hours away from me. We have Cruzan Amphitheater, Mizner Amphitheater (because idiots apparently want to be outside in 90º, 85% humidity), Pompano Beach Amphitheater, the Bank Atlantic Center, Bank United Center, Kravis Center, American Airlines Arena, Dolphin Stadium . . . The big names make it there, but close enough tickets to make good pictures are mega expensive (>$150 a ticket), and they sell out in seconds. Plus, with big venues come Live(eviL) Nation security with their anti-dslr'ing fascism.

To cap all that off, all but two of those places are a 45 minute or more drive from where I am.

Maybe if I was in Miami/Dade that would make a difference.

We used to have several great places to see blues, rock, and jazz, but those have all closed. The economy was hit hard by Hurricane Wilma and that kind of cultural stuff never recovered. There was City Limits in DelRay, which closed, re opened, and closed again, the Bamboo Room, which tragically closed in the middle of an urban renewal, and a few other little places.

Most of the places with live music border on strip clubs , and going to see any kind of gritty live music around here is just too "real" for the silicone implanted, botox-injected crowd of south florida.

(I hate living here, can you tell?)

But we've hijacked the poor OP's thread too much. Back to your regularly scheduled programming. Mecablitz is an excellent flash.