Timbaland @ Sound Academy - February 22, 2010.

Photography is a constant learning experience. I have spoken to people who have been doing it for 20+ years and they have said if anyone says they have nothing more to learn then they are lying. I have shot at the same venues countless of times but my recent gig for Timbaland threw me a curve ball with some incredible intense strobe lighting.

I prefer shooting all my concerts in Manual Mode. Usually keeping my lenses at f/2.8 and iso 1600-2500 depending on the venue, I have a good idea when to change my shutter speed. To tell you the truth, I rarely look at the metering while doing concerts because the lights change enough that the meter just ends up distracting me. In the last few concerts, I have recently tried Aperture Mode. Since you need as much light as possible, my aperture usually stays at f/2.8 and that will allow AP mode to change the shutter speed when necessary. The problem with these settings (I learned after, talking to two concert photography friends, Carrie and Frank) is that when the strobe occurs, they’ll be far too much light coming into the shot and your pics will just be blown out.

So at least I know what to do the next time I have to deal with this: Turn the aperture a few stops down to something between f/8 or f/11 and slow down the shutter to something like 1/50th – 1/60th of a second. In the end the strobe will act like a flash and still freeze the image, despite the slower speed. Even though I’m happy with some of the shots I got in the concert, a lot more were thrown out than a usual set for myself. Learn something new every time…