Photos: IO Echo @ The Pageant

This is why you shoot f/1.4 primes. IO Echo opening for Bloc Party at the Pageant on their 2013 tour.

Photographer’s Notes:

Cameras Used:

Nikon D800

Lenses Used:

It’s for images like this where primes reign supreme. During IO Echo’s opening set in support of Bloc Party, the stage lighting was extremely dim. Both of these images were shot at 1/80 second at f/1.4 and ISO 5000 with the Nikon D800. I’d originally started out with the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 screwed on, but the frame was almost literally black using that 2-stops slower lens and any reasonable shutter speed.

For reference, here’s the same frame as above but with -2EV dialed in with Lightroom. I personally prefer the deep black levels of this adjustment, but that’s beside the point.

Sure, you could make an equivalent exposure by dropping the shutter speed to 1/20 second at f/2.8 or quadrupling the camera sensitivity. But when you have a couple of f/1.4 primes on hand, that’s the obvious choice.

Now, these sample images probably raise the questions “Why are you shooting in horrible lighting?” and “Just because you can make a proper exposure out of a dark scene, should you?” But I’ll leave those for another post.

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Comments & Feedback? Let ‘em rip.

Questions or comments? Leave a comment below, and let me know what you thought of this post.

About the author: Todd Owyoung is an internationally published music photographer specializing in concert photography and band portraits. He also grills a mean steak.

Contact Todd for image licensing and assignments wherever the rock show lives. You can also get in touch with Todd via Twitter.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2013 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with io echo, primes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Markus WET-photo says:

January 21, 2013 at 6:15 pm

That might be true for your 85mm (t.b.h. I don’t own/know that lens) but the 50mm just falls apart @ 1.4 (f/2 is already fine though …)

PS: “1/80 second at f/1.4 and ISO 5000″ damn that’s just sick ^^

Dylan Johnson says:

January 21, 2013 at 6:35 pm

I know I might get hated on a little for this but I actually only shoot primes. I have 5 lenses from 15mm to 100mm – all prime. I have to switch lenses or move around a lot but being limited by light is not in my vocabulary.