Back at the Cathouse again this weekend. This time, for a doubler, as You Me At Six were doing a couple of shows before the club opened. They are fairly popular amongst the usual clientele, so the place was packed.
It has been a while since I shot any kind of gig, and it was nice to be back in the pit. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have to contend with only having access for the first three songs (‘first three, no flash’), and whilst it is still a bit of a ridiculous rule, I do also enjoy the challenge of getting a good number of quality pictures from different angles within such a short time frame.
I took three cameras with me. The Sony A7 with Sigma 30mm f1.4 (on APS-C mode so that it came in at around 45mm effective focal length); Sony ZV-E10 with a Viltrox 23mm f1.4 (APS-C sensor, so around about 35mm effective focal length); and the Canon 5D with a 50mm 1.4 EF. I ended up using the Sony bodies for the gig, and left the 5D for the usual club stuff.
I had initially expected to need a longer focal length, but as it turns out the band were very far forward on the stage, so during the last song I switched out the 23mm on the ZV-E10 with a 7Artisan 7.5mm f2.8 diagonal fisheye lens to get some wider shots that included the crowd. Even though it’s manual focus, it worked fairly well. It can’t take filters though, which means no protective UV glass on the front, which I definitely miss in situations like this.
It’s good to be back doing this kind of thing again – especially as I got to the point after years of traipsing around festivals and cold venues where I didn’t enjoy it at all. In some ways I wish I still had my old double 5D setup with L glass, but it would be completely unnecessary for the limited photo work I do now.
Below are a selection of the usual club shots. I miss my battery grip since the electrical contacts failed, and I am very tempted to pick up an old full frame 1DS.
