Ufomagnet

Hello.

Busy busy. Haven’t had the time to update this page for quite some time, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been photographing. Quite the opposite really. Decided to NOT update my own galleries at ufomagnet.com for now but instead link to the same pictures over at metalnyheter.se It just takes too much time to update both sites.

Since last time I’ve been to the Close-Up Festival in Stockholm where I saw bands like Opeth, Satyricon, Bolt Thrower, Khoma, Burst, Blindside, Deathstars, Katatonia and more. Great way to spend the easter, lovely festival although a tad low on light for such a large event. Got some really nice comments and feedback afterwards, always nice to know that others like my photos.

All of my photos from the festival can be found over at Metalnyheter:
Close-Up Festival 2006 - metalnyheter.se

A week later I photographed one of my old heroes, King Diamond, at Kåren in Gothenburg, april 21st. Great show and the opening with five tracks from “Abigal” was awesome.
It’s HARD to photograph and sing along at the same time
King Diamond - metalnyheter.se

I’ve become a Blindside-fan. Very much so actually. One of the best live bands I’ve seen for ages and even though I’m an agnostic I really appreciate their sincere lyrics. I’ve seen them play three times just since easter, and will see them atleast twice during the summer (Hultsfredsfestivalen and EM-Kalaset in Gothenburg).

My photos from the gig at Sticky Fingers, Gothenburgh, may 3rd:
Blindside - metalnyheter.se

More Blindside. Two weeks later I went to my old home town, Jönköping/Huskvarna, and the Ung Kraft 2006 festival. It’s a christian rock festival, maybe not my cup of tea, but I’ll have to admit that it was nice and the bands were pretty good, especially Grace Will Fall. My photos of Blindside, Grace Will Fall, Inevitable End, Mammuth, Crimson Moonlight and Narnia can be found here:
Ung Kraft 2006 - metalnyheter.se

Next stop, the Hultsfred festival, june 15-17. Lots and lots of good bands, both metal pop and electronic. Will photograph bands such as Opeth, Burst, Strapping Young Lad, Soilwork, In Flames, Blindside (yeah, again), The Cardigans, Soulfly, Within Temptation and much much more.
Since I hate staying in a tent at the festival I decided to book a decent apartment for me and my girlfriend who’s coming with me as a reporter for Metalnyheter. Most places near the festival were booked, but since I’m not drinking when photographing I decided to book a room over in Vimmerby, some 20 kilometers from the festival.

take care.

/daniel.

‘lo.

Went to see Red Sparowes play last friday. Was going to both photograph and review the concert so I brought along the camera with a few lenses. Tough luck. Turned out that they only had two red spots on the stage and as the concert started they turned them down to a minimum and instead had big projections in the background. Couldn’t get any decent shutter speeds at all, even with my fast 50/1.4 prime and ISO 1600. I took a few pictures at 3200 and some with the built-in flash to make sure that I atleast had shots for the review. Nice concert, maybe a bit too long for the material they have so far… I did buy a very nice t-shirt!

Three nights ago I joined up with Anders and Kattis and went to Restaurang Kreta, a typical lunch restaurant that oddly enough also doubles as a club for metal gigs every now and then. Last time I saw Cryptopsy and Haemorrhage there, this time we went to see Macabre with support from Jungle Rot, Xenomorph and Deface. The concert was good, nothing spectacular (review here). The light was of course baaaaad, with two red and two orange spots delivering the stage light. Argh. Nightmare Every now and then a green spot kicked in too, atleast that helped a bit but it was still hard to no blow the red channel. I think the Jungle Rot pictures turned out quite ok after a bit of Photoshop mangling but the rest is very so-so :-I I couldn’t stand close to the stage during the Macabre performance since a couple of guys were jumping around quite a bit at times and my camera doesn’t like encounters of the third kind with a hard floor. Used my Sigma 28-70/2.8 for all shots since I was too lazy to change

Anyway, here are the pictures of Macabre, Jungle Rot and Xenomorph (Sorry Deface, the light was just too bad when you played).

During the pause I switched from my 1GB Sandisk SD-card to my 1 GB Twinmos card and, it refused to work and refused to be formatted ;-( I’m really fed up with that card since I can’t trust it to work. Will RMA it next week but atleast I’ve solved the unloading problem with a new toy that arrived from Australia today

Meet my Nexto CF:

Even though I have to use an adapter to make it read my SD-cards I chose it over the Compact Drive PD70X, mainly because it’s smaller, lighter and together with the external battery it will transfer well over the 60GB of diskspace that I’m going to put in it tonight (a left over from my laptop since I put a faster 7200rpm disk in it). It was a bit more expensive and I had to order it from Australia but I still think it’s worth it. Just want a simple, stupid device with no thrills, bells or whistles. Ok, if someone could build one with a 1.8″ disk instead of a 2.5″, even better battery life, add both mp3 playback AND line in/microphone in recording, then we’d be talking… but I doubt that. They’re always missing atleast one major thing no matter what and I’ll have to bring two devices anyway.

On friday I’m off to my parents in Jönköping to visit the annual Photo & Video expo conveniently held in my old hometown around easter. Hopefully I’ll be able to decide on the 5D or the 30D after that since I will be able to hold them and try them both out for a bit. Also going to help my parents with their new computer and meet some friends.

Other that than that? EXTREMELY dissatisfied right now. Bleh. Must find a new job soon

Hello.

Been really busy with work lately but I managed to sneak out and go to a Krisiun concert at Musikens Hus a couple of weeks ago. Haven’t had the time to process the pictures until now and well, as I suspected, they weren’t too good either. The stage light at Musikens Hus is a photographers nightmare, almost always red and well, ONLY red. Or yellow. Very easy to blow the red channel and unless you do -> noise from hell, even with a fast prime.

Anyway, here are 20 pictures that made the cut with the boys from Brazil. Nice gig btw.

Also, I’ve updated the Plötslichmusik page. Two new songs, “Keine Stabilität” and “Tour De Deutschland” and a couple of spanking new pictures are up for grabs from your favorite stofilsyntare.

I’m also having constants camera woes. The Pentax just isn’t working very well in dark concert enviroments. The autofocus is too slow and refuses to lock properly, especially when the light is constantly changing (as it tends to at conerts). I’ve read a technical theory about the issues that I’m having and it seems that the *ist DS has problems focusing under tungsten light due to its hardware design. I get a lot of front focusing and well, what do they use at concerts if not tungstens. *sigh* Atleast that explains a thing or two. 

Sooooooo, I might become a Canon:ian soon. There are a few advantages (and some disadventages). To begin with the Canon CMOS on-chip noise reduction clearly is superior to other brands CCDs when photographing at high ISO. Everything above 800 just look better with the Canons. Also, focusing speeds are much higher due to stronger motors and especially with HSM-lenses that have focusing motors integrated in the lens bodies (Nikon also have that in their more expensive lenses but the D200 is too noisy for me at ISO 800/1600). The downside is that I’ll have to let got of my lovely Pentax lenses and the comparable Canon glass will be REALLY expensive. Also the camera (and L-class glass) is much heavier. I’ll also have to get CF-cards instead of SD-storage, a bigger bag and spare batteries. My bank will love me. 

Still, what’s a boy to do… a Canon 5D with a EF 24-70/2.8 looks like a killer combination, both for concert photography and my poor poor bank account. It would probably be much better if I just could persuade myself that a 30D with the new EF-S 17-55/2.8 is more than enough, but then who wants to buy “cheap gear” when there is more expensive and hence more desirable gear on the market? Nopes, didn’t think so

Still waiting to hear something about the In Flames gig in Gothenburg next weekend but I’ve more or less given up hope on that since they prioritize the big players in the media market, those who normally wouldn’t write a line about metal. Poo

edit: Oh! I forgot. No pictures from the Cathedral gig. I WAS there, with my camera, but half way through the Electric Wizard gig a guard told me that my “gear looked too professional” and that I wasn’t allowed to photograph the bands. I almost told him “When was the last time you saw a pro with a Pentax?!” but ofcourse I tried to explain to him that I DID have a permit to shoot the concert, but nopes. He wasn’t interested in listening to me and more or less told me that I was lying about having “that permit”. It turned out that our contact at the agency hadn’t informed the guards that we were going to review and photograph the gig and he had no intention to call anyone that could clear up the misunderstanding. Fun. Not. At least the bands label got a bit upset afterwards when they heard about it. Ha!

Friday night was just crazy.
The train home to Gothenburg was late, I was totally stressed out and in a bad mood and when I arrived at Trädgårn where the concert was they didn’t have any photopass for me. At this point I was about to explode and go home instead when a familiar face from PK Musik showed up and said that everything was ok and well, it was The concert was really nice, CoB is a VERY good live band and I’ve never seen Trädgårn that crowded before.

I was allowed to photograph the whole concert too (atleast, noone told me otherwise) even though I tried my very best to stay out of the way from the guards since I didn’t want to push my luck. Used both my 50mm/1.4, the Sigma 28-70mm/2.8 and my 135mm/1.8. I still don’t like the colours I get from the Sigma but I won’t buy another zoom before I switch system anyway. Think I’ll have to buy a lens hood for the 50mm too, the flaring was BAAAAD (edit: actually, I just ordered one from Kaffebrus).

Anyway, the pictures: Children of Bodom
A slightly different set up on Metalnyheter.se too, as usual.

Next up, Cathedral & Grand Magus @ Sticky Fingers, next weekend.

So I went to P3 Guld and well, it was fun.
Took a lot of photos but the only ones I’ve published so far are these of In Flames.
Sorry all Darin fans, you’ll have to wait a bit longer

Apparently I was rather visible during the tv broadcast. Ewps.
Look at SVTs stream and try to spot the fat nerd with the Pentax.

More updates after the weekend…

It seems that in order to make entires searchable they HAVE to be in a posting, it isn’t enough to make a new page.
*sigh* SOOOOO stupid.
Seems Wordpress will be a VERY temporary solution…

Anyways, therefore, here is the last of all concerts I’ve photographed up til now.

051229 Dark Tranquillity and Burst @ Trädgår’n, Gothenburg
Dark Tranquillity
Burst

051119 Candlemass @ Kåren, Gothenburg
Candlemass

051110 Blowfly @ Sticky Fingers, Gothenburg
Blowfly

051109 Burst @ Pustervik, Gothenburg
Burst

051008 Nile, In-Quest and Visceral Bleeding @ Musikens Hus, Gothenburg
Nile
In-Quest
Visceral Bleeding

050920 Opeth and Extol @ Sticky Fingers, Gothenburg
Opeth
Extol

050919 Vader, Rotting Christ and Anorexia Nervosa @ Henriksberg, Gothenburg
Vader
Rotting Christ
Anorexia Nervosa

050808 Göteborgskalaset metal night;
Candlemass
Cult Of Luna
Pain
Defleshed
Engel

050806 Gates of Metal 05;
Amon Amarth
Brainstorm
Children Of Bodom
Dark Tranquillity
Dimmu Borgir
Edguy
God Among Insects
Masterplan
Sabaton
random people at the festival

050708
Iron Maiden playing football in Gothenburg

050528 Swedens Finest, Blowfly, Taetre @ Musikens Hus, Gothenburg
Swedens Finest
Blowfly
Taetre

050513 SAMA, Swedish Alternative Music Awards @ Trädgårn, Gothenburg
Covenant, Fixmer/McCarthy and Howard Jones

050227 Swedens Finest @ Sticky Fingers, Gothenburg
Swedens Finest