Small Stage Photography
While this post was written some time ago, it's still relevant today. Fuji has improved its cameras since I carried them on assignment. They were good then and even better today.
Photographing live music of any kind poses many unique challenges. Lighting variables, movement of the performers, color balance, and access limitations can turn what sounds like a fun job into a nightmare. Monday evening, I had the pleasure of photographing country star Kelsey Waldon at Club Cafe. It was a laid-back performance in an equally laid-back venue. Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't unique obstacles to overcome, primarily lighting or lack of it. The spotlights did not illuminate the entire band. One spot was on Kelsey, and the others were wherever they happened to be, primarily aimed at the floor. Oh, and the main spotlight was very weak, too.
Many would have shuttered at the conditions, but I knew my X-Pro2 could handle the situation without a blink. First, I always shoot in RAW, no matter what the job. After that, I selected my auto ISO #3 setting, which gave me a range of 3200 to 12,800. I set that manually because I wanted to keep my shutter speed at 1/125 as much as possible. The light color varies tremendously. I put the camera to auto white balance, expecting to use a custom white balance in the post. Knowing my prime lenses are razor sharp, I set them at f/2 with great confidence. Because it was a concert, I wanted my camera to be nearly silent. That is no problem. Select electronic shutter (es), then go into the sound set-up menu and change the audible levels of the shutter. I could have set the camera without sound, but I like a faint click to help me time. Also, I selected EVF only on view mode and turned off the image review. Now, my LCD screen would remain dark and less intrusive. With everything set, I was now free to make pictures at will.
I knew I could photograph the entire concert, so I packed prime lenses for the job. I always prefer primes whenever possible. My selection included the following: Zeiss 12mm f/2.8; Fujifilm 18mm f/2; Fujifilm 23mm f/2; Fujifilm 35mm f/2; Fujifilm 50mm f/2 and Fujifilm 90mm f/2. If this had been a typical concert where you could photograph the first three songs, I would have instead carried zooms so I didn't have to take the time to change lenses. Thankfully, I didn't have that restriction.
Ultimately, my shutter speed varied from 1/125 down to 1/15 depending on who in the band I was photographing and where they were standing. My ISO ranged between 3200 and 12,800, the latter being most predominant.
I could stop here, but that's not the end of the story. Once I returned to the office, I uploaded my images to Lightroom CC. Yes, I use LR for my Fuji processing. I've learned a couple of methods that have eliminated the crazy wormy grain effect seen from LR in the past. First, LR CC is different from before. They have improved the program significantly. But, in the last update, the "default" sharpening setting is now 40. That is much too high for Fuji RAF files. So, the first thing I do after editing my selects is to adjust the sharpening from 40 to 10. An ISO of 12,800 is going to be slightly noisy. So, when shooting at this extreme, I apply an LR noise reduction setting of 22 to 27. I batch the entire shoot with these two corrections right away. The noise reduction is just enough to take the edge off the noise but not significantly soften the image. From here, I proceed as usual, color correct, and adjust tone, contrast, exposure, and shadows. Most of the time, minimal work needs to be done. Fuji is like that, almost dead on, right out of the box.