If you are new to photography, learning a little about how different lenses effect exposure will serve you well - especially if you're about to fork out a large chunk of your hard earned cash on some swanky camera gear.
There are several different aspects of lens specification to consider and each will have a bearing on the conditions you can obtain good results in and the condition of your bank balance after purchase!
To start, I'll explain what to consider when looking for lenses for music photography (or any other demanding low-light situation)
Maximum apertureThe maximum aperture of a lens is denoted as a ratio to the focal length of the lens (e.g. 1:2.8 or f/2.8 - where 1 or f is the focal length, and 2.8 is the diameter of the aperture). Basically, the lower the second number, the brighter the lens. Brighter lenses allow shooting at higher shutter speeds in low light, and is one of the most important things to consider when choosing a lens for concert photography.
Unfortunately, the scale of brightness is not linear (so f/4 is not half as bright as f/2). Below I've provided a scale of f/numbers with each value to the left being twice as bright as the value immediately to the right.
f/1.4 -
f/2 -
f/2.8 -
f/4 -
f/5.6 -
f/8 -
f/11 -
f/16 -
f/22 -
f/32
An article, which will help you to understand the science of apertures
can be found here.
For concert photography, I would recommend lenses with an aperture of f/2.8 or brighter.
Zoom or prime?Zoom lenses form the bread and butter of most photographer's camera gear. They allow the focal length of the lens to be varied continuously within a certain range. This is extremely useful for when space is tight, and for snap judgements on the composition of your images.
The Achilles heel of zoom lenses, is their relatively low light gathering ability when compared to many prime lenses. For any concert shooting I would strongly recommend lenses with an aperture of at least f/2.8, which is generally the brightest (and most expensive) available as a zoom.
For this reason alone I tend to shoot most of my work with fixed prime lenses as their light gathering ability affords me more flexibility with exposure, plus the ability to get acceptable images in even the darkest venues.
Typically, prime lenses between 35mm and 85mm have a maximum aperture of at least f/2, which is twice as bright as f/2.8, and in most cases they will produce sharper images than zooms at these bright apertures.
The downside with primes is that a full set can be expensive to build up from scratch, even if you buy all your lenses secondhand, also using nothing but fixed lenses will lead to hundreds more lens changes than with zooms. This will take its toll on the lens mount on your camera (mine had started to become brassy within one month of buying my D200).
Shooting with primes also takes much practice. If you can't
pre-
empt what to shoot next, and change lenses quick enough, you will miss shots left, right, and centre. The practice is worth it, and although I have a full set of zoom lenses, I still use the fixed lenses for the bulk of my work. My zooms only tend to see the light of day at larger stadium venues and music festivals, where flexibility is paramount.
Other gimmicks gizmosMany lenses are now available that promise to rid your photos of camera shake, which can occur at longer shutter speeds. This is often referred to as
VR (Vibration Reduction) or IS (Image Stabilizer). Unfortunately this will not help one bit, unless your lens is bright enough in the first place, as your subject will be blurred if they move anywhere (as musicians often do). Most of these lenses sport dim maximum apertures of f/5.6 or slower and are no use for all but the brightest gig lighting. On the other hand, certain exotic lenses (such as the
Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 IF-ED VR or
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM) include this feature
and a bright aperture. This can be
really useful... if you can afford it!
Anyway to summarise: brighter is better, zooms are more convenient and generally cheaper and primes will produce sharper images in lower light, but you will have to persevere to get the best out of them.
I personally own a lot more lenses than I could get by with and most people will be able to take great music pictures with the zoom lenses alone. Whatever suits
me best may not be the best solution for
you. At the end of the day, everyone is different!
I discovered a great way to sort out corrupted memory cards in Windows XP, completely by accident, this weekend after photographing Jamie T at the Leadmill.
Indeed, there is more to the stuff I use than just the camera and lenses. When I'm out and about, I need to carry my camera in something, plus there's other items such as monitor calibrators and flash equipment to complete my kit.
or Crumpler Company Embarrassment. The Crumpler bag is slightly smaller than the Lowepro, making it perfect for carrying my general kit around. The Lowepro comes into it's own when I have to carry my Nikon 300mm f/4
and Tokina 80-200mm f/2.8, as these both fit vertically inside the bag.
The flashgun I use is a Nikon SB-800 Speedlite. This is plenty powerful enough for most applications and provides scarily accurate results when used with my D200's
Matrix-metering. I've modified the supplied Stofen-like diffuser by cutting a notch in the mount, so that the flash doesn't automatically set itself for 14mm wide coverage, as this robs me of too much flash power. You can clearly see the notch in the picture on the left.
For power, and improved handling of my D200, I use an MB-D200 battery grip. This adds more weight to the camera body, which helps with handholding at slow shutter speeds and also provides enough power for a couple of days shooting. I wouldn't be without it.
Finally, there's no point taking all these photos if I can't edit them properly afterwards. Colour is very important to me, so I use a Monaco Optix XR monitor calibrator to ensure my screen displays accurate colours. Of the calibration devices I've tried, this one provides the most consistent results.
99% of photographers will use zoom lenses for most of their work as they provide flexibility for composition at the expense of their light gathering ability.
The bulk of my work is taken using prime lenses with bright maximum apertures. The kind of venues that suit these lenses include small dark venues, through to medium-sized ones.
I've been considering slinging this lens on ebay for a while now as I barely use it, except to photograph things for ebay.
I picked up this lens for a silly bargain price because of a reasonably deep mark on the front element, which doesn't appear to effect image quality at all.
Some would argue that the camera body is the most important part of any camera kit, after all it's the bit that makes the image, isn't it?
For some strange reason I get quite a few emails asking me what equipment I use to take my images , or that I would recommend for someone else to use.
