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General discussion

Camera For Concerts - Good in low light with good zoom?

by tightsoundmusic May 26, 2010 11:14PM PDT

Trying to spend less than $500 and nothing with a detachable lens. I have read other posts, but they seem to be outdated. What is a great camera for concerts? I will be taking pictures from within the crowd. Performs well in low light conditions and has good optical zoom w/ image stabilization.

Some cameras I've been looking at:
Canon G11 or G10
Canon A650
Sony WX1
Canon Powershot S90
Nikon L110 (currently have a Nikon I don't like)
Canon SX20is

Are any of these recommended and are there any others that I should consider. Thank you!

Discussion is locked

8 Posts
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can't help you with zoom
by kalel33-20416052469708587370302374692233 May 27, 2010 5:57AM PDT

Out of those that you had shown, the best one for what you need is the Canon S90, but it only has a 3x zoom. There is no point and shoot that does real well in low light but especially there isn't one that doesn't do anything other than poor in low light and has a large optical zoom.

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to: Camera For Concerts - Good in low light with good zoom?
by MarkatNite May 27, 2010 12:00PM PDT

The problem is that "fast" (good in low light), stabilized, telephoto lenses are expensive. Like several thousand dollars expensive. It's like that saying, "Good, fast, cheap; pick two." So you can get good low light and cheap--S90 or Samsung TL500(EX1)--or good low light and zoom--a DSLR w/ 200mm+, f2.8 or faster lens--or zoom and cheap--a superzoom compact. But all three together, not so much.

Personally, I'd go with either the S90 or TL500 and try to get closer to the stage. Actually, I'm planning to buy a TL500 (over the S90 because of the full tilt-swivel LCD which is really helpful when shooting over the heads/arms/hands of the people in front of you, and as a bonus, the Tl500'S lens is slightly faster) to supplement my GH1 for concert photography.

Mark

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CANNON SX200IS
by ruddyjm May 27, 2010 8:49PM PDT

I used this at a concert pictures came out great 12x zoom. Was only able to get this camera on line, don't know if it finally got to the stores.

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Can you show examples?
by kalel33-20416052469708587370302374692233 May 28, 2010 4:23AM PDT

It'd be really surprising to see a megazoom point and shoot give photos that weren't somewhat blurry and that are sharp. Can you link to some that you might have in Flikr, because all I've ever seen were pretty blurry pictures at concerts with those style of cameras.

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Samsung TL500 / Canon S90/S95
by rkprice10 Nov 17, 2010 1:39PM PST

Hello! I've been going through and reading a lot of the forums here. I've been trying to find a good camera buy for concert photography and also general photography, including macro stuff.

Do you happen to have any examples of these two cameras and their zoom capabilities?

Becca

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re: Samsung TL500 / Canon S90/S95 samples.
by MarkatNite Nov 18, 2010 10:30AM PST

Hi Becca,

Unfortunately, I don't have any S90/95 samples (because, as noted up thread, I strongly prefer a tilt-swivel LCD for concert photography). But I do have samples from my TL500 and my GH1 (w/ 20mm f1.7 and 50mm f1.8 lens)--both of which have a tilt-swivel LCD--posted here (note: full res files can be several megs):

http://cid-81a30a4274cf90fe.photos.live.com/browse.aspx/Ladies80sIII

Pics were taken from the second row with both cameras set to WB4000, ISO400, aperture wide open, shutter 1/125 (although the placement of the shutter speed control on the TL500 proved a little too convenient for me, so I did inadvertently alter it a couple of times).

Personally, if I had to do it again right now, I'm not sure what I would buy. From what I've seen, the S90 (and I would assume S95) have better image quality than the TL500, and also cost less. On the other hand, the TL500 has the tilt-swivel LCD which is really helpful, especially for women (or shorter men--I'm only 5'10").

Ya know, if you can afford the TL500 and can do without the tilt-swivel LCD, you might want to give the GF1 + 20mm f1.7 kit a look. With the GF2 coming out, the price of that package has dropped to ~$600. Add an adapter ($30) and a cheap, bright 50mm (~$100) and you'd basically have my GH1 setup without the HD video. (50mm lens will be manual focus only, tho.)

Mark

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O/T
by PistonCupChampion Nov 18, 2010 2:16PM PST

5"10" is a short man?!

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On and off topic
by MarkatNite Nov 19, 2010 8:29AM PST

OK, 5'10" isn't short, but it also isn't tall. So average, I guess. But my point was that, with a tilt-swivel LCD, I don't have to worry about being behind someone who's taller than me (which has happened).

And as long as I'm posting, c/p of something I said elsewhere that Becca might find helpful:

To give you some idea of the respective Fields of View at certain focal lengths at a concert, the following were all taken from ~15 rows back w/ my GH1 (note the full size files are ~4 MB so don't click on a pic if you're on a slow internet connection, but you might want to see how much you could crop the first pic which is only ~1.2 MB):

http://cid-81a30a4274cf90fe.photos.live.com/self.aspx/KISS%20in%20CA/587.JPG

was taken with the 20mm f1.7

http://cid-81a30a4274cf90fe.photos.live.com/self.aspx/KISS%20in%20CA/592.JPG

was taken with a (Canon) 50mm f1.8

http://cid-81a30a4274cf90fe.photos.live.com/self.aspx/KISS%20in%20CA/595.JPG

was taken with a (Canon) 100mm f2.0

(Note the GH1 has a Crop Factor of 2, so the full frame equivalents are double the listed values. i.e. 40mm, 100mm and 200mm)

Mark

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