Back before Dua Lipa was famous she played in the Corner Hotel in Melbourne in what is a low-fi music venue. Yes, sub $40 tickets in 2018 with the now mega star Dua Lipa.
Not only that. At the Corner Hotel you don't have allocated seating so if you arrive early you can get right up front and have a view you can only dream of at larger venues where you often end up looking at the screens rather than the actual performer.
Avoiding an over zealous bouncer or security guard is what makes the Pentax Q a perfect camera for live music gigs. It looks like a toy camera and at around 200g, its tiny size means you can take it anywhere.
Of course unallocated seating means that if you have managed to get up to the front of the stage you don't want to lose your spot. This means you do get somewhat restricted in the types of shots you can take as you can't move around the stage.
It is however a small price to pay to get a prime concert and photography spot.
In the low light conditions you will encounter I find the minimum usable shutter speed to get usable shots is around 1/60 second. Any slower just isn't feasible to get any sharp shots. Depending on the musician 1/60 second will get you quite a few good images.
Dua Lipa is quite the active performer even at this early stage of her career. What this means that lots of my images have motion blur. This can't be helped but if you take enough shots you still get enough keepers.
With such a small sensor you typically have to restrict iso to 800 or thereabouts. Yeah, higher iso would be handy but this is a camera released in 2011 with a small sensor. There are tradeoffs but that is what photography often comes down to.
So it really comes down to the results. Anyway, from the displayed photo's they are good enough for me and make for a perfect memory.
The Pentax Q supports a high-speed continuous shooting mode, allowing you to capture up to 5 images in a sequence at a maximum speed of 5 frames per second. In a concert setting I use this all the time hoping to get a few keepers. You have to keep your expectations in check but depending on the lighting and how quickly the singer is moving you get some nice shots.
In a concert setting a few pix with some motion blur can also be used creatively if you know what you are doing. A bit of noise in the photo below but still worthy of taking.
And here's another motion blur shot with some grungy processing. Noisy yes, but still quite a cool image..
And the final pic!
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