Taking concert photos - I need help

[Sean Dempsey]

I was photographing a Leon Russell show tonight, but I didn't know how to do it.

Here's what I did. I set up my tripod in the balcony, then got my shutter cable on and set my ISO to 800. Then I did like 1/6 secord exposures, some 1/10... it had to be really slow or else I couldn't get anything. They also asked for no flash photography.

So here's what I ended up with. How does one go about shooting a concert like this where the lighting is so low? The tripod and shutter cable helped, and using such painfully slow shutter speeds was good in conjunction with the high ISO, but they are still way grainy and not that good. Is this as good as it gets for concert shooting, without a flash?

[Hodgy]

Try using a fast lens like 1.8 and higher ISO. All my Music images are ISO 1600 or 3200.

Your images are great for that slow of a shutterspeed.





These images were taken with ISO 3200 & 1600 both at F1.8

[Sean Dempsey]

My lenses only go down to 3.5, so I'll have to just keep making due, eh? Plus, the zoom of Leon was at max zoom of 300mm, so my fstop was really high. Won't be affording any better lenses anytime soon, so I guess I just have to live with it.