rapturedmind photography » Dortmund

Juli – Dortmund, FZW – 24.11.2010

Daniel — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 16:55:26 +0000

Being able to shoot Juli this week was something I really wanted to do for a long time now. I’m a huge fan of the Band and so when the opportunity came up I just couldn’t pass it. After being away for 2 years now, the Band played in smaller venues then during the ‘Dieses Leben’ Tour and so they were in the FZW in Dortmund, which is a really nice and comfortable club. The first Minute into the set it was clear that the Audience would enjoy this evening. The Band played an intense and great show with an awesome sound and a great lightshow.

Shooting Notes
Even though watching the lightshow from a distance was great, shooting in this light was pretty tough. The Band relied on LED lights which were blasting over the stage from the sides with little frontlight which was mostly focused on Singer Eva Briegel. With those LED lights, you had to be really careful with setting your exposure, because every little mistake resulted in blown out highlights and purple fringing that couldn’t really be fixed in post processing. Only good thing about this light was, that it was at least bright enough to shoot with a fast shutterspeed and lower ISO. I was using ISO 800, just bumping it up to 1250 when shooting Guitarplayers Simon Triebel and Jonas Pfetzing at the side of the stage, when they went out of the direct beam of the LEDs, and a shutter speed of 1/250 and up. The Aperture was set between f2.8 and f4 changing it during the set, trying to get the intense light under control.

Juli - Dortmund, FZW - 24.11.2010

Mikroboy – Dortmund, FZW – 24.11.2010

Daniel — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 16:55:15 +0000

Opening for Juli this evening at the FZW in Dortmund were Mikroboy. The Band from Berlin/Hamburg playes Indie Musik with a little electronic edge to it. With their sound the fitted great along the little more pop oriented Juli. The Band played a great and fun show to watch and I definitely had a lot of fun shooting them.

Shooting Notes
The stagelight was really nice and even though I had to deal with the same LED Spots coming from the side of the stage I later would curse when shooting Juli, the light was a bit brighter then with the headliner. Also during some parts of their Songs, the Band got white light on them from the front and the back, making it a lot easier to deal with the greens and blues that dominated during their gig. I was shooting at f4 most of the time, using a shutter speed of 1/250 (and up) and an ISO setting of 800. This allowed me to get the Canon 10-22 out and take some wide angle shots.

Mikroboy - Dortmund, FZW - 24.11.2010

Sonata Arctica – Dortmund, FZW – 02.12.2009

Daniel — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:15:17 +0000

Finally it was time for Sonata Arctica to enter the stage. The last time I saw the Band is now quite a while back, so I was excited to hear some new material. I don’t know if it was just me, but as soon as the Band started playing I got bored pretty fast. Somehow there was no energy in the show and the band was pretty slow. Also the setlist seemed to just contain midtempo songs. The people in the first couple of rows disagreed with me though, judging by their cheers, so I guess it just wasn’t my day. I was staying for another couple of songs after I got out of the pit shooting the Band, but decided then to leave, because I couldn’t get into the mood of the show.

Really big thanks goes out to Jani of ‘Dice of Fate’ who got me set up this evening and Antti Hokkala and Pasi Kauppinen of Winterborn to arrange the Pass!

Shooting Notes
The light in the FZW was just weird. As I entered the hall, I was still in a happy mood looking at the stage, because it seemed to be quite bright and the lightrig looked pretty good. As soon as the show started and I was in the pit, I had trouble getting my head around the light. It was actually way darker then I suspected and there wasn’t that much front light. I was shooting wide open at f2.8 and a shutter speed between 1/125 and 1/160 which was pretty much on the verge I like operating on, also the minimum ISO I was using was 800 and I had to bumb that up a lot of times to 1600 to get enough light on the sensor (normally I try to stay at least below 1250 to not get over the Canon 40Ds Unity Gain ISO). This on the other end meant quite some work in postprocessing getting the noise in the images under control without destroying the sharpness and details in the files.
I was using the Canon EF 24-70 f2.8 for the most parts and got the Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 out during the last song to get some nice close-ups. The IS was a lifesaver here, shooting at the long end of the lens with really steady results. There are a lot of people that question the necessarity of image stabilization when doing concert photography… I’m always the opinion that it is worth the extra money, especially at small clubs.

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 02.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 03.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 02.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 03.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 02.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 03.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 02.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 03.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 02.12.2009

Sonata Arctica - Dortmund, FZW - 03.12.2009

Delain – Dortmund, FZW – 02.12.2009

Daniel — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:14:13 +0000

I got to confess, that I never heard of Delain before this show. As the Band entered the stage, I was thinking to myself ‘please, not another one of those female metal princess again’, but as soon as the show started, I was convinced pretty fast. There also seemed to be quite a lot of people in the audience wanting to see Delain for the noise and the cheers went up pretty dramaticly compared to the winterborn show. The band seemed to be enjoying the evening too and was giving the audience great feedback. While shooting the Band I was quite busy and wasn’t concentrating much on the emotions coming of the stage, but as I was looking at the frames afterwards, I couldn’t help noticing the intense glow coming from singer Charlotte. I don’t don’t know what that girl was doing during the day, but those pictures turned out so great that I was stunned looking at them.

Really big thanks goes out to Jani of ‘Dice of Fate’ who got me set up this evening and Antti Hokkala and Pasi Kauppinen of Winterborn to arrange the Pass!