Hey and Merry Christmas Concert goers,

First off fair warning this could be a bit technical and boring but For those that are serious about having a good fixed lense Concert going camera without security telling you to put it down well this camera gets my endorsement.

I get asked alot what camera I used for a certain concert review they've seen from me,  The short answer usually always has been one of my DSLR's with a F2.8 zoom lense.   Back in my early days of concert going I had a pretty decent point and shoot  Canon S2is ( heck a couple of those not so awesome tack sharp pics made my portfolio here on my zenfolio, caught some cool moments with that camera )  Now at that point I did'nt know much about photography and that point and shoot did not have a F2.8 lense so I did not get the proper shutterspeeds to freeze all the onstage action,  lots of blurred hands and faces in those early days of concert Road trips with my friends but it was a ok starter camera back in the day.  btw a tech note I never used a flash then or never.  many many reasons thats a no no in concert photography.

So maybe 4 years ago my Canon S2 died and I never bought a replacement point and shoot, I thought I'd never need the need to use a point and shoot since I started using DSLR's with my first being the Canon 40D in 07.   I thought if I'm going to a concert I'm gonna sneak in my DSLR's from here on out, but that changed for this Concert as the last time I was at this Venue the huntington center for a show they told me to put down my 5DIII.  Being I had a close pit ticket I wanted to try to get good shots of Danielle again & Thomas and Brett I've never seen before so I wanted my first show with them to be memorable with hopefully good concert photography,  so I rented this camera to avoid the probabe hassle this night

here it is and where I rented it from

http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/sony/cyber-shot/sony-cyber-shot-rx10

I rented it for 3 days only for the reason of using it for this Concert you saw me post here on my blog a few days ago. I received it two days prior to the show, tested it out, took it work used it throughout the day, testing it alot at concert settings which is wide open f2.8 and ISO's of 800 or 1000,  in show those usually yield me shutterspeeds of 1/320 or 1/400 or higher  which gives me sharp concert photo's.   I ran the camera through its paces  got up early photographed the sunrise tried all the tricks and knowledge I know and the camera did pretty well, looked at the files on my computer later that night I was excited about the show after test day.

Leading into this I thought about renting a Canon point and shoot for this night as thats what all my Camera Gear is. I'm used to there menu's and such on there camera's  but then I thought you know what I'm gonna see what all this hype is about with Sony sensors and saw that this RX10 had a Carl Zeiss lense  which is a premium lense maker  and the lense is f2.8 through out its 28-200 zoom range.   I'd say for all you concert goers that like to sit close to the stage, I'd say 10 rows or closer on the floor that this zoom range of 28-200mm is good enough to get proper full frame photo's,  no not up the nose pictures of your favorite dream artist  but properly composed shots of the artists.

All these pictures from this show were shot in manual mode (which I always do for Concerts cause metering modes in TV or AV mode usually have a hard time keeping up with various brights and darkness's of stage lights  so I always choose to use Manual mode and control the 3 variables of F stop and shutterspeed and ISO.  Based on my previous awesomeness(modestly saying) with controlling concert light I'm usually spinning shutterspeed up or down based on stage lights to get the proper exposure.   but the F stop always stays at f2.8 and ISO like I said I usually leave between 800 and 1000.   I do check the histogram occasionally  throughout the night to see if its too dark or light  but most of the time I'm shooting from the hip and adjusting shutterspeeds to what I know from previous shows and stage light brightness.  

Using the camera this night was a little dissapointing and I felt like my timing was off  for one main reason ,  the auto focus in the viewfinder which I looked through %100 of the time this night I never used the LCD screen, but the focus system was a pretty large green box and not a single focus point like that of my DSLR's . you could not move that big focus block around with dials on the back of the camera. I had to lock focus on the face and recompose alot to get the compositions I wanted  and alot of the time the focus after I get it locked on the face then moved to recompose would fall off focus and lock onto something else like the mic stand or whatnot  soo my keeper rate was not great at all this night.  I Was a bit frustrated with it,   now granted I only have had this camera for 2 days prior and I thought I read the manual pretty good leading into the show at how to use the focus with it  but maybe I missed something. So maybe I need more practice or a little more understanding on the camera.  

I was also disappointed with looking at the files in the Noise performance at 800 and 1000   it took alot of fixing sometimes in post processing to get these files somewhat clean and color corrected,   The Carl Zeiss lense was most sharp at the middle to wide end of the zoom range,  and the zoomed in shots of the artists to my eyes and did not sharpen up nicely at all in post processing  so I think this camera/lense combo is a no buy for me atleast for concert use at the long zoom end.

I shot all these files in RAW and not Jpeg. %100 of the time I always use Raw  as I like to create a jpeg how I want it to look . & The processing of these colors left me a bit disappointed,  I was'nt happy with the colors of this Sensor and lense,  for a 20 megapixel camera and sensor I'd expect more from this sensor,   I've heard so much greatness about the DSLR Sony A7 and A7II  and its awesome dynamtic range and the reviews and photographers that use them do produce greatness with those camera's but it looks like this sensor on this point and shoot RX10 did'nt get its same technology in sensor tech as the A7's.   I just was'nt happy with processing these files  even the sharp wide files I still did'nt get enough out of the colors.  I have better files coming off my 2007 bought old 10 megapixel Canon 40D  than with what I saw with this RX10.    maybe its just this camera and lense and sensor is not sharp wide open at f2.8 and performs better in better light and higher apertures. Or maybe there's a huuuuge difference in DSLR tech senors and point and shoot sensors from Sony,  its just there is not much price difference in this RX10 and DSLR's out there. granted its a smaller camera and that appeals to many consumers with not carrying around a huge DSLR with a couple lenses. Sometimes you need to pack light and this camera fits that Market. 

Going back to the RAW files thing, concert goers if you buy this camera, it might behave different if you use Jpeg instead of raw,  let the camera create the Jpeg in camera,  it might be a awesome file,  check out my pics in my concert review,  many look pretty good right well? you can get those pics as well,  if you shoot raw you'll have to do alot of post processing to get cool shots like some of those.  but try out jpeg first at your first show and go from there.

This camera checks all the boxes for you concert goers,  decent zoom within 10 rows, just use those settings I use and happy composing

My  personal take is me being biased and only wanting to use my DSLR's for any picture I take is I would not buy this RX10 for 1 reason   this Camera is almost $900   for a high end point and shoot with a Carl Zeiss lense  I would expect a bit more.  And for $900 I could buy a new lense or something fancy for my DSLR's.

My review is for the RX10 here but there is a a Mark II version (Sony RX10II) of this camera out there and its $1300   and before this review I did'nt research that one to see if they improved on things with noise and focusing.  but its out there and improved probally, google it up,  it does shoot 4K video I read and it sounds impressive,   instead of using those camera phones in the verticle position and getting and posting crappy video's  how bout stepping up to a awesome Concert camera and get proper HD or 4K video's of your fav artists. sure its at a price of $1300, it is all in what you want. I don't shoot video's as my art is creating stills  but this new Mark II could be your ticket to awesome video's and probally better pics then what I did with the RX10 here.

here's a direct link to my Concert review on my blog here,  I'll save you a backbutton click

http://captainstevephotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2015/12/suits-and-boots-tour-toledo-danielle-bradbery-thomas-rhett-brett-eldredge

I am writing and posting this on Christmas Eve  So I say from Everyone here at CaptainSteve photography(me)