U2 in Pittsburgh- a photography review

(my set of photos on Flickr)

     First off, it was relatively easy to get my 70-200 f/2.8 in to the venue. A huge lens like that, and you would think I would need some cloak and dagger to get it in, you would be sort of right. But that is not the subject of this post. (I guess it could be really) If I feel generous, I will add it to the end of the write up.

I had planned to be in the unwashed masses with General Admission for U2. Get there early, line up, grab my spot and wait. Turns out my ticket didn’t appear until 5:30pm. In the mean time I happened to get a very pricey ticket given to me for the Pittsburgh show- a Red Zone ticket. Someone couldn’t make it.

I would up third person in from one rail and on my own rail. (more on the Red Zone) I had my Canon 7D with 18GB of memory, and the following lenses with me- 15mm f/2.8 fisheye, 50mm f/1.8, 17-40 f/4, and 70-200 f/2.8. The 50mm was my decoy lens on the camera to get in the venue.  As it was used in Chicago almost two years ago!

      I talked up the security in front of me, a nice lady who pretty much could care less if I had pulled a professional video camera out. As long as I was not interfering with others and it wasn’t harming others (or the band), they could care less. This was also confirmed by the area supervisor who turned out to be a really nice guy. I quickly made friends with the folks around me, informed them of what I was doing, and they were all cool with it.

      The show started after nine, and I was very hesitant about getting the 70-200 out of my bag, and using it. After the first two songs, I pulled it out and realized I saw no one even looking at me. I continued to use it without hesitation for the entire show.  I kept looking for U2’s security to come around because I was so exposed in the spot I was in, that the big white lens would be easily spotted. I was my only check to keep using it.

     The only things that slowed me down were the weight of the gear and my own internal check for interesting photos. I had not expected to be able to use the 70-200 for 2.5 hours. That’s a lot of weight to keep up in front of my eye for stretches of time.   (3.2 pounds for the lens plus 1.8 pounds for the camera body)

     I realized the day after that I had violated a (generally speaking) cardinal rule for photography with a long lens- keep your shutter speed one stop above focal length. This caused me to lose quite a few shots. *sigh* I still got a great deal of really outstanding photos.

     Afterwards U2 friends asked me after hearing how many photos I took, “so, did you enjoy the show at all?” My response was something like this, “If I wasn’t photographing during the show, all I would have done was think about photographing it.” I think I was admitting having an addiction.

Quick hits:

•  Was trying to get some different feeling shots that just didn’t turn out in post the way I had thought they would.
• Going through 1,700+ photos is never fun, but Lightroom made it much easier.
•  During the bonus song of Bad, there was VERY basic lighting which made for very bland photos. An AMAZING song, but not so much for the photographer in me.
• For Ultravoilet, there were two techs right around Bono doing the smoke machines to help with the suit of lights Bono had. Very very distracting.  Very hard to shoot around.
• $3.50 for a bottle of water wasn’t TOO bad. Thankfully I could go refill it at a water fountain and disperse the cost.
•  Amazed at the number of empty seats.