Liverpool piccies

Great piccies Tripsy.  Love how you captured Joe & the Gentle-Men ?

Rick, my friend, you look so hip!

                                                             pattyluvsjoe

"I'm not nice to any guitar!"     
                 Joe Bonamassa 05-03-12

JBLP CHILD #184

You have a good eye Tripsy, thanks for sharing...

Hey Roy, your pictures are OK my friend, as Tripsy says I've penned a few tips on here in the past, but with the over riding clause that says I'm a beginner myself and by no means an expert. Indeed my tips are only what I've found works reasonably well for me. Tripsy's pics are great and what she says is absolutely bang on! It all depends on the lighting in the venue. I thought when the opening band came on at Liverpool, that it was going to be a poorly lit show, like Pacific Road, but our fears were overcome by the super trooper at the back of the hall that lit Joe up throughout his show.

Some tips then..

ISO - a bit like old the old camera film, fast film for low light conditions, the only problem is the higher the ISO level the grainier the result. In effect if the light level is low, use a higher ISO setting. If you leave the ISO low, the effect will dark or blurred pictures. Setting the ISO higher allows you to speed up your shutter setting on any given aperture just by increasing the ISO

Aperture - The size of the iris in the lens - the smaller the iris the less light can get through, the bigger the iris the more light that can get through. Effects DEPTH OF FIELD

Depth of Field - the area between the furthest and nearest points that are perfectly in focus - the wider the aperture = the shallower (narrower) the depth of field. The smaller the iris = the deeper (wider) the depth of field

Shutter Speed - the length of time the film (or sensor on a Digital camera) is exposed to the light reflected from the subject. The slower the speed the more chance there is of blurring the subject. Joe shredding needs a high shutter speed or his hands will be a blur (jeez they are sometimes, even without a camera!!)

Focus - Most cameras have auto-focus, which tends to take care of this, but in some cases (DSLRs) it's desirable to set the focus manually to avoid the camera's autofocus mechanism "hunting", this is particularly noticable in low light levels at some concerts, so if you know what you want to shoot and it's not going to move forewards or backward, you can set the camera to manual focus and set the focus using the ring on the lens.

White Balance - Some cameras also have different white balance settings - Auto, sunny, cloud, tungsten, florescent, manual, flash etc - These settings can provide some strange effects given the same ambient lighting - try it for yourself. I tend to use Automatic white baance, although it's possible to get some nice effects by changing them

Right then, armed with the above it's time to start juggling soot! Taking pictures effectively means getting to grips with all of the above, trying different settings and seeing what works! The old trial and error, noting what works. Most modern cameras actually record all the settings you used when you took the pictures and it's possible to see what they were at any time in the future when you view your pictures in any proprietory photographic software (the software that comes with the camera should do it) So it will show you ISO, shutter speed, Lens used, aperture, Control setting (M, AP, TP, P, Full auto etc) date etc

It only takes a quick view of some proffessional photographers work at a concert to see that my feeble efforts are just that - feeble efforts! Professional photographers produce results that are absolutely streets away from the snaps that I take. Do I care? not a bit of it, I'll just try harder next time!