Is it allowed to use an M camera during a concert?

Bob Michaels said:
Years ago, drummer Tammy Diddley and her band were playing at a small biker bar just up the road. I got the inside scoop that her father, Bo Diddley, who lived about an hour up the road was coming one night and would sit in with her. Suspecting I was not the only one with that info, I arrived very early and got a front row table for the unusually packed place. I had my ContaxG and a pocket full of film trying to be clandestine among a room full of locals with their cameras. Bo Diddley, his wife, and his two person entourage arrived. One of them came over to me and told me that I was not allowed to photograph. No one else, just me not allowed to photograph as he pointed to my camera. At least it was a good performance.
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Should have gone with a Contax T2 or Olympus XA or Mju in your pocket, no one would have noticed until after the fact.
 
boojum said:
As for the Pentax question, I might get away with it with the Pentax Q-S1 which punches well above its weight. Truly pocket size. And with lens in one pocket and body in another hard to detect. Has a decent tele-zoom, too. But I ain't going to no mass rock concerts. And I just do not get Taylor Swift at all. I wonder what she sounds like without the electronics?
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She sounds pretty darn good, thank goodness. And I'm no Swiftie, I just like music.

 
The first concert I taped was a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert where they played Wagner in 2004. I used binaural mics clipped to the lapels of my jacket and a minidisc recorder. I also snuck a few photo with my Canon S45, a medium sized silver pocket camera, although photography was not allowed. The recording turned out beautifully well, and I still listen to it today.

However, the second concert I recorded was a disaster. It was my first time at a metal gig, Nightwish in 2005. I smuggled my MD recorder and mics in my socks, and assembled everything in the toilet as recommended by stealth tapers online. The sound levels were so high that the recording was awful, and I had no earplugs, so my hearing was stuffed for a day after. I still had an incredible time, and took quite a few photos of the band with my Canon S70.

Another time, I tried to record Joe Satriani using an Olympus WAV recorder. Too bad I accidentally pushed the record level to zero when I put the recorder in my pocket. 🙄

My choice for a camera to take to concerts and gigs would be a travel zoom. Something small to not appear professional, but with a fair zoom reach, and a 1 inch sensor to offset the small aperture. A Panasonic TZ100 would work, as would a Sony RX100 Mk VI or VII, or a Panasonic LX10. Second choice would be a tiny m43 camera like the Panasonic GM1, and a couple of tiny Olympus primes like the 25/1.8 and 45/1.8.
 
Ah, I see why Raid is asking about using an M Leica..... the concert will be in Europe and he'll be on vacation there. As others suggested, you're unlikely to get fantastic photos, so why not rely on cell phone snaps. It's certainly not worth buying a camera for the occasion.
 
I will not buy a camera for the concert. This is for sure. I have too many cameras. I asked about using the M10 because it will be with me during the trip. I may have to leave it in a safe of a hotel room.
 
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raid said:
I will not buy a camera for the concert. This is for sure. I have too many cameras. I asked about using the M10 because it will be with me during the trip. I may have to leave it in a safe of a hotel room.
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That's what i thought Raid.
 
raid said:
I will not buy a camera for the concert. This is for sure. I have too many cameras. I asked about using the M10 because it will be with me during the trip. I may have to leave it in a safe of a hotel room.
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Did exactly the same on July 23rd: Just had my smartphone there at the concert in Matera (Italy). But I took only a one or two images in the beginning and in the end. We just sat there and enjoyed the marvelous performed old Pink Floyd pieces by Saucerful of Secrets (Nick Mason). There were enough other people filming and shooting, as you can see.
 
Godfrey said:
I still don't know who Taylor Swift is.
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That's ok. In the 1980's, in a job interview related to digital processing of images, the interviewer asked me to identify numerous people. Donald Knuth. Carl Sagan, Ansel Adams. I didn't know who Georgia O'Keefe was.
 
Such a spectacle these "concerts" are with the smoke, lights, and projected images. I'm waiting for the volcano and the dragon to appear. It's such a packaged impersonal production.

Apparently the days are gone when there'd be just a small band on stage and the singer would walk out to the microphone stand.
 
Pál_K said:
Such a spectacle these "concerts" are with the smoke, lights, and projected images. I'm waiting for the volcano and the dragon to appear. It's such a packaged impersonal production.

Apparently the days are gone when there'd be just a small band on stage and the singer would walk out to the microphone stand.
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In my age of going to concert with small band playing was underground option or some bad performance in restaurant.
We went to Moscow hockey arena to see Pink Floyd in late eighties and it was no dragon, but flying pig and projection of animation.
Best concert I ever visit was Queen in Budapest. Projected at the screen of Moscow movie theater named as Budapest. As usual before movie they had official news motion picture magazine. By this time regime was deeply rotten. They showed as officials clapping for Breznev and we also did to mock it.
Here is special soviet era technique for how to applaud loud, btw.
At the end of the concert we stand up and applaud for real.
 
boojum said:
Old fart here still misses the dive bars with good small jazz groups. Even Birdland was not that toney, at least not over in the cheap seats where I was parking my butt for the night. I am there for the music, not the show. MTV is not the world.
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In Melbourne, we used to have a long standing jazz club called Bennett's Lane. It was a small venue, but had some of the best jazz acts come to play, including Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. Even Prince made a surprise appearance at Bennett's Lane! Sadly, Bennett's Lane closed a few years ago and the intention to resurrect it elsewhere has not come to fruition. They had no problem with people taking photos, even me with my Canon 30D was fine.

G10 - Couple by the Bar by Archiver, on Flickr

30D - Kate Vigo (Quar)tet at Bennetts Lane by Archiver, on Flickr

There was a regular evening event called Jazz After Dark in the Melbourne Arts Centre in the 80s and early 90s, although I'm unsure when that stopped.
 
Archiver said:
In Melbourne, we used to have a long standing jazz club called Bennett's Lane. It was a small venue, but had some of the best jazz acts come to play, including Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. Even Prince made a surprise appearance at Bennett's Lane! Sadly, Bennett's Lane closed a few years ago and the intention to resurrect it elsewhere has not come to fruition. They had no problem with people taking photos, even me with my Canon 30D was fine.

G10 - Couple by the Bar by Archiver, on Flickr

30D - Kate Vigo (Quar)tet at Bennetts Lane by Archiver, on Flickr

There was a regular evening event called Jazz After Dark in the Melbourne Arts Centre in the 80s and early 90s, although I'm unsure when that stopped.
Click to expand...

Yes, as the Brits like to say, "There's nothing like the old days." I liked the old small clubs and dive bars. When Miles Davis found out how much money Jimmy Hendrix was making for one performance things changed. Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Altamont. Shows had to be spectacular. I still like the Jazz at the Pawnshop, because that is what I am familiar with. Good gig, too.

I saw the Mulligan Quartet at the Olympia in Paris and they brought down the house and kept getting encore calls despite the fact that Piaf was the next show. Went to the Blue Note, on Rue d'Artois IIRC, after and saw Nancy Wilson, she was around twenty at the time, singing in a small club with Horace Silver in the audience. Nancy Wilson was gorgeous in a red sheath dress and sang beautifully, of course.

Being in a crowd of unruly fools, mostly high, drunk or both, acting out their Id behaviors is not my idea of a fun musical show.
 
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