Album Cover Photoshoot

Today I had the opportunity to do a photoshoot for the album cover of my friends’ band, “Checkpoint”. You may have seen me blog about them in the past, I’ve done a lot of work with them, we’ve been close friends for almost 6 years now and they got me into photographing live concerts so I love to give back as much as possible. Their new album is coming out soon, check out their facebook page for further details: http://www.facebook.com/CheckpointPunk
You can check out one of their new songs here: https://soundcloud.com/checkpoint-punk/driven-you-dead

Anyway, I am still very new to portraiture. I don’t have a clue how to pose people or how to compose shots, I always feel very uncomfortable when working one on one with people. I’m a huge fan of candid shots, about 90% of my work is of a documentation style, so this was another learning experience for me.

We all got delayed and gradually met up much later than agreed upon so we didn’t start shooting until 4:30pm, to add to that it was a horrible snowy day and we were down an alley… so I was stuck up around 1600 ISO the whole time, using my Canon 1D Mark IIN.  As per usual with photoshoots, I did a bit of forward planning and started to come up with ideas, unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with much. But I had one idea which I sketched out a little, here’s the page of my idea book:

Well, my idea didn’t work out like I planned. The shooting itself didn’t go how I would have liked, and the photoshop afterwards went horrible. I’ll probably end up going back to it and attempting to photoshop it again but for now I’ll give up with this crappy attempt. My idea was to blank out the eyes and seal the slight opening in the mouth, to make them dummy like.

That shot took a few minutes to set up and get the desired result, I’m really kicking myself about not getting the photoshop part right. With more time and effort my vision could come true, my cloning/tone blending abilities aren’t the best if I’m honest. After that we got on with the rest of the shoot. They had a few ideas which we shot next, mainly focused on their shoes which I found a little boring so worked around with a few angles to get as interesting a result as possible.

After that I wanted to do some individual portraits so set up in front of that door they’re standing in front of above. The reason I’m going with a square crop for these is because the album booklet will be in square format, so for ease of use I’m keeping them all square.

And of course, I had to capture a candid or two in between shots.

The candids aren’t square as there is little chance of them getting used. The above one was more powerful without cropping.
Throughout the whole day I found it very difficult shooting for a square crop. In the editing process I frequently found myself cutting off little bits of the image here and there because I didn’t shoot wide enough or underestimated the parameters of the square crop. We were wrapping things up when it started pouring snow again (it’s late March and it’s been snowing sporadically every day here in Dublin, Ireland). We spent the whole shoot in a little alley, so every location is less than 15 seconds from each other, it was a really cool spot to use, had a lot of interesting textures and a fair bit of character. If you’re ever in Dublin and want to use the location, it’s the back alley to the Olympia Theatre in Dublin City Centre, not too far from the IFI. We were about to head off because of the snow but decided that we can’t turn up the opportunity to have some shots walking down the lane with the snow in the background. We braved the elements and may have gotten a cover photo out of it!

All-in-all it was a pretty enjoyable shoot. The photos came out better than I had expected, but I still long for a particular style/feel to my photographs that I haven’t yet achieved. Maybe with time things will improve as I learn to work with people in a more efficient manner. If it weren’t for the weather I would have brought out my lighting kit and tried out a few things, but I didn’t feel up to it because of the snow. Really wanted to bring my brand new Peli 1510 case (I’ll be reviewing this soon!) but didn’t want to get the bus with it so brought everything in my Think Tank Retrospective 30. Unfortunately, in the end the only two pieces of gear I used were the Canon 1D Mark IIN and the Sigma 24-60mm F/2.8.

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Is the Canon 1D Mark IIN still a good purchase in 2013?

*UPDATE as of May 2013* I own 3 of these bodies and they are all workhorses. They get me through absolutely everything I come up against.

———-

With my photographic needs growing significantly towards the end of 2012  and with the expectation of bigger things to come in 2013 I felt like my equipment was holding me back a big. I love Canon, and I’d love Canon even more if I had about €4,000 to spend on equipment. But like most, I don’t have that kind of money. I had needs that my equipment wasn’t meeting and I had a budget of €500. Things weren’t looking good. I had expected to end up sticking with my current equipment but I looked around and found a great deal on a 1D Mark IIN which I instantly snapped up and haven’t regretted since. In fact, I’m considering buying another.

Why the 1D Mark IIN?

Well, simply put… the Mark II felt too dated and the Mark III was a bit too expensive with a few too many AF worries. I was specifically after a 1-Series body, for the build quality, the dual card slots and the AF system.  As much as I love the 5D Mark II it just wasn’t fit for my needs, it has the benefits of low light performance and image quality but I just needed to get away from the 9 point AF system (well, only the centre point has ever been useful on any of these 9 point systems). The Mark IIN looked like it was the one, it fit all my needs, it fit my budget and it had very few drawbacks. So I went ahead and picked it up.

How does it perform?

I’ve used it on quite a few occasions now and I am extremely impressed with it. It produces fantastic images at all ISO values (actually, I don’t think I’ve had the camera below 800 ISO yet!). I’ve shot fireworks, a concert, rugby matches and some night time street shots since I got the camera. ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 are extremely clean compared to the same settings on the Canon 40D, 60D and 500D. They equal the quality of the Canon 5D Classic and ISO 3200 on the 1D Mark IIN is slightly worse than ISO 3200 on the 5D Mark II. (I’m excluding the 5D Mark III, 1D Mark IV, 1DX etc. because, if you have the money for them then you wouldn’t be reading this post…).

1/60th, F/2.8, ISO 3200

It’s snappy to focus. Better than any Canon DSLR I’ve used before. In lower light situations, the 40D/60D are quicker to start up but the 1D Mark IIN is quicker to find focus and it’s better at finding focus in low light situations. I shot a 4 hour long battle of the bands concert and there were only 3 occasions throughout the whole night that the 1D had trouble finding focus and that was mainly my fault. If you know to look out for the high contrast areas then it’ll be easy to lock focus 99% of the time. The constant changing stage lights didn’t put the camera off once. Music photography is by far one of the hardest jobs a photographer can get, you really need to be able to rely on your equipment to pull through for you.
The 45 point AF in the 1D was phenomenal. Every point, including the non-cross-type points locked on very easily. I stayed in one shot AF for the entire gig as that’s my shooting preference and I didn’t have a single out of focus image from the entire night. The 1D rendered the colours lovely and they were a pleasure to edit. I’ll mention now that all these images were shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom 4, no noise reduction was added to any of them (I went back and checked). The dynamic range of the 1D at 1600 ISO and 3200 ISO surpassed that of the much newer 60D  and the full frame 5D Classic.

1/320th, F/2.8, ISO 1600

1/200th, F/2.8, ISO 1600

1/80th, F/2.8 ISO 3200

Regarding the editing of the RAW files: you can increase the exposure by about a stop but then the image falls to pieces. This is to be expected. Here’s a black and white image which I pushed and pulled to extremes to get just the way I wanted it, I boosted the exposure by about 2 stops and drastically increased the blacks and clarity to get the exact silhouette look I was after:

1/1000th, F/2.8, ISO 3200

However, when kept within its limits the camera’s RAW files hold up very well during the edit process.

1/640th, F/2.8, ISO 1600

1/100th, F/2.8, ISO 3200

So, I mentioned how the AF performed in one shot, how about in AI Servo? Equally as brilliant. I photographed a Leinster Schools Senior Rugby match and I didn’t get a single out of focus shot that wasn’t my fault. I got a total of 3 out of focus shots because I selected the wrong point or focused on the wrong thing (I was still trying to get used to the AF system at this point). At no point did I have to think about the AF, I set it to back button focusing (my preference) and just held it down without letting go. At no point did I have to give the AF any thought. Tracking was exceptionally good and the camera was not easily tricked. Even when the ball passed in front of players faces there was no noticeable hiccup in the AF. I’d imagine if you set the tracking speed faster in the custom functions you might encounter some problems here, but I had it set to standard and it was perfectly fine. I shot during the rugby match with the Canon 300mm F/4L non-IS and the Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L non-IS so AF was spectacular as per usual with those lenses.

1/800th, F/4, ISO 800

1/1000th, F/4,  ISO 800

I left AF point expansion off when shooting with the 300mm. It didn’t feel natural to me, probably because I’m not used to it yet, but the camera handled the action fine without it. I was able to keep up with the players by moving the AF point myself. The dual dial system is a bit tricky to get used to compared to the newer joystick method of selecting AF points but I now prefer it, it’s much easier than the joystick for people like me with big fingers.

1/1000th, F/4, 800 ISO

1/1250th, F/2.8, 800 ISO

1/1250th, F/2.8, 400 ISO

Conclusion

It’s fantastic. I love it, it’s a workhorse of a camera. The files it produces are superb, the 8mp sensor is more than most people will need, it will print as big as you could ever want (unless you’re a studio photographer, in which case I doubt you’d be interested in this camera).  The smaller file sizes are much more friendly towards CF cards though, the buffer clears quicker than with bigger files (like with the 40D or 7D), due to the buffer clearing quicker it’s easier to get longer bursts at the 8.5 FPS the cameras offers. A Lexar 8GB 200x CF card gives me a good 3 second burst of RAW files on full speed before it slows down. An even faster card wouldn’t have this problem, I just have no need for faster cards at the moment.
In terms of IQ, it is far beyond any current APS-C sensor camera offered by Canon. I would rather buy a 1D Mark IIN than a 7D. The IQ of the 1D matches that of the 5D Classic, the 5D Mark II is a bit better, especially at high ISOs. It really benefits from the full frame. I love the 1D Mark IIN and I think it is a very good choice in 2013 if you’re on a budget. Other cameras around it’s price range would be a 650D, 30D, 40D, 50D, 60D, 5D Classic – it performs better than each of those models in it’s own way. The AF is far beyond that of the 5D Classic, and the image quality (as well as other features like the AF) is far beyond that of any APS-C offering.

1/10th, F/4, 800 ISO

1/1000th, F/4, 640 ISO

1/1600th, F/2.8, 400 ISO

1/1000th, F/2.2, 800 ISO

Pros
-Fantastic Image Quality
-Rugged build
-Brilliant 45 point AF system
-Dual card slots
-100% Coverage Viewfinder
-Audio Recording
-Smaller file sizes allow for cheaper CF cards (like 200x as opposed to the 600x needed for similar speeds with a 7D)

Cons
-Big and heavy
-Big battery (twice the size of the 1D Mark III/IV battery and about 3/4 times the size of the 5D/7D/xxD batteries)
-2.5 inch LCD screen, not as high quality as current screens (doesn’t bother me, it’s still a brilliant screen)
-Only goes to 3200 ISO

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Audio Fever :: Band Photoshoot

Last Wednesday I did a photoshoot for this amazing group, Audio Fever. They were such cool guys, an absolute pleasure to work with.

The shoot went reasonably well. I thought I was having sharpness issues with my lens but it turns out that I’ve just been away from shooting in low light for so long that I’ve forgotten what shutter speeds freeze motion. 1/160 definitely wasn’t cutting it for the shoot, but, there are definitely usable images and the band seem happy enough with them.

Here are my two favourites:

 

 

 

And here’s another sped up edit video I did for this photoshoot:

tUnE-YaRdS, Micachu & the Shapes and Last Days of 1984 @ Vicar Street

On Friday I was asked if I was free to shoot this gig in Vicar Street. Of course, I do little to nothing with my life so I snapped up the opportunity to shoot in an instant.

It was a decent gig. Last Days of 1984 opened and played a very impressive set, unfortunately the lighting on them wasn’t great and I wasn’t actually there to shoot them (I was just there because I’m always worried about being late so am there when the doors open, without fail) so I didn’t really get many shots of them although I wish I had’ve.

Next up were Micachu & the Shapes… I put my ear plugs in and started shooting. They were completely motionless on stage. But at least they had some good lighting.

And then, the big dogs: tUnE-YaRdS. I was only given 2 songs to shoot (pretty shit, especially since the first song was just her screaming – I can’t believe it counted as a song). The lighting wasn’t the best but I made do with what was available. Once I was kicked out of the pit I stuck around for a little while to enjoy the rest of their set, they put on a pretty good performance.

My kit for the night was: Canon 60D, Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8, Canon 50mm F/1.8 II, Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L.

This gig was shot for State.ie , big thanks to them for the opportunity and head over to http://state.ie/ to check out their stuff!

Here’s the shots:

Band Photoshoot – Checkpoint

On Thursday I had the pleasure of shooting this great upcoming band in Dublin: “Checkpoint” – http://www.facebook.com/CheckpointPunk

My phone had been telling me all week that Thursday was to be the worst day of the week in regards to the weather, it was meant to rain heavily all day. It’s no surprise to me that it wasn’t raining but it was still a pretty dull day, there wasn’t much going on in the sky and everything was just pretty crappy if I’m honest.

Now, the photoshoot, went reasonably well. I’m happy with some of the photos but wish I would’ve shot some others in a different way or not used a flash. I’m still getting to grips with using a flash for fill light and I just don’t like the look of it, is it just me? Everything looks flat. I think I’ll stick with natural light and reflectors unless I have something to bounce the flash off. (Waiting on my order of a light stand + umbrella too!).

Checkpoint are a great bunch, they’re load of fun to be around and I love every second with them. You can probably tell from the photos that it wasn’t the most routine photoshoot ever, I really just followed them and they naturally started playing to the camera. Only a few shots were posed such as the ones on the steps and the ones sliding down the rails. Most of the poses were their ideas ideas too, I gave little direction which I find alright when shooting a group of people who like the camera and who like to have fun.

I’ve had this idea for a while, to record my edit workflow and speed it up to some music. I decided to do it for this shoot and I might do it for most shoots I do from now on, maybe a video of some of my gig edits too! The video is my hour of editing condensed into just over 5 minutes, I didn’t capture a few minor photoshop edit I did (mainly all the clone tool to remove things that were bugging me) as I did that today instead of yesterday.
You may notice that not all the photos in the video are in this post, I just picked my favourites for this post. All the images can be found on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/StuartComerfordPhotography

My kit for the shoot was the Canon 60D, Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8, Canon 85mm F/1.8 and Canon 430EX II.

Anyway, here’s the video and the snaps!

Kate Nash at Whelan’s – 3/7/2012

Shooting in Whelan’s was… a learning experience. I don’t know if I’d like to go back as it was ridiculously hard to find a position to get a good shot. The lack of a press pit really threw me but it also made the gig much more intimate. It was an amazing atmosphere and part of me actually enjoyed shooting from the crowd, I feel it presents a much better perspective of what the gig was like for the fans. That’s plus one in favour of Whelan’s!
Kate played a brilliant set, it was definitely worth the near hour long wait between her and the supporting act. The crowd was energetic and the venue was packed from wall to wall, and all the way back up to the doors.

My first reaction when I walked in was “shit, fuck my life. How am I meant to get a decent shot?!” but with a bit of pushing through the crowd I landed myself right beside one of the two speakers filling the venue with sound. Needless to say this thing was loud. Even though I came prepared with ear plugs I cried on the inside when I knew the only way to get a shot was to press right up against the speaker. It’s a shame that shot never worked out either… these things happen.
The lighting at the start of the show made me want to rip my hair out, the camera was struggling to find focus at some points and my ISO was pretty much stuck at 3200 whilst barely getting a shutter speed of 1/125th, it was annoying since I knew I didn’t have very long to shoot but things got a bit better as the gig went on.

After a song and a half I pushed through the crowd again to get back up to the bar, I took it as a moment of relief while I dashed up the stairs to the balcony to try and get an overhead shot. I spent a lot of this time shooting blindly to get the camera over people’s heads so practically none of my shots turned out as I had hoped, I really need to work on this if I’m going to be shooting in places like Whelan’s again. Once I felt I got something usable from the balcony I headed back down to the bar to try and get a shot over the heads of the crowd. With a bit of strategically planned moving and some very nice bartenders I got some some decent shots.

Finally it was back down to the crowd for some wide angle  shots above the crowd and then that was it. The camera was away and I enjoyed the rest of the show before going home.

My equipment for the evening was the Canon 60D with a Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8 for most of the time but I switched to a Canon 85mm F/1.8 for some of the last few shots from afar. The Lowepro Messenger Exchange was my bag of choice for the evening, it’s the newest addition to my equipment and it is fantastic, especially for the value. It’s indiscrete, light weight, small, easy to access, very comfortable and very spacious. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a messenger style camera bag that doesn’t look like a camera bag, it’s an absolute bargain at €30. I purchased mine from the good guys over at http://www.connscameras.ie/ – they got me one very quickly as I was in a rush and needed a new gig bag.

I photographed this gig on behalf of State magazine so a collection of my photos along with a live review are available on their website: http://www.state.ie/43435-live-reviews/kate-nash-limerick

Enough of my blabbering now, here’s my choice of photos from the evening, enjoy!

What is photography to you?

For me, photography is capturing a moment in time that will never occur again. It may be replicated or imitated but never has that moment happened before and never will that moment happen again throughout the whole of humanity’s existence.

At that moment in time in which you depress the shutter button and expose the sensor to light you are creating a piece of history.

Photography started out as a means for recording moments in time but nowadays it’s an art form; a business and a hobby. Taking a macro photo of a flower or photographing a model in a studio isn’t exactly what you’d think of when I say “capturing a moment in time”.
I don’t believe there are many photographers now-a-days that can say they do it for the historical moments they create. Wedding photographers, photojournalists and sports photographers (to an extent) are the first three professional fields I think of when I think “capturing a moment for the history books”. These fields have adapted to modern trends but the underlying drive in their work is still all about capturing the moment.

I must say, I speak witha relatively hypocritical point of view. I’m guilty of photographing many things for the sheer joy of taking a picture instead of thinking about capturing a moment. Most of the work I do (by chance, I think) is primarily focused around capturing the decisive moment. Gig photography, photojournalism, sports photography etc.
I was looking over photos I had taken in the past when this question sprung into my head. I was looking at the photos of a play I shot, one in particular caught my eye.

I remember taking this before the play had begun. The pianist was messing around, making funny faces and noises that had the guitarist in stitches behind him. This photo was never meant to happen, it’s nothing special. But it is a moment in time that will never happen again. A moment which invokes many feelings of comradery, friendship and pure banter.

So I pose this question to you: What is photography to you?

My favourite photo…

People often ask me “what is your favourite photo?” – a vague and stupid question but I can see why a person would ask, I’d be interested in the answer too.

There are two ways to interpret this question: what if my favourite photograph I’ve taken, and what is my favourite photograph someone else has taken. Depending on what mood I’m in the day you ask I’ll either be cheeky and answer with the latter or give you my proper answer.

What is your favourite photo that you haven’t taken?
Well…this is a tough one. Mainly because my answer to this one is constantly changing. I have two favourite photographs at this moment in time. Firstly, a shot of Coldplay lead singer, Chris Martin taken by the extremely talented Peter Neil from http://shootthesound.com/

And my second favourite photo; taken by Pete Souza of President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama the night after the president’s inauguration:

Both photographs are, in my opinion, visually stunning and they both captured the moment in time flawlessly. Both photographers are inspirations of mine.

What is your favourite photograph you’ve taken yourself?
The one I’m going to take tomorrow. Simple.

But unfortunately, it’s not that simple for most people. Everybody wants me to actually pick a photo so here goes, my most recent favourite photo (this is guaranteed to change in a few weeks but ah well!).:

This is my photograph of “The Riptide Movement” performing live in The Academy Main Room in Dublin, Ireland. This is currently my favourite photo as I feel I really captured the moment and the atmosphere of the venue. A video containing footage from the gig can be found here:

Have a look for me in the photographer’s pit from 7:20 onwards! I’m wearing a wine coloured hoody!

Now, hopefully that clears things up a bit.