Camera Geekery at The Saint with Seasaw, Lowlight, and More, 3/6/17

Seasaw

Nerd Out

I'm preparing to head to Austin for my second go-round with South By Southwest next week. Last year, in addition to checking off a bunch of bands I'd wanted to see for a while, I spent lots of time hanging around with friends who were also visiting Austin from our neck of the woods. My plan this year is to be more "journalistic" and multimedia about the whole thing, and I've used that as an excuse to outfit myself with some new gear. I'd like to do some video interviews and/or vlogging for the CoolDad Music YouTube channel, or there just may be times when I want to travel light. Enter the tiny marvel of a camera that is the Sony RX100 Mark IV.

This past Monday night, I was heading over to The Saint to check out a duo from Wisconsin called Seasaw. The Saint not only has some of the best sound in Asbury Park, but -- in those instances when Alex Rosen doesn't decide it will be a good idea to light his band's entire set in red -- it also has some of the best light. I thought this would present a perfect opportunity to test the capabilities of my new, compact point & shoot.

OK. Here's the promised camera geekery. Feel free to skip if you're not interested.

I shoot Sony a6xxx series mirrorless cameras. The differences between mirrorless and typical (usually Canon or Nikon) SLR cameras aren't important here. What is important is that the sensors, or electronic film, in my cameras are a size known as "APS-C." The sensor in the Sony RX100 IV is what's known as "1-inch Type" (which doesn't mean it's 1 inch, but that's another story). Basically, the sensors in my a6xxx cameras are almost twice as big as the sensor in the RX100. As you might imagine, the bigger sensors can gather lots more light and should work better (especially in terms of keeping "noise" or pixelated graininess to a minimum) in the dark, taxing environment of a rock show. Also, the larger sensor size means that -- for photography math reasons -- it's easier to get a lot more of that "background blur" that makes "pro" photographs look so cool as they set the subject apart from the background.

But there are trade-offs. While mirrorless cameras are more compact than SLRs; once you start adding lenses, things can get cumbersome quickly. I have one lens, for example, that weighs 3.3 pounds. The RX100 is a small, self-contained package with a built-in lens that covers, pretty much, a perfect range for a place like The Saint. It also fits in a jacket, or even my jeans, pocket; and it's so small that you can forget it's there. Could I get usable pictures at a dark rock show with something so small?

End of photography nerd out.

Here's a shot of Rachel Ana Dobken, who kicked off the evening. Dobken is an emotive and soulful singer who often steps outside the usual, tight verse-chorus-verse song structure for something a little more intimate and conversational. She's also a multi-instrumentalist. I've seen her on guitar and piano so far, but she also plays drums; and I'm hoping to be able to catch her full-band set up soon.

The lighting was really pretty good on Monday, but this picture still took some massaging in Lightroom. That's mostly because I didn't want to push the camera settings (ISO mostly. Don't worry about it.) so much that images would be noisy. You can see how clear the stickers and posters are in the background (no blur), but I think this one is totally usable for the site.

Rachel Ana Dobken

Lowlight were next. I've written a ton about them here, and it should be clear by now that they've grown to become one of my favorite live acts around. On Monday, they brought it once again. I'm always struck by the difference between singer / guitarist Renee Maskin's on- and offstage personas. She's a true performer; and, no matter how many times I've seen her perform any given song with the band, she always inhabits the music.

I often had my shutter speed set a little slower than I would with one of my APS-C cameras, which resulted in some of these over-saturated colors from the lights. That, combined with what I'd call the generally "flat" look of the smaller sensor, make some of these shots pretty distinctive-looking. Whether it's good distinctive or bad distinctive is a matter of opinion, I guess.

Lowlight

Then it was time for Madison, Wisconsin duo Seasaw. Eve Wilczewski and Meg Golz employ guitar, keys, autoharp, and percussion for their unique, folk-inspired pop. Their set was eye-opening and fun, and the entire room seemed to love it. Seasaw appeared truly amazed at the Monday night turnout and response.

Here's another shot where we get that saturation and some noise, but it definitely has character.

Seasaw

There were two more bands on the bill, Dave Mooney and The Aztec Gypsy and The Mercury Brothers. It was already getting late, and I was fading. With apologies to both bands, I was only able to stick it out for about the first half of Dave Mooney's set before I had to pack it in. The band play loud rock and roll with a slight hint of country twang, exemplified pretty well in their cover of Social Distortion's "Ball and Chain."

The small sensor gives this one almost a painting-like feel to me.

Dave Mooney and The Aztec Gypsy

The verdict? I'm pretty amazed at what this camera was able to do given how incredibly small it is. I think I might even be able to push the ISO another stop and up the shutter speed while still getting usable shots (for the web, anyway). I'm really excited to see what this thing can do with ample daylight. I think it's going to make a nice addition to my pared-down travel kit.

Anyway, you can check out all of the pictures from the evening in the Flickr galleries. Even if you didn't find the photography talk particularly interesting, do make it a point to check out the bands.