Concert Photography – UMX 2008, what worked and what didn’t

“No plan survives contact with the enemy” – Helmuth von Moltke

So, what worked at the Ultimate Music eXperience in 2008? What didn’t work? What am I going to do differently this year?

Well, let’s start with what didn’t work – at least not at Bender’s bar.

28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM – The canon 20D kit lens wasn’t much to begin with. It’s a fair lens if you’re not pushing it to extremes, and its affordable but most of the benefits end there. For this venue it was just too slow in the middle and upper zoom range. The range was fine but in the low light of a bar speed is everything. An IS (Image Stabilizer) lens doesn’t help you freeze action it just lets you drink too much coffee and get away with hand holding.

2GB Sandisk Cards – Not the cards specifically, but the size. Shooting RAW @ 5 fps for 3 1/2 hours, even with an 8.2 mp camera, adds up to a lot of images. I had two at the time and it just wasn’t enough memory. In the end I spent time deleting images from the cards in the bar when I should have been shooting more bands.

Not charging your Portable Card Reader – I won’t mention the brand here because it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with me not preparing the night before. Needless to say I could have used the extra 40 GB of space this PCR would have provided. Instead I spent time fiddling with it until I realized the problem – not good, not good at all.

So, one out of three lenses and my ability to store images were kaput – uh, not the best start by any means. How about things that worked well.

100mm f/2.8 macro – By far my most used lens at the event. Close to 70% of my images came from this lens and it accounted for 90% of my selects. The narrow depth of field associated with most macros was problematic if I was in close to a subject. For the most part I was far enough away that everything came out in the wash.

50mm f/1.4 – Accounted for, go figure, 30% of my images. Super fast it let me capture some of the more acrobatic bands that I would have missed with the 100mm. Even with the 1.6x factor of the Canon 20D, making this lens into a 80mm, it was a bit wide for most subjects unless I was pressing up against the stage.

Canon 20D – For a camera four years old at the time of UMX 2008 the 20D performed really well. Sure it has an APC-S sensor vs. Full Frame, but that isn’t always a disadvantage. At 5 frames per second I was able to capture action reasonably well and shooting in burst made up for some hand held shakiness.

580ex Flash – Looking back over my images I was surprised to see that I used my flash for only 10% of my pictures. Some of those were selects, but not many. Getting my flash off of the hotshoe would help, but in the end the light temperatures just weren’t playing well together.

Trying to learn from past mistakes I’ve made some changes to my kit for UMX 2009.

5DmkII – Full frame, more megapixels, bigger LCD and brighter viewfinder all make this camera a better concert goer than the 20D. Combined with less noise at higher ISO and the camera itself shouldn’t cause me to miss opportunities. I will miss the full 5fps burst of the 20D – having to settle for close to 3.9fps.

70-200mm f/2.8 IS – A nice, fast piece of Canon L glass. I saved up for this lens for a long time and it was worth it. Since most of my images in 2008 were in the 80 – 160mm range I might not need to change lenses this year. Reducing the amount of lens changes I do means more time shooting. It is heavy however, so racked out I might see some blur due to the shakes; even at ISO 800 I’ll be shooting between 1/60 to 1/80 most of the time but hopefully the IS will help.

BlackRapid Straps – I started using BlackRapid camera straps about a year ago and I love them. They allow a great amount of freedom when shooting and since I’ll be having my 5DmkII as well as my 20D along this year I want to stay agile.

ThinkTank Belt System – I bought a ThinkTank belt system last year and it really works for this type of situation. I might not need to switch lenses as much in 2009 but it will carry extra cards, my portable card reader and all the associated crap you always seem to need when working an event.

With this upgraded gear and a solid to do list figuring prominently on my office white board I think I’m situated for a fun and productive weekend. Due to budget cuts I was scheduled for a furlough day from my primary job sometime in March so I’ve taken Sunday off.

I might as well put it to good use. Wish me luck!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 28th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Concert Photography, Preparation and tagged with Concert Photography, gear, kit, preparations, UMX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.