Friday the 13th is usually a day people think of as bad luck but that wasn’t the case for me last week. April 13th, 2012 fell on a Friday and Steel Pulse was playing at the Belly Up Tavern and I would be there with camera in hand. That makes Friday the 13th a really good day, at least for me.
The Belly Up is a great club located in Solana beach but photographing there is not the easiest of tasks.
- There is no photo pit.
- The lights are usually rather subdued tending toward solid color washes which look good but are tough to shoot under
- There is no photo pit
- Sold out equals very crowded
On the plus side, since I was there with the band, I was given the run of the place and was allowed to shoot all night. This meant that I didn’t have to rush the shoot and could position myself in a variety of locations around the club making sure I got as much coverage as possible. Since the show was sold out it was a packed house so I went with a single camera and two lens setup. I used the Nikon D4 and the 24-70mm f/2.8 and the 780-200mm f/2.8. I set the D4 to ISO 3200 and f/2.8 and then just spent the rest of the night adjusting the shutter speed between 1/250 and 1/400 second.
Here is the full gallery… enjoy
Amazing shots, beautiful colours all around, and crisp focus. Loving this whole set.
Nice work…. It’d be wonderful even if my D300 was even vaguely usable past 2500 ISO then I could get a shutter speed faster than 1/100 at my local venue and use my 70-200 2.8…. If wishes were new cameras 🙂
No photo pit or anything either 🙂
Great Kelby Training course you did too….
Gorgeous shots! D4? Absolutely stunning available light pictures. Thank you! The band must be quite happy!