Let's talk about lenses. You might think that the camera body is the most important part of your equipment. But lenses are the true heroes that enable you to get awesome concept photos. Due to the recent push in technology, there are new camera bodies being taken to market fast and also once you get a new camera body, it's already old after a year and you can't get rid of the feeling that you have to upgrade again and again and again, which you absolutely don't have to. So however lenses will last a lifetime. I use some old lenses which are always six years old now and they still work perfectly.

If you make sure that the front class doesn't get scratched and stop any dust from creeping into the lens, you will get many years of use out of them. This is also the reason why use camera bodies lose your body very quickly. Various lenses tend to stay at the price you bought them. In Concert photography, we need to concentrate on the two main features of lenses. The focal length and the aperture. The focal length is written on the lens, for example 50 millimeter, as you can see here, and determines the angle of view or how much of the scene you can see in the resulting frame.

Wide angle lenses have lower numbers such as 24 millimeter, and fit more of the scene in the frame. telephoto lenses, on the other hand, have higher numbers such as 200 millimeter and help to pull far off subjects closer into the frame. So imagine you're standing in front of a stage at a certain spot and you don't move with a wide angle lens. You will be able to capture the whole band on stage with a 55 with the wide angle ends, you will be able to capture the whole band on stage with 50 millimeter you will be able to get the full body shot of an artist. And with a telephoto lens you might just get a headshot of the artist. All these focal lengths have their own special usage in concert photography, and I will talk about this a little later on.

The aperture is the single most important factor when it comes down to concert photography. As explained the aperture is the opening or a hole located inside the lens, which allows you to choose how much light hits the digital sensor of the camera. Since we have to deal with low light situations on stage all the time, the aperture will either make us or break us. You might have heard that you need to use fast glass wide open concert photography. So if your lens is a 50 millimeter f 1.8 as shown here, then fast class corresponds to the F number or 1.8 Fight open means shooting this lens at F 1.8. Prime first assume lenses.

The Canon versus Nikon is almost as important as the prime first assume lenses fights are, I mean the discussion. The main difference between prime and zoom lenses is a fixed focal length versus a range of focal length choices in one lens. So let's have a closer look to prime lenses or fixed focal length lenses. They have a single focal length, for example 24 millimeter, 35 millimeter, 50 millimeter 85 millimeter and so on. They have a wider maximum aperture, which means smaller f numbers like f 1.4 or 1.8 which is crucial in low light photography. As we said before they can deliver sharper images especially Compared to all the zoom lenses, some prime lenses are cheaper to equivalent some lenses and they are more lightweight.

And for the zoom lenses some lenses cover a wider range of focal length like 17 to 55 millimeter or 24 to 70 millimeter or 70 to 200 millimeter lens on the maximum aperture on the best zoom lenses is limited to F 2.8. You only need one lens to cover focal length. From wide angle telephoto enter 24 to 70 millimeter full frame lens is a good example for it. And professional zoom lenses are heavy and expensive. zoom lenses can be further divided into variable aperture zoom lenses, and constant aperture zoom lenses. So let's have a look what this means.

The variable aperture zoom lenses have different aperture numbers depending on the focal length used. So For example, and 18 to 55 millimeter f 3.5 to 5.6 has a maximum aperture at F 3.5 at 18 millimeter and the maximum aperture of F 5.6 at 55 millimeter. So, why is this important to know? So let's imagine that you're in front of the stage and you said at millimeter f 3.5. You have a shutter speed of one over 250 of a second and an ISO setting of 1600 It takes some photos and the exposure looks great. So then you want to do a headshot and adjust your focal length to 55 millimeter.

So not only will you have adjusted the focal length of the lens, but the camera now automatically set your aperture to F 5.6. And the bigger f number means less light is able to hit the camera sensor and therefore your photo will be underexposed. Buy one stop in this case, this sucks and an F number of 5.6 might not give you the light you need for low light concert photography. So why do most of the camera kits include this variable aperture some lenses like the 18 to 55 millimeter f 3.5 to 5.6 because these lenses are cheap to produce, and most of the photographers who buy entry level cameras want to use them for capturing holiday and family scenes. This lens is totally capable of achieving good results in well lit situations. But I wouldn't recommend a variable aperture zoom lens for use in concert photography.

Which brings me to the constant aperture zoom lenses. The constant aperture zoom lenses keep the same maximum aperture no matter which focal length setting you're using. The best zoom lenses let you set an aperture number of F 2.8. This is a wide aperture that can be easily used. in low light conditions such as concerts, but also in wedding when you're shooting in a church, so compared to most prime lenses, enter variable aperture zoom lenses, these lenses cost a fortune. A 24 to 70 millimeter f 2.8 will be around 1800 to $1,900 and the 70 to 200 millimeter f 2.8 will set you back another $2,000.

And that's just for one lens. So concert photography pros often use these two lenses because they have a versatile focal length and produce the best possible image quality. They are heavy. These lenses are big and heavy compared to fixed prime lenses, or variable aperture zoom lenses. So if you're shooting the 70 to 200 millimeter 2.8 the whole day, you'll probably have a painful neck or back at the end of the day. These lenses are also not much fun when traveling I've taken them with me a few times from touring with bands.

I can remember walking the streets in Mexico City with my big camera and lens, which didn't make me feel very comfortable. And you'll get noticed as a pro immediately. These lenses cream Hi, I'm here I'm a professional photographer. This isn't something you always want, especially if you don't want people to be aware of you taking pictures of them. I'm a huge fan of prime lenses, and also use them a lot for my portrait work. The 50 millimeter f 1.8 is cheap, and a great lens to start with.

And after limitation that they have to move my feet if I want to get another framing. For me, this is the purest form of photography. And I believe that this kind of lens makes me a better photographer. However, I also have some lenses in my lens setup such as to 24 to 70 millimeter f 2.8. In Concert photography, you're often limited In how much you can move around here stood in front of the stage taking photos. That's it.

So for concept photography, I use both prime and zoom lenses, which gives me the freedom to choose either a wider aperture, or a range of focal length, which lenses work best for which situations will be covered in the upcoming lectures. image stabilization of vibrant reduction. There are lenses available that offer vibrant reduction VR image stabilization is this is a technology which compensates for image blur caused by camera shake. camera shake is movement that happens when hand holding a camera and is more pronounced at longer focal length. This is the reason why you will find this technology in telephoto prime and zoom lenses. What this means is the following if you're shooting in low light conditions shutter speed is slow.

For example, one over 50 cents per second. Then you can get images turning onto blurry due to the camera shake you introduced by choosing the long shutter speed. To avoid camera shake, you can either make the shutter speed faster or turn on image stabilization we are for Nikon or is for Canon will try to prevent camera shake, and your photo might turn on sharp. The problem in concert photography is that this technology only deals with camera shake. So let's say we're using a shutter speed of one over 50 of a second again, we aim at a singer onstage who isn't moving at all. Without is you get a blurry photo using is gets your sharp phone.

Everything works like it should. But now imagine the artist on stage suddenly starts To jump around what will happen when you take the shot, your photo will be blurry again. And why? Because image stabilization only deals with the camera shake introduced by the user, but the cameras speed on 15 is too long to freeze the action on stage. So the only option you have is to use a fast shutter speed and then either choose a higher ISO number or smaller f number. So for me personally, Viper introduction or image stabilization doesn't work for concert photography, because you're most likely to be using shutter speeds of one over 250th of a second and therefore don't have to deal with the camera shake at all.

Another important point a third party lenses. For third party lenses there are established companies such as sigma Tamron and tokina on the market. These companies offer prime and zoom lenses for Nikon and Canon cameras. In general, much cheaper, are they also better? It depends. There are people who suggest to only use the original camera manufacturers lenses, and there are others who get awesome quality with the generic ones.

So I only have one lens from the companies some young, which I'm rather happy with it. I think the main point is that sigma Tamron and tokina don't have the exact data to match the lenses to the cameras perfectly. So they try hard, but they're not perfect, that's for sure. So it can happen that the autofocus system in the lens isn't matched perfectly to your camera body. When using a Nikon lens on a Nikon body, a quick service will fix this, but you can't send your Nikon body with the tokina lens to be repaired. As I said, I almost only use Nikon lenses and therefore I'm not able to judge So if you have to budget and you want to build up your land selection, then you might want to stick to Canon or Nikon.

You get what you pay for. Therefore, it's better to spend your money on a good lens than buy a cheap one. Which camera and lens should they get? Now, you might ask. So if you're starting out in concert photography, I suggest getting a brand new crop sensor camera, with an ISO setting of at least 6400. Examples of cameras available at the budget level at the moment on Nikon's starting with the T 3100 to 3300 or t 7000.

Or the Canon starting with the EOS Rebel t five, t three IoT five AI. These cameras are mostly available as a kit package, including a lens so you can get a decent camera body with the lens such as the eight To 55 millimeter f 3.5 to 5.6 this kind of lens is good for everyday photography purposes like travel birthday parties outside, but they're absolutely useless for concert photography. So as well as your kit lens, you will need to get another lens or save some money and opt for body only purchase. Why don't I suggest getting a full frame camera as your first camera? Honestly, it would be overkill and that beast might get you into more trouble than help you. Yes, full frame camera gives you the option of using freaking high ISO values resulting in less noise in your final pictures and therefore a better image quality overall, but they will cost you a fortune.

And most of the time it's not a wise decision spending three months of income on a camera so for me it's important to get you out there and shooting and finding out if concert photography is your thing. I don't want you spending thousands of dollars, and then seeing you getting frustrated after two concerts and never touching your camera again, to the pros, all these full frame camera bodies, you bet. But they also started out with a Canon 40 D and Chuck my first year with it, building my portfolio. And moving on, this would be the same as you getting your driving license, and then buying a Porsche first car. It's cool to have fun if you have the budget, but it's absolutely not necessary. So don't believe people who tell you that gear is the key to becoming a successful photographer.

So fantastic. You bought your camera, so you will need a lens that will get you awesome concert photos. As I mentioned before, you can use your 18 to 55 millimeter for general photography use, but you will need another lens to kickstart your career. So let me introduce you to the 50 millimeter f 1.8 lens. It's available for For all brands and is a no brainer, because of its ability to shoot in low light as its highest aperture setting. This lens is made of plastic.

It's small, lightweight and unobtrusive. The nifty 50 also called the plastic fantastic, has saved more than a few times when the light thing technician seems to be asleep and the stage was almost pitch black. This lens is a prime lens which means it has a fixed focal length of 50 millimeter. If you want to get closer you have to use your feet. So coming to other must have gear. First of all we have the memory cards.

The decision which memory card to get should be based on the format, storage capacity, and the read write speed. There are two main formats SD for Secure Digital, and CF for Compact Flash. SD cards are becoming more popular in consumer cameras and the cheaper TF cards are still used in high end full frame cameras, such as Nikon D 800. And the more expensive a good storage capacity is 816 or 32 gigabyte. Instead of getting 164 gigabyte get to 32 gigabyte cards in case one of them dies during a concert, I brought about speed. Like most things in this industry, the faster the better.

The different manufacturers offer a variety of ride speeds. The faster the right speed of your memory card, the faster you can take a succession of images without having to wait for the camera to catch up. One of the main players in this field I trust SanDisk. It happened to me once that I was using a slow memory card I had bought cheap during a holiday. The memory card worked fine for conditions for speed wasn't important, like shooting landscapes. Once I was back in Austria, I had the opportunity to shoot my first prodigy concert The product here one of my idols from back in the 90s.

And this was the first really famous band I was going to photograph. So I took my camera gear and use this new memory card. The concert started and it was a real challenge to get decent pictures. If you've ever seen a product show, you know that they use strobes and fog all the time, and decreasing and purple lights onstage makes life difficult for us photographers. So I was already a bit frustrated with my photos when suddenly Keith Flint, one of the singer walked to the front of the stage, kneels down directly in front of me and started to stare directly into my camera. Without thinking I push the shutter button on burst mode and click click click click click.

Two cameras started capturing the images. But after three clicks, the shutter stopped. I panicked and didn't have a clue what was going on. Then just quickly as he had appeared Keith Flint stood up and disappeared to the back of the dark stage again. So it took me a while to realize that the memory card was the problem. the right speed was too slow, and it took a ton of time to write the data from the camera onto my card.

So I checked my LCD display and saw that they had only captured three frames in total. When I had a look at them, the first one was out of focus, as was photo number two. I almost started crying because I thought I had missed an awesome shot. Thankfully, the last photo was tech shopping focus party to learn from the story. Use memory cards with a speed of at least 45 megabytes per second. There are also faster ones with 60 megabytes per second 95 megabytes per second write speeds and higher but there are obviously more expensive and it's not a necessity to use the fastest one for concert photography.