Canon S90 to shoot a gig?

Tonight’s gig, Secret Cinema Band, aren’t one of mine, they belong from a shooting perspective to @magictina, so I didn’t pack my kit, just the S90. Plus I was feeling a bit rubbish. And I’ve had a spat with JWZ and his crappy iPhone shots where he refuses to carry another gizmo and I maintain he has *two* pockets like normal people. I also fancied trying to take some shots with the S90 and took a dozen or so.

Some observations:

  • The exposure blows out. I had to shoot on -1EV to get a decent exposure even spot metering on the face.
  • f/2.0 is nice but it’s only at the widest zoom. So as with this picture, you have to get right up in there.
  • High ISO is pretty rubbish with bad chroma noise. This pic is at ISO800 and just about passable.
  • Shutter lag means trying to catch a “moment” is Hard.
  • When musicians move around, a decent shutter speed is key. 1/60 is not quite there. 1/125 would be nice if possible. This pic is 1/80.

Actually, that’s all.

In conclusion, yes, we’re getting there. It’s slightly worse than the D70+50mm f/1.8 when I started doing this and it’s the ISO that really lets it down. Get a decent ISO1600 on these things with a lens that can keep f/2.0 through the zoom range and we’re in business.

Secret Cinema Band @ Proud, Camden

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 11:49 pm. It is filed under Music, Photography and tagged with , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

4 Responses to “Canon S90 to shoot a gig?”

  1. Billy says:
    August 24, 2010 at 8:12 am

    I’ve had a bit of a play with mine at gigs (one of the main reasons for buying it was that I could get it into a gig) and not had too much success. I’ve been generally shooting at -2 using full frame metering but as yet I’ve not been able to get close enough to get anything particularly useable.

    Looks like I might have to start tinkering with the other metering modes…

  2. Tina says:
    August 24, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    Good to see you last night, even if it was only briefly!

    They are not mine though! Not in a shooting perspective or any other :) !

  3. davehodg says:
    August 24, 2010 at 10:17 pm

    You dragged me there :)

    And I was surprised how cheery the staff outside were even if the bar staff were pretentious…

  4. Dave Hodgkinson – S90 to shoot a gig? « says:
    August 27, 2010 at 10:09 am

    [...] 27, 2010 by Sam Dave Hodgkinson has posted about his experience of using a Canon S90 to shoot a gig. Armed only with his S90, Dave headed to Proud in Camden to capture the Secret Cinema Band and see [...]

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