Tips for Music Photography Settings

One of the most frequent questions I get from followers is for mentorship and teaching. As much as I’d love to have people shadow me, unless it’s a musician I photograph for frequently, it’s really tough to focus on the job at hand and teach someone else. Truthfully, during a show my mind is very much super focused to the point it’s almost empty like meditation. I am however, always happy to share my settings and my approach to music photography.

Live Music Photography Settings - Shutter, Aperture and ISO

When we’re photographing a concert, we’re in low light with unpredictable motion and lighting. Moments are fleeting, and unless I’m on tour, I’m not sure exactly when they’ll happen. That’s why I think it’s super important to watch the musicians and be able to anticipate when a moment will happen in time with the song they’re playing.

I keep my shutter speed fast. 1/250 second is my base shutter speed for concert photography. I’ll drop to 1/125 if it’s a super dark club, but 1/250 gets the job done most of the time. For photographing drummers, I try to speed it up just a bit more to really freeze their drum sticks.

Most of the time, I’ll keep my aperture as high as possible (1.4, 1.8 or 2.8). I generally have my Sigma 14-24 2.8 A, Sigma 24-70 2.8 A, and Sigma 70-200 2.8 S for Sony Alpha A7iv with me. Unless the light is immaculate, I’m keeping it wide open. If I think there’s enough light to get a bit more depth of field and get another member in focus, I will do that selectively.

ISO is the big variable. I keep my ISO set to auto range from 100-whatever gets the job done. Ideally, I’d like to not go over ISO 2000 or 3200. If you have to go higher to properly expose the shot, you go higher. It’s the one setting you really can play with a lot when it comes to music photography settings.

Concert Photography Settings - Drive Mode, Metering Mode and More

I set my focusing mode to tracking. With the Sony a7iv (and most mirrorless cameras) the tracking focus is so impressive, you can bring your camera down for a moment, bring it back to the artist you’re photographing and the focus will instantly lock back on. It also helps for unexpected movement. I can grab focus on the subject then recompose without having to refocus.

I like my drive mode at high speed burst. Not every shot from a burst will hit every time, but it let’s me capture action and energy the way I want then create a GIF or pick my favorite of a series of shots.

When it comes to metering mode, I prefer to meter for my focus point rather than meter the entire screen or multiple spots. Often during concerts, the background is super bright with light or very dark if the lights are down for a moment. I can play with that in post as needed, but I really only care that my subject is metered properly. There’s enough dynamic range in most cameras these days to edit a bit and get the rest of it the way you want.

For my Sony a7iv’s I like setting my custom button on my lenses to put my camera into aps-c (crop mode). It gives you an instant 1.5 zoom on any lens. You do sacrifice some data in your file, but it effectively turns a 70-200 into a 70-350 for example. Even in crop mode, there’s more than enough data to crop even more and edit the way you want. This works especially well if there’s no photo pit or you’re shooting from the soundboard.

Music Photographer Settings - Find What Works For You

These settings are truly just a baseline that work for me. Just like style and composition, everything is subjective. For instance, when I’m the tour photographer for a band, I’ll experiment a lot more and just use primes or just a wide angle one show. I might just do long exposures for one show or shoot directly in black and white. Every concert and every photographer is different in what they like. As long as you know your camera very well and can change and adjust settings on a dime without having to think where that setting is, you’ll find what works for you.

If you have questions or comments about my suggested settings for photographing concerts, feel free to drop me a line!