The crowd was better than their last performance, said one of the guests.

It was another Bebas’ show again in Waterhole, Amsterdam. You will enjoy this “Indonesian band living in Amsterdam” if you like “pop forty” kind of music or you are simply an Indonesian. Half of the songs performed are Indonesians that were popular in the 90s, with the fast beat to dance on.

The band consists of Heri – vocal, Melati – vocal, Joop – vocal, Haris – Bass, Reynaldo – Guitar, Rhein - Keyboard/Guitar, and Binsar – Drum. It was formed just before the First Indonesian Underground Night in March 2007. Last night, only two out of their three singers were there, Joop and Hery. It was too bad for me, because this was my first time to see their show, and I didn’t get to see them in their complete squad.

But the show was fun, especially when they closed their performance with an Indonesian folk music; dangdut, getting every Indonesian there to dance and shake their asses!

This is my second trial to concert photography. I was excited and also nervous. I know that I enjoyed my first gig, but I couldn’t say that I wasn’t nervous since I have learned that this type of photography is not easy.

Luckily I got the Nikkor 50mm f 1.4 (finally, after waiting for about a month). To prepare myself with some photography techniques, I’ve been browsing the flickr forum of concert photography.

The venue was dark, with underground feelings and difficult lighting to capture. I shot the picture in RAW. Mostly, I used ISO 800, put it on manual with 1/125 to 1/160 and 1.4 to 1.6 openings. Initially, I tried the auto ISO option with ISO 800 as my maximum, but the pictures came out too dark. That’s why I just stayed on manual.

When I saw the pictures in my computer I was so disappointed with the noise, because they are simply underexposed. So after some adjustments in white balance, shadow and exposure, I applied the noise ninja and smart sharpening again in the photoshop. The results are fine, although they look a bit soft to my liking, perhaps because I used the fluorescent to set the white balance. I just couldn’t decide what value to use for and fluorescent was then seemed to be the best one.

Anyway, I can’t complain, in fact I am quite satisfied that I could pull this off. I can’t wait to shoot another gig.