Capturing live concerts in photography is very interesting; yet, it’s not easy. In making some great concerts photography you need to capture the key moment and combine it with the best composition and dramatic lighting, to do those action you need some luck, but since you can’t depend on that, it means you need some experience. Experience becomes very important because the fast movements on the stage makes you have not enough time to work on your composition. It’s even makes you easier to know when the key moments is going to happen, and also help you to find a suitable angle for making the lighting even more dramatic.
Here are some tips that might help you:
• Use some high ISO speed. Because you need a high shutter speed to catch the fast movements and flash are rarely allowed to use and you don’t want to your photo to be under, so take my advice. But remember, higher ISO means higher noise and grain, be careful on that.
• Open your aperture to the maximum to helps preventing an under photo, unless in some situation you need more depth of field. But that rarely happens.
• Use center-weighted or spot metering. Matrix metering wouldn’t work because the unusual stage lighting makes small section in your photo is brightly lit (sometimes gets too over) and the rest are almost pitch-dark.

Concert photography should be capturing both the whole band and close-up personnel of the band as well. To capture the whole just use the wide-angle lens, on the other hand, for the close-up you may need a zoom tele lens if you don’t have the access up to the stage. With a decent zoom (70-210mm is a favorite for most) you will be able to isolate individual band members and their activity, and get as close as possible to the stage.
The “whole band” shots by great various artists :


and the close-up personnel shots:


There are two techniques in setting the shutter speed:
• Freeze motion: capture moment on fast movements/motion with high shutter speed so the object will be seen like freezing. Some example by great various artists:


• Implying motion / motion blur: capture moment the movements/motion with low shutter speed. Therefore, you can see the flowing effects or the motion blur. Some example by great various artists:





In choosing the best angle there are so many alternatives, but mostly they use the frog eye and bird eye view
• Frog eye: Shooting at an upwards from low angle, best choices if you want to make the artist looks tall and in some way heroic. Some example by great various artists:


• Bird eye’s view: Shooting from high angle to the down below, usually used to capturing the crowds. Some example by great various artists:


and don’t forget to catch the stage light creatively, like this (they are really great )


So prepare your gears, and get ready for the upcoming concert!!

Note:
I’m just sharing this based on my experience, if there is some mistake in this article please open your heart to forgive me
If you like any of deviations above, just it and show the artists some
If you like this article, simply it to help me spread the love

See too: Silhouette Photography [link]


some self promotion


thank you very much for your attention