Concert Photography – UMX 2009 after action report

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry – Robert Burns

The Ultimate Music eXperience 2009 held at Benders Tavern in Denver has come and gone. I spent 12 hours over 2 days photographing 60 or so bands; a total of – wait for it – 6365 frames in all.

Now, if only all of those frames had turned out.

Today we’ll take a look at what worked, what didn’t (again), and what I could do differently next time.

When I recapped UMX at Benders in 2008 I started with what didn’t work.  This time let us start off on a positive note.

What Worked:

Think Tank Modular System – Oh baby. It was so nice not to worry about a bag, backpack or case this time around. On Saturday I had it loaded down with the Skin 50 and Skin Strobe on one hip and then a LC 75 Pop Down and a Lens Changer 35 on the other. This made it a little difficult to get around once the crowds got larger. The LC 75 Pop Down was empty all day and I never used the 100mm f/2.8 macro I had in the Lens Changer 35.

On Sunday I streamlined and kept just the Skin components. The Skin 50 held my notebook, lens caps and cleaning gear and my Sanho Colorspace “O” drive for backup. This smaller set-up worked really well and I was able to stay agile.

Black Rapid Straps – I’ve got nothing but good things to say about my RS-4 strap. I had my 5DmkII with a 70-200mm f/2.8 on one shoulder while an older Black Rapid strap held my 20D and 50 f/1.4 on the other. Safe and secure the whole time and it was easy to switch between the two cameras when I needed to.

Using these straps freed my hands up to fiddle with gels and flash modifiers, change out memory cards and shake hands and hand out business cards. Much more professional than balancing a camera in the crook of my arm. The zippered compartment on the RS-4 strap held backup cards and a lens cloth. I was totally rockin’ the Pancho Villa look with my crossing straps looking like bandoliers.

70-200mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.4 – This was a very good combination set on my two bodies. On the 20D the 50mm acts as an 80mm and was great for close-in images where I needed a little more speed than the 70-200mm could bring.

The 70-200mm was used for 85% of the images. After two days my right arm had gotten a good workout, but I think it was worth it. I may have lost a few images in trying to hand hold this lens at very slow shutter speeds but there is always a trade off isn’t there. I did use my 17-40mm f/4.0 for larger bands but uneven stage lighting kept this wider angle lens on the sidelines for most of the event.

1/2 CTO on the flash – All that time surfing the Strobist site and reading Joe McNally’s new book “The Hot Shoe Diaries”paid off. I didn’t gel my flash on Saturday and hated the look when forced to use it. Putting on a 1/2 strength CTO gel under the Sto-Fen omni-bounce worked great.

 

What Didn’t Work:

HyperDrive Colorspace “O”- My memory card backup device. I was shooting with two 8GB UDMA cards in my 5DmkII. At 21mp each that amounts to roughly 268 images. Lack of space shut me down early in 2008 and I was determined not to have that happen again. Unfortunately my HyperDrive started having problems when it was put to constant use.

It worked reasonably well with 2 or 3 cards but as soon as the temperature started to rise it would lose battery power, ask me if I wanted to format the hard drive (AHHHHH NO) or just wouldn’t find the hard drive at all. I missed some good opportunities fiddling with it and that won’t be happening again. It is time to move on.

Well, I should have known, period. I lost a number of images Saturday at UMX due to shutter speeds in the 1/10 to 1/30 range between 70-200mm. With an active subject your timing would need to be perfect on top of rock solid hand holding to get sharp images. Uh, strike one. Sunday I switched to Tv (Time Value – Shutter Speed priority) and did much, much better.

The Onion Stage- Ok, I understand you need to learn to work your environment and that a photographer can’t always choose the venue but please. One hard spotlight, a glowing green EXIT sign and a neon “Miller Lite” ad – ugh. Benders and UMX, please, we need to change this somehow.

Next Time:

Tv – 80%: Av – 20% – With a longer lens and acrobatic musicians you need speed. I found that shooting at anything below 1/60 or so was a gamble. Sure, you time your shots as best you can and some musicians will work with you, but be proactive as well. With all the moving around I was doing it was easy to let my technique slide which led to more lens blur caused by handholding.

Sunday at UMX I was much more proactive. I had my Tv and Av settings dialed in so that when the action slowed, or it was an acoustic set, I could go aperture priority. All other times I let my shutter speed dictate my aperture and dialed in exposure compensations or used a reduced flash to deal with the changing light.

Sell Myself – I went into UMX 2009 at Benders Tavern with a game plan for marketing which I’ll reveal next week. Regardless – I should have been a little stronger at marketing myself to the acts and their managers while there. I did a lot of hand shaking and handed out a few cards but left it at that while at Benders.

In the future I need to be more confident in my abilities and show that to prospective clients. It isn’t a business unless you sell something and although I was there volunteering for the Denver Darkroom working to acquire future contracts should have been more of a priority; other photographers were doing it and so should have I.

In the End

In the end I still had a blast although I’m still having trouble walking up and down stairs my thighs are so sore. I connected and reconnected with photographers from around Denver and we had good fun. The music was good and I got to spend two days doing something I love.

I’m pairing down the images for submission to the Capitol Hill United Neighborhood group who sponsor the UMX event and will have selects off to them this Friday. I’ve got my eye on about 6 more images for my portfolio which will expand this weekend as well.

Lastly a big shout out to the crew at Benders Tavern. They treated us well even after long hours and put on a great show every year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 5:49 pm and is filed under After Action, Concert Photography and tagged with benders tavern, Concert Photography, learning, review, UMX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.