The AHFOD Stadium Tour Camera Thread

[I ran away]

Hey everyone, I am planning to buy a compact camera for the upcoming Coldplay concerts, specifically to take good videos. My phone's video function is pretty good in daylight but it just cannot deal with the very sparse and selective lighting during stadium shows. I'm sure I'm not the only one with that problem and the subsequent question of which (stadium-allowed !) camera to use.

 

So here is the question to those of you who have gone to AHFOD Tour stadium shows and like to take a lot of photos and especially videos: Which cameras do you use ? Tell us what you can recommend (or not recommend if you have made bad experiences with a particular model).

If you have sample videos or photos taken with your camera available online, feel free to share them so we can see for ourselves.

 

I have so far already heard the Canon Powershot G7X as a recommendation, it is a bit expensive though. Curious as to what you all suggest !

[oldiefan]

Starting this thread is such a good idea. It's something I'd like to know too.

My daughter has taken some pretty good videos with her Samsung Galaxy 7 ( last year). I'll be using my Samsung Galaxy J5 in Cardiff in July ( WOOHOO ! ) and I'm expecting pretty good results.

[I ran away]

I have the Galaxy S5 but the problem is that these phones just cannot deal properly with the stark contrast and selectiveness in stadium lighting.

Here is a (bad) example of my own; despite the fact that I was quite close to the band here and I filmed with the best video settings, the guys are mostly visible as white...shadows :joy:.

 

Did your daughter not have that problem with the S7 ?

[Nie]

My S7 was not taking great pictures. But I only used it in Amsterdam where I was sitting and the distance was a bit far.

[AMDB9]

I loved the pics and videos from my S7 at the concert. I was sitting far away too.

I really like my Nikon P510, but I didn't take it to a concert. It might be a little big for that, but the lens is not detachable, so it meets restrictions for cameras.

Also, sometimes it doesn't work well in low light.

If you want to see what kind of pictures it takes, check out @den_aviation on instagram.

[dieselbenz]

I have used a Nikon P500 on this tour and gotten some decent results. I'm not a particularly great photographer because 1) my hands shake and 2) I take pics in between jumping, singing, etc so they're kind of hit and miss and 3) I'm pretty casual about it and not knowledgeable about photography. The great thing about this camera is ZOOM, lots of it, 33X I think. So you can get pretty close even from the lower bowl. It's very hard to get good sharp pictures in low light though, especially when zoomed, but I think that will be the case with any point and shoot camera. The camera takes pretty good videos at close range but has serious shake when very zoomed. As mentioned I have mild tremors which are worse when I'm excited and tired, so mine are particularly bad. But from what I've read this is not a strong point of the camera either, stabilization while using a lot of zoom. That said, can't really complain because I don't expect perfect close ups from that far away. For the most part it's really nice, and I've been pleased with some of the photographs I've gotten. Someone who's a better photographer or has steadier hands can probably do better on both fronts. I have a lot of fun with it and that's really my only goal!

Here are my best photos, from Taiwan when I was close enough to get some nice shots.

The rest of my Flickr has some other shows (MIA Fest also from up front and MetLife and Philly from 100 and 200 levels). There are also some other bands' shows on there if you want other samples: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31264961@N02/albums/with/72157679279703094

Videos, this is my YT channel ... anything from the last two years is with this camera, with the exception of what should be obvious cell phone videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/savingchase

[jc90]

Speaking strictly as a phone enthusiast (as I suppose most people have a phone but perhaps not a dedicated camera), you might like a phone with optical image stabilization (OIS) to help with shaky hands. Luckily modern day iPhones and Samsungs (S line and Note line) have this (and I also suppose most of us have one of these 2 phones). Do a little research on your own phone by googling your phone name and OIS or something. I guess you can make it work if its a photo, but the difference will really be had in videos.

 

Along the same lines, most cameras on phones will lack quality in low light situations (with artifacting, noise, etc) despite what their adverts tell you, at least compared to a dedicated camera.

 

Switching gears to dedicated point-and-shoots, I recall shows in Korea having pretty high quality amateur shots. I'd suggest going to Youtube, clicking a video, seeing the quality of the video and if so, asking the uploader what camera they used.

[I ran away]

Thank you all for your comments and sorry for the late reply ! I took a look at your photos, checked out videos from Coldplay Seoul (great tip, thanks !) and did a lot of comparing, reading reviews and test results etc. In the end, I decided to get the Canon G1X Mark ii because of it's apparently great image quality in low light circumstances and some other reasons.

 

Upon arrival however now I am a bit concerned about the thickness of the lens, which I realized doesn't fully retract into the camera body (and the generall bulkiness of the camera). It is officially a compact camera but a rather large, heavy (bit less than 600g) and bulky one.

 

[MEDIA=imgur]Ye0Wwbh[/MEDIA]

 

Do you think there might be trouble getting this into a stadium ? What are your experiences about what tends to be allowed in stadiums for Coldplay concerts and what doesn't ?