6 Magical Tips: Concert Videography and Photography
Did you know that 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube every day?
As a performing musician, capturing the best photos and videos free to post on your website, as well as your social media platforms, is the best way to get noticed by potential fans.
Whether you use a mixture of concert videography or live photography to post on your platforms, finding ways to tell a story that your viewers will understand and engage with the best way for you to keep growing the name of your band.
However, live performances can be tricky to catch on film. Not only are the majority of concerts in poor lighting, but they’re crowded, un-predictable, and you only have one chance to get a shot.
That’s why today, we created a complete guide with six tips to help you perfect your concert videography and photography skills. Turn up the music and get ready for action!
Pack Your Best Low Light Camera
While other contributing factors go into the quality of the photographs that you capture at a live event, choosing your best low light camera will allow you to achieve the perfect shots in otherwise complicated lighting setups.
Cheese their camera that has a higher megapixel count will allow you to capture moments in much more precise detail and cameras with lower megapixels.
Just make sure that you know that the higher the megapixel you choose, the larger the file size is for the photographs that you capture. Always be sure to keep a couple of SD cards in your camera bag.
Adjust Your Aperture
Whether you’re planning on shooting a video or capturing a couple of photos, make sure that you shoot with your lens wide open. By shooting at your lowest aperture settings, you’ll allow for more light to enter into your camera.
Investing in a lens that’ll allow you to reach an aperture of F1.4, F1.8, or F2.8 will be what works best for concert photography.
Adjusting your aperture (or buying a new lens with lower aperture settings) will allow you to shoot and capture moments that would otherwise be too dark to show up in a crisp, high-quality photo.
Film a Song While It’s Being Pre-Recorded
When you’re filming a live video, the audio quality that your sound equipment and your camera pick up maybe too distorted for you to be able to upload to social media channels.
That’s why you should film a pre-recorded track overlay on top of the visuals that you record at the live concert.
One of the most significant drawbacks to using this approach is if the audio doesn’t line up with the timing of the live concert, the final product you create to look ingenuine.
Just make sure that you take extra time to go over the audio that you recorded, as well as the live footage that you recorded from the concert, to make sure that they line up with each other to create a genuine-looking session.
Change Your ISO Settings
ISO is the setting that adjusts the sensitivity your camera has to light. With a lower ISO setting, the less sensitive your camera will be to light. With a higher ISO setting, your camera will have an increased sensitivity to light.
During low light situations, such as at a concert, adjusting your ISO settings will allow the sensor in your camera to respond faster to any light that it can find.
Start with an ISO of 1600 during your first photography session at a concert. If you notice of the images are coming out blurred, you can adjust your ISO by increasing the levels until you find that you aren’t having any problems with your photographs come out blurred.
However, you should be mindful that when your ISO is at a higher setting, you can expect to find more noise in your photographs. With concert photography, it’s always better to have an image that has a bit of graininess to it rather than I have a bunch of images that are blurred.
Be Mindful of Your Location
When finding the perfect spot for you to stand at when taking videography or live photography for a concert, you should be mindful of the location that you’re standing at.
For example, if you’re attempting to film a video with quality audio content, you should ensure that you don’t stand in front of the speakers. If you do stand in front of the speakers, you’ll likely pick up distorted audio.
Don’t Be Afraid of Too Much Coverage
Depending on the type of content that you’re looking to produce with your live video filming and live photography, finding multiple locations and different angles to take is an absolute necessity to make your content enter other realms.
Improving Your Concert Videography and Photography Skills
Even if you believe that you have tons of concert videography and photography skills, finding ways to make small improvements in the content you that you’re producing is a great way to reach a new potential audience.
Finding ways to create refreshing shots will keep your current audience captivated under spell with your work and help you to stand out from the rest of your competition.
Are you interested in learning more about how to improve your concert videography skills or finding ways to improve the content you’re creating? Click here to contact us today for content creation and ideas with a higher purpose and a magical twist.
And while you’re thinking about it, ponder this lovely quote:
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
-Albert Einstein