Nourify Photography

Azerbaijani Concert at UCLA Royce Hall

This past Saturday, we got a chance to shoot Rahim Shahryari’s Azerbaijani Music Concert at the UCLA Royce Hall. Took our 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.4, and a Fisheye and had a lot of fun. The lighting was extremely challenging though. Not only was it quite dark, the lighting was constantly changing requiring us to play with the camera settings all the time. This is probably one of the key challenges in any concert photography. Either have to bump up the ISO to 3200 and higher and deal with the extra noise in post processing, or risk image sharpness due to camera shake and/or subject movement. And it is always challenging to find a good compromise.

This was also our first experience with the Think Tank Modular Component Set V2, the belt system for carrying lenses and equipment, in the field. Overall quite happy with it, though it can get pretty heavy and put a lot of pressure on the hip.

Finally, one piece of advice that we had read about but did not follow: Wear earplugs when shooting concerts! It can get extremely loud closer to the stage and near the speakers to the level that it can easily interfere with you trying to focus on your camera and the shots you are trying to take.

Overall, it was a pretty good experience. Here are some of our sample shots:

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