Kamelot – Bochum, Zeche – 19.06.2009

Daniel — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:15:23 +0000

Kamelot is one of the few Power Metal Bands that I still listen too. Mostly because I got into them when I was still listening to a lot of Power Metal (which isn’t the case nowadays), so when ever they are in the area I try to see them live. During the last couple of years they got better and better and their Singer Roy Kahn has the form of his live. A couple of years ago he missed more then a couple of notes during a set, but now he pretty much nailes all those notes right on. Next to that, the Band always puts on a great show and the people go crazy, the energy in the hall is always intense, espiacally when playing in such a small venue as the Zeche.
A nice surprise was the guest appereance of Epica Singer Simone Simons. Not only does she stands out with her red hair, but for a girl she really knows how to use them metal-style.

Shooting Notes
While shooting Xandria a couple minutes earlier this evening I was really scared of having to deal with such bad light again, but the whole battery of spots was turned on, so there was much more light then before. Still not enough, but better then before.
The Lens was the 24-70 again and later the 70-200 from the balcony. This time I was able to keep the ISO most of the time at 800, which is my normal shooting mode on concerts with the 40D, and I got acceptable shutter speeds. Do to the fact, that the frontlight was missing again, as soon as the guys got close to the edge of the stage their faces went black. Bassplayer Sean Tibbitt was leaning into my lense and Roy Khan was directly singing into it, but I wasn’t able to use the images do to the fact, that their faces where pitch black as soon as they leaned forward.

Kamelot - Zeche, Bochum - 19.06.2009

Xandria – Zeche, Bochum – 19.06.2009

Daniel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:47:12 +0000

Together with Kamelot Xandria were playing at the Zeche. The last time I saw the Band live is now quite a while back… to be exact a little more then 5 years. At that time they just started out and where on tour with their debut album. A lot has happened since then and their where a couple of line up chances. The biggest difference since seeing them back in 2004 is probably the new singer Kerstin Bischof. Kerstin seems to be a completly different type then the previous singer Lisa. While Lisa had a more laid back stage attitude, Kerstin is way more active and moving all over the small area that the band had. She also did quite some headbanging which actually looked pretty elegant.

Shooting Notes
It was dark… really really dark. During the set of Xandria their was really little stage light and nearly no front light at all, worst part though was the fact, that we weren’t allowed to use flash, which made shooting the Band really hard. I got the ISO up to 1600 and was shooting wide open at a shutter speed of as little as a 1/100. In a normal Portrait Situation a 1/100 is not bad, but the band was moving all the time, which made that not really fun. Next to that to get to a 1/100 I had to underexpose the shots by 1-1/2 stops and pull up the exposure afterwards in post. After reviewing the shots on the computer most of them turned out to be blurry, but I was shooting in high speed continuous mode so there where one or two in each set that where usable.

I was shooting in front of the stage with the Canon 24-70 f2.8, after the first three songs where over I pulled out the 70-200 and got some more images out of the audience. Do to the fact that there is a balcony of sort in the Zeche, I was able to get some nice shots out of that. During the shoot I was really missing the Tokina 11-16 which is still out for repairs, the 24-70 was just not wide enough in a lot instances and the extra mm would have made this much sweeter.

Xandria - Zeche, Bochum - 19.06.2009

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Kamelot – Bochum, Zeche – 19.06.2009

Xandria – Zeche, Bochum – 19.06.2009