Another year, and another concert. This time, I was able to bring the Nikon 1 V2 to the show! The Who performed “Quadrophenia,” and I took a bunch of shots with the Nikon 1 V2 and the 30-110mm 1-Nikkor lens.

Tips for Concert Photography

The biggest challenge for concerts and theater photography is that most of the stage area is very dark, and the people are brightly lit. Therefore, what I like to do is use Manual Exposure so that the meter isn’t being constantly fooled. Take a spot-meter reading off of the subject if you can, and dial in those settings. Don’t worry that most of the time your camera will show a gross underexposure. For this shot, I had the V2 set at 1/200s f/6.3 and ISO 1600. As you can see, the exposure is pretty much right on. The black background is black, as it should be, and Pete Townshend is well-exposed.

Unless the lighting changes dramatically (as when the house lights come up), using manual exposure is a great way to capture concerts. Of course, with the V2, you can also capture video. Here’s The Who performing “Is It In My Head” from the show Feb 12th.

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