At all levels of concert photography and all levels of photographer skill, shooting behaviors fall into three categories affectionately refered to as The Chimp, The Chump, and The Champ.
The Chimp
“Chimping” is a slang term in digital photography which describes the habit and ritual of checking a photo on the camera’s LCD following capture. While this is a useful technique to “dialing in” the exposure in controlled shooting environments, the practice of chimping during a live show can mean the difference between a portfolio worthy shot or the trash folder.
Regardless of ones preferred exposure mode when shooting live music, the artists movements and lighting treatment are ever changing. As a result, any time taken away from the viewfinder results in upwards of 10 missed frames for every second spent reviewing an image. As you return to the viewfinder you may have missed the shot of the evening while being greeted with an entirely new lighting treatment and artist position -requiring new framing, shooting positions, and camera settings
The Chump
“Chumping” is a self coined term which describes the act of extensive review and editing in the pit. Chumps in the pit will literally take a few frames, review their images on the camera’s LCD, zoom in to check sharpness and noise throughout the image, internally analyze and reflect upon their capture, delete unsatisfactory images, and make adjustments to their camera settings. At the extreme, I have even witnessed cell calls during this laborious process.
The Champ
The Champ refers to photographers who maximize their allotted shooting time during a live performance assignment. Champs demonstrate poise and familiarity with their gear spending 99.9% of their time with eye to the viewfinder. They never Chump, and review images in the sequestered downtime between sets or following their departure from the venue. Champs exist at all levels of technical ability and concern themselves with capturing as many “moments” as possible during the allotted 10-15 minute shooting period. They understand that a great moment, makes a great image and thus are every ready to capture the moment.
The more advanced Champs utilize their viewfinders heads up display including metering (with appropriate mental notes on meter vs reality) and adjust aperture and/or shutter and/or ISO accordingly with their own artistic interpretations. Champs understand shooting and editing are completely independent objectives and that the end result of editing is entirely dependent on the bounty of moments acquired in shooting,
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Love it! Although I don’t chump, I think I’ll stop chimping!!! LOL
YES! I am a CHAMP! I didn’t even know we had names for this.
The local “newspaper” photographers (I have nothing against them) have asked me “How do you know if you got a nice clean and sharp shot?” I know my cameras well, all of the setting are in the view finder and I can change them by feel so I will just find out when I get home.
Great Post! This is something that has been heavy on my mind lately and I notice it everywhere I see people shooting. I just saw this happen at a UFC PPV event where this photographer took a shot, stopped and looked at the viewfinder and then repeated that sequence over and over… Some fights have lasted as little as 7 seconds, which means that this person may have missed the entire fight!
By the way, I am SO envious (and glad for you) about the Maiden call you recently received. As someone who has seen at least one Maiden show from every tour they have done with Bruce Dickinson, I would give my right (or left) nut to get that chance – maybe one day… I can’t wait to see the photos!
@Ray – You are right on. In any live performance photography (concerts, sporting, etc) the moments that make a compelling photograph happen very quickly – in hundredths of a second. Better not blink. Shoot first, edit later ;-).
Re: Iron Maiden, that was a misplaced tweet re: a Jeremy Cowart thread about what the voices in your head are telling you about your photography. For me it was some positive visualization. Encouraging to know a few friends think I could pull it off. Now to get the Maiden guys to follow along! That would truly be a dream assignment. One day.
-A
I hear what your saying, but when I’m shooting a show it seems like I’m in a different venue all the time.. how can you know if your totally destroying the highlights if periodically you don’t take a quick look at your highlight warning on the LCD? I shoot manual, all f2.8 lens.. start around ISO 800 1/160 f2.8 and adjust from there based on what my highlight warning is telling me… Is there a trick I’m missing on how to know how bright the spots are or other stage lighting without clipping all the highlights?
David – Of course, a quick momentary glance at the histogram would not cause me to ridicule ;-). On occasion with very tricky lighting I will do the same. I tend to do this when switching bodies as I’m not shooting at that time. For example as I remove the mid range zoom and bring the long range to my eye, take a quick glance at the histogram on the back of the camera. More importantly is learning to trust (and not at times) your in-camera meter in the viewfinder, and know how it is going to expose based on the meter reading. Of course, there are some artistic liberties to take to intentionally blow out part of an image, or to allow for some motion blur, etc. In your example, spot metering on the brightest part of the frame will give you a good example of proper metering for the highlights if you want to expose for them. Generally I meter off the artists face or point of interest in the frame and adjust accordingly. To this day I analyze my EXIF data for every shot I like and every one that I dislike to continually understand what I did both correct and incorrect in those situations relative to what I wanted to do.
-A
wheew… I’m glad you work similar to me.. hate to be in the pit with you someday and you give me grief for all three songs.. :-)
I like you try to spot meter off the artist face in an attempt to nail that exposure and let the rest fall where it may..I got a ton to learn! and as for my in-camera meter.. when I get a “real” camera I’ll learn to trust it.. All I have is an Ol’ nikon d80.. and for sure I don’t trust it.. it tends to over expose everything if I go by the meter..
Hey would you be willing to do a tutorial on your blog about how to read a histogram for concert shooting? I use only the feature that blinks where you’ve blown the highlights.. as I said… so much to learn.. thanks!
David – re: a historgram tutorial. Certainly. Different photographers have different opinions on using the highlights view vs the histogram view. I prefer the histogram as I’ve tended to memorize the the histogram and various lighting treatments and know what I’m looking for. It would make for a nice post. Thanks for the recommendation!
-A
Hi Allen, i have just been directed to your site from Glyn Dewis’ blog. This is the first blog of yours i have read and its great, absolutely hit the nail on the head, know your kit and don’t waste valuable time. I am at the beginning of reading through your blogs with great anticipation.
Kind regards
Steve Porter
Steve -
Thank you very much for stopping by and for taking the time to comment. I look forward to more of your opinions as well as checking out your own work!
-A
[...] A good example of how valuable a fast wide angle is in situations like this. Note the histogram “quick chimp” at 7:32 as well checking the [...]