Tribute Bands

The INXS Show at Trak

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The Australian INXS Tribute Band played a fantastic live show at the Trak Lounge in Toorak on May 30th.

Photos By Passy covered this event as the band’s photographer of choice.

I went along with my standard Sony A-77 setup, and I also took a travel photographer friend along, (who has never shot a Band before), and gave him the Sony Alpha-55 to shoot with.

The band put on a great performance to a packed house, and we were delighted to be the guys capturing it in images for them.

We had access to all areas, including the VIP Bar, as well as the band’s backstage room. Trak Live Lounge certainly is a great venue with superb stage lighting, great video effects, and well designed tiered viewing areas.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of The Australian INXS Show at Trak

Further information about The Doors Show can be found at their Facebook Page:

The Australian INXS Show Facebook Page

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8

Sony Alpha A-55 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8

This shoot was done at ISO 1000 on the A-77, using the 17-50mm F2.8 lens with a shutter speed of 1/100 to 1/125.

We probably could have gone down to ISO 800 or lower for some of the shots, but chose to use ISO 1000 for the whole shoot.

The A-55 was set to SCN Sports Mode, and so all shots on this camera were done in auto mode.

The A-77 produced better shots than the A-55; however we got some good close ups on the A-55 using the 24-70mm F2.8 lens, and we were able to make use of these in the final album.

The lighting was so good that there was minimal photoshopping required of the images from both cameras.

All that was done was adding a bit of gamma, and sharpening up some of the shots.

The INXS Band is off to Darwin and Sydney over the next couple of months, but we hope to catch them again in Melbourne sometime in 2014.

The Doors Show was the support act for the INXS Show, just in case you were thinking you may have seen some of this write up previously.

We would definitely like to shoot at the Trak Lounge again, it is a great venue, with very good lighting and the staff and management are extremely professional.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

Tribute Bands

The Doors Show at Trak

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This was a great show at Trak Live Lounge Bar in Toorak.

I took a travel photographer friend along, (who has never shot a Band before), and gave him the Sony Alpha-55 to shoot with.

We had all areas access, including the VIP Bar, and it was a great venue with superb stage lighting.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of The Doors Show at Trak

Further information about The Doors Show can be found at their Facebook Page:

The Australian Doors Show Facebook Page

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8

Sony Alpha A-55 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8

This shoot was done at ISO 1000 on the A-77, using the 17-50mm F2.8 lens with a shutter speed of 1/100 to 1/125.

We probably could have gone down to ISO 800 or lower for some of the shots, but chose to use ISO 1000 for the whole shoot.

The A-55 was set to SCN Sports Mode, and so all shots on this camera were done in auto mode.

The A-77 produced better shots than the A-55; however we got some good close ups on the A-55 using the 24-70mm F2.8 lens, and we were able to make use of these in the final album.

The lighting was so good that there was minimal photoshopping required of the images from both cameras.

We would love to shoot at the Trak Lounge again, it is a great venue, with vgood lighting and is very professionally managed.

 

Subscribe

If you enjoy visiting Photos By Passy, why not get a free subscription to the website.

You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

Special Events

Johnny’s Christening

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This was the first Baptism we have ever photographed, and overall it went quite well.

It was not easy getting Family Shots in the Church, and in hindsight I should have changed lenses at some stage and used my larger 24-70mm low light zoom lens; rather than just using the 17-50mm F2.l8 lens for the entire shoot.

Apart from the Church Ceremony, there was also an afterwards luncheon at a Winery, which required lots of “People Pictures” to be taken.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Johnny’s Christening

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Sony HVL-F43M Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Flat Blade Diffuser

I needed to travel as light as possible for this shoot, as I was wearing a suit to the function. The flat Blade Diffuser was great and easily fitted in my pocket, with the Flash in the other inside suit jacket pocket.

The lighting in the church was excellent, as in the early afternoon there was great filtered sunlight streaming in, and there was no need to use any flash.

Shots inside the Church were taken at ISOs of 800 and 1250. Any over exposure was then corrected in Photoshop.

Generally we are finding that over exposure is not a huge problem, as the camera catches the detail, and it is then just a matter of toning it all down using Photoshop.

However, under exposure is a problem, as less detail seems to have been captured by the camera sensor. These shots do not brighten up so well in Photoshop.

However, we are doing all of our shots in JPEG format. My friend Scotty advises me that if you shoot in Raw, there is in fact more detail that is captured; even if the shot is under exposed. Now that we are getting our head around shooting fully in manual mode; the next step will be to learn all about shooting in Raw format. We need to get Adobe Lightroom, and then shoot an event in both Raw and Jpeg; and then compare the results. This is definitely on the 2014 To Do List.

For the after function, the Flash was used indoors with the Gamma Diffuser and worked well.

Daylight shots of people outside were taken at ISO 100 to ISO 400.

There was a bit of a problem with large Group Shots having some people, especially those on the ends out of focus. I was using apertures of 4.0 to 5.0, but maybe I even need to go higher for large groups.

Overall the shoot went well, and people were happy with the online photo album which was produced.

 

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Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

Cover Bands

Munster Terrace – May 23

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This was our first photoshoot of Munster Terrace playing at Beaches of Mornington.

These guys are all seasoned veterans, and it really showed in their slick performance of popular covers from the eighties.

Best of all they played some Angels and Deep Purple numbers, which were superbly executed, and thoroughly enjoyed by the enthusiastic crowd.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Munster Terrace Band May 23rd 2014

Further information about Single Income can be found at their Web Page:

Munster Terrace Website

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8
Sony 35mm F1.8
Sony HVL-F43M Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser
Panasonic Lumix LX7 Compact Camera

On this shoot I used the Lumix LX7 for the Non-Flash Shots of the Band with the crowd, and it is a great compact camera for low light.

However for the Band shots without flash I used the Sony F1.8 35mm Portrait Lens, and got some great shots of the drummer like the one shown at the beginning of this write up.

Flash Photography was done using a Gary Fong Blade Diffuser. It looks like a triangular cheese grater, but does a great job for Party People shots, and it is becoming my “Go To” diffuser.

I think the Blade type diffuser is slightly better than the Gary Fong Lightsphere Diffuser, but both do a great job on Party People shots.

This was a really fun shoot because there was a good crowd at the venue, and lots of people were jumping in straight away wanting their picture taken.

All shots were done with the A-77 in “M” fully manual mode, and the Sony Flash also in Manual Mode and set to “50mm” for flash beam width.

 

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You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

Fundraising Events

Luke Batty Fundraiser

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This event was a great day at the “Beaches of Mornington” venue, with Charity Auctions, Peninsula Band Host Musicians, Face Painters, and others including myself from PBP Photos, who all willingly donated their time for a very worthy cause.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Luke Batty Fundraiser Day

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8
Sony HVL-FM43 Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Flash Diffuser
Panasonic Lumix LX7

This shoot was done free of charge for the Luke Batty Foundation, in addition to a cash donation which was made by Photos By Passy.

It was a challenging four hour shoot as it covered doing photos of Bands, People, and Children in daylight conditions, and then in low light conditions indoors and outdoors towards the end of the event. All shots were done in Manual Mode, and so there was a lot of changing of settings throughout the event.

This all resulted in nearly 100 images making their way into the final Flickr Photo Album of the event.

 

Children wiggle around an incredible amount while having their photo taken, and so I set the Sony A-77 to Multiple Shots mode, where it would take four shots at a time for each picture.

This meant that there were a lot more shots to go through after the event, and it also used up a lot of battery power during the event, and I was down to 3% battery power by the end of it.

However, having the four images for every shot I took was fabulous for the children photos, as I was able to pick the image where everything was right, and I would have missed out on a lot of shots had I not used the multiple shot function.

I am really liking the Gary Fong Flat Blade “Cheese Grater” styled Gamma Diffuser. It was designed especially for the Sony A-77, and it works really well. It is also very easy to carry around in a jacket pocket. I am starting to prefer it to the Gary Fong Collapsible Light Sphere, but both Fong Diffusers seem to do a much better job than a normal Stofen Diffuser.

 

One problem I am noticing in Photoshop, is that when smart sharpening is applied to a flash image where there are the nice little white “catch lights” in a person’s eyes, it tends to make these white catch light dots far too intense. I think in future I am going to have to use the oval selection tool to select both eyeballs, and then somehow select the inverse of this, so that the eyeballs and catch lights are totally excluded from sharpening.

 

The shots from the Lumix LX7 Low Light Compact Camera, which were taken while there was some daylight coming into the venue, were very disappointing. None of these LX7 shots made it into the final album. I am not sure whether or not I had some settings incorrect, but the focusing on them was not good, as well as the exposure being unsuitable.

However once it got darker, and the musicians were playing under colored lights; the LX7 shots came up really well, and these are the shots near the very end of the album.

 

Overall the shoot was a great learning experience, and I feel very happy to have contributed my time and energy to such a marvelous fundraising event.

 

Subscribe

If you enjoy visiting Photos By Passy, why not get a free subscription to the website.

You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy