[geoffw]

Hi all. Can anyone suggest the best settings for taking pics of live bands performing in dim light? I've pushed my iso up to 3200 &6400 but the images are quite noisey on my K3ii. Any help appreciated. Thanks

[Unregistered User 8]

Just to help us a little with your question, what lenses are you using Geoff, and how far away from the action are you?

[geoffw]

Just to help us a little with your question, what lenses are you using Geoff, and how far away from the action are you?

I used a 60-250 @ f4.5. Distance about 10-12 metres.

[clackers]

I think your lens is too slow, to be honest, Geoff.

One thing for live shows is metering ... expose for the faces, not the scene.

[BigMackCam]

Hi Geoff

There are no magic wands, I'm afraid. For a given amount of light, all you can do is balance the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The K-3II, compared to many cameras in its class, has pretty decent high ISO performance in terms of noise, although newer cameras such as the K-70 and, especially, the KP, have the edge.

You have a few options.

1) Assuming you want to continue using the DA*60-250, shoot at f/4 (it's plenty sharp enough wide open) and experiment with bringing the shutter speed down - somewhere around 1/200s might be a good starting point, and certainly possible with the camera's built-in SR. Depending on the movement of the band members and the focal length used, you might be able to drop lower still - 1/160s or even 1/125s. That may allow you to utilise lower ISO settings than you're currently using.

2) If you're not already shooting in RAW format, start now. Post-processing software will do a much better job of noise reduction and detail retention than the in-camera JPEG engine. I use Lightroom 6 mostly, but some of the free software such as RawTherapee and the Google Nik Dfine 2 plug-in also do a grand job with noise reduction. Of course, any software has a learning curve attached to it in order to get the best results.

3) Consider converting your shots to black and white. Image noise can look quite artistic in monochrome shots - it's much more forgiving.

4) Use a faster lens or lenses. I know people who shoot something like a 70-200 f/2.8 or DA*200 f/2.8 wide open for concert photography. Some use even faster primes. Coupled with careful control of the shutter speed, the additional light will allow lower ISO settings.

You may get additional ideas from other members here, but I suspect they'll be along the same lines as mine. As I said, there are no magic wands!

[RAART]

In my opinion your lens is adequate and you have to use it wide open.
Your start can be around this: ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/200
Switch to center weighted mode for exposure and also for AF (if you use AF, I use manual focus) and meter the subject and than recompose.
I tend to use an monopod to further stabilize the camera especially if I shoot at 200mm and if I can I use the tripod.
As BigMackCam said try in post processing converting to black and white.

Here is an example with 210mm F4 lens wide open at ISO800 and 1/250s


210mm F4 wide open at ISO800 and 1/160s


50mm F1.8 @ F2.5 ISO1600 and 1/50s


Hope this will help...

[aaacb]

I prefer small primes (limited 21,40,70, macro 100) because I can move around the crowd more easily. My brightest lenses are "only" f2.4-2.8 so my settings are: raw to both cards, manual, max aperture, iso 1600 ( or lower e.g. 800 is the venue is well lit ), shutter speed somewhere around 1/150 but I experiment depending on how much people move

In brief, I try to get my manual settings to not overexpose and have as much light in as possible. Or if the light fluctuates a lot, I shoot Tv and bias exposure -1 or so until ISO becomes reasonable during the dimmer parts. I don't see any noise penalty for shooting at iso 800 or 1600 and adjusting from raw, if I set the shutter/aperture to allow more light.

Try to frame as tightly as possible to avoid cropping, this alone makes images much cleaner when resizing to a given print/viewing size, but in general don't expect clean 24mp images when viewing at 100%

Particularly for bad light, if the music is not too quiet, I shoot in burst mode with af-c because this way I can get away with slightly slower shutter speeds (a few shots out of the many I take will be sharp). My suggestion is don't do this until you got something with faster shutter speeds.

Finally, f1.4 may not always the answer, I'm imagining that for this shot f1.4 would have blurred the background singer way too much

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Last edited by aaacb; 03-27-2017 at 06:25 AM.

[geoffw]

I think your lens is too slow, to be honest, Geoff.

One thing for live shows is metering ... expose for the faces, not the scene.

Thanks. I'll persevere with the f4 where I can. There was a few where I tried spot metering on faces and ae-l. Lighting was pretty grim. I'll post a result or two in a bit.

[TheOneAndOnlyJH]

Finally, f1.4 may not always the answer, I'm imagining that for this shot f1.4 would have blurred the background singer way too much

Yeah, but who cares? He's in the background!

Only kidding here, the magical mystical out of focus bokeh recipe only has one non-quantifiable measurement: "To taste".
(Just like adding salt to your boiled spaghetti noodles. Depends how salty you like 'em!)

[geoffw]

Hi Geoff

There are no magic wands, I'm afraid. For a given amount of light, all you can do is balance the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The K-3II, compared to many cameras in its class, has pretty decent high ISO performance in terms of noise, although newer cameras such as the K-70 and, especially, the KP, have the edge.

You have a few options.

1) Assuming you want to continue using the DA*60-250, shoot at f/4 (it's plenty sharp enough wide open) and experiment with bringing the shutter speed down - somewhere around 1/200s might be a good starting point, and certainly possible with the camera's built-in SR. Depending on the movement of the band members and the focal length used, you might be able to drop lower still - 1/160s or even 1/125s. That may allow you to utilise lower ISO settings than you're currently using.

2) If you're not already shooting in RAW format, start now. Post-processing software will do a much better job of noise reduction and detail retention than the in-camera JPEG engine. I use Lightroom 6 mostly, but some of the free software such as RawTherapee and the Google Nik Dfine 2 plug-in also do a grand job with noise reduction. Of course, any software has a learning curve attached to it in order to get the best results.

3) Consider converting your shots to black and white. Image noise can look quite artistic in monochrome shots - it's much more forgiving.

4) Use a faster lens or lenses. I know people who shoot something like a 70-200 f/2.8 or DA*200 f/2.8 wide open for concert photography. Some use even faster primes. Coupled with careful control of the shutter speed, the additional light will allow lower ISO settings.

You may get additional ideas from other members here, but I suspect they'll be along the same lines as mine. As I said, there are no magic wands!

Thanks Mike. Good points taken on board. Software n stuff I'm not to clever at. Will try an f2.8 100mm. Pocket not deep enough for a 70-200 f2.8 at the mo. Still recovering from the K3ii I bought just before xmas.

[TheOneAndOnlyJH]

To add to what others have said, try lowering your shutter speed to see what's acceptable for your situation. It also depends on what part of the band you're looking at...

You can get away with a slower shutter speed for a guitarist if you catch him right after he's strummed a chord than when he's in the middle of a lightning fast solo. If you can't tell when they'll stop moving for a second, continuous shutter is your friend and you can delete the motion blur shots later. Different singers also move at different speeds, so that's all dependent on personality. You'll probably need a faster shutter for a drummer though; they can never seem to sit still for some reason.

[geoffw]

In my opinion your lens is adequate and you have to use it wide open.
Your start can be around this: ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/200
Switch to center weighted mode for exposure and also for AF (if you use AF, I use manual focus) and meter the subject and than recompose.
I tend to use an monopod to further stabilize the camera especially if I shoot at 200mm and if I can I use the tripod.
As BigMackCam said try in post processing converting to black and white.

Here is an example with 210mm F4 lens wide open at ISO800 and 1/250s


210mm F4 wide open at ISO800 and 1/160s


50mm F1.8 @ F2.5 ISO1600 and 1/50s


Hope this will help...

Great pics RAART. I'd be more than happy with pics like that. Thing is, the lighting in the bar where the band was, was just some low energy bulbs in the ceiling lights. There were some picture lights and sun soaked vertical blinds behind the band which made things a bit tricky, well, for me anyway.

[geoffw]

I've uploaded a couple of shots. They were raw files tarted up a bit. Just not that happy with them. The drummer was about the best of the bunch as he was lit the best.
Hold on a minute. The group pic was underexposed. Ignore that one, my bad.

[geoffw]

Heres another example. Having seen some other pics on this thread, I'm pretty sure it's me messing things up. I'll keep trying and thanks all for your replies. Its a great help. If ever I get some results I like, I'll post them.

[BigMackCam]

I've uploaded a couple of shots. They were raw files tarted up a bit. Just not that happy with them. The drummer was about the best of the bunch as he was lit the best.
Hold on a minute. The group pic was underexposed. Ignore that one, my bad.

Geoff, would I be correct in guessing that the first photo has been cropped a fair bit? It looks noisier than the others at ISO 3200, and the noise looks quite "big" to me. Something I'd recommend is trying to get your framing about right at the time of the shot. When you're at low ISO, you can shoot the frame quite loose and take liberties with cropping, but at high ISO, the more you crop, the more you'll see the noise.