More Show Photography

[Boatman]

Friday night I attended the re-scheduled (snow cancellation 2/9) 'Blues Summit' at the Flying Monkey Theater in Plymouth, NH. The show featured Sugar Ray Norcia, Poppa Chubby and Joe Lewis Walker. This was a new venue for me, and although I had called to ask about regulations on photography, I didn't get any useful information – go and find out.

The regulations were pretty lax and I was able to move around the auditorium a little. The lighting was quite dark and at ISO1600 and F2.0 my GH2 was getting top speeds of 1/50. The auditorium was large enough that I mostly used the Nikon 2.0/85 I picked up on ebay a couple of weeks ago. To a lesser degree, I used my trusty Takumar 1.4/50. The images from the Takumar are clearly better than the ones from the Nikon, but in fairness, with the Takumar I stopped down to 2.0 while with the Nikon I was shooting wide open. The Takumar is pretty crappy wide open, too.

All of the photos required some heavy handed corrections in Lightroom. I created a preset that cranked the Clarity up to 63, dropped the Tint to -65, added +30 Luminance Noise Suppresion and set the sharpening to 65/1/24/60. These are stronger settings than I typically use but add some pop to images that were otherwise a bit flat.

The music? Well, they were all good, but Poppa Chubby really impressed me. Not a pretty guy, but a heck of a performer. Catch him if you get a chance.

Sugar Ray Norcia


Poppa Chubby


Poppa Chubby


Joe Lewis Walker


JLW Band Members

[shreds]

For a venue, the lighting looks pretty bright. Obviously performers who are constantly moving are somewhat of a problem unless you actually make a feature of that movement. I like to capture the atmosphere, and often try to reduce the ISO. Ok less useable shots, but ones with more atmophere.

I think I can see a bit of movement in shot #1, whilst #2 would be my fave due to the lighting, but the mic leads unfortunately are distracting. I also wonder what some if the shots would look like using Nik(now Google) plugins?