I'm going to Rock Jam in Grand Junction again this year. Last year my pictures came out ok, but I would like them to be better this time around. On my XTi how high a ISO can I go before noise makes it unusable.
I better add this is for night time rock concerts, the day time ones should pose no problem.
In my opinion the noise is copable with in post processing at any ISO level, unless you are going to be blowing it up huge or something. My advice would be to obviously keep it as low as you can, but don't sacrifice shutter speed - dealing with noise is much easier than dealing with blur...
That 50mm/1.4 should serve you well if you can get close enough - I used my 50mm/1.8 at a festival in the summer and was pleased with the results. Watch that focus though - take the picture as quickly after focus-lock as you can. A lot of my pictures came out slightly out-of-focus because I spent to long focusing-composing-shooting, by which time either I or the performer had moved enough for focus to be lost with such a shallow D.O.F.
Granted I will be using the 50-1.4, But I also want to use the 70-200, F4L, and so far have never shot over 400 ISO. Hangs head, I wish I could go out and get a 5D.
Granted I will be using the 50-1.4, But I also want to use the 70-200, F4L, and so far have never shot over 400 ISO. Hangs head, I wish I could go out and get a 5D.
Just go shoot at 1600 right now, take it ouside and walk around with it. Then you can see if you mind the noise. If you expose right it will be fine. If you underexpose at 1600 and then try to bump it up in Post, it will look very noisy.
Noise is easy to deal with. Just use neat image or something similar. I shoot all my live music at 1600 ISO because sharpness is more important than anything. I shot Tea Leaf Green and George Clinton the other night at 1600, and everything looks great after a pass through neat image.
That 70-200 F4 is going to be tough with no IS especially at the 200 end. Shoot bursts, 4-5 frames at a time. You are bound to get a couple sharp ones.
remember, when you view it at 100% it will be noisy, but try not to look at it like that, when viewing it in your RAW program, just look at the whole picture.. you will like what you see.
Check out the image below - shot at iso1600 but when viewed like this no sign of noise sure it was noisy at 100%, but for real-world applications ISO 1600 is certainly usable.
I've had to hit ISO 800 a few times at weddings with the Rebel XT. And yes, I hate the noise when I view it at 100%. But I've got sharp photos and generally no one orders huge enlargements of the ceremony pics anyway.
I do only minimum noise reduction on images. I'd rather have a bit of noise than a Ken and Barbie wedding.
For concert photography, you can probably get by with lower ISO's if you find a good steady place (not getting bump around in the crowd) and can get away with shorter focal lengths. But, don't be scared to bump the ISO if you need.
