Shooting a Small Venue Concert With an iPhone15 Pro

…With the help of an iOS app that allows control of shutter speed and ISO

This past Saturday night my partner and I did something that’s increasingly rare for us.

I’m talking about going to a concert.

But not just any concert, one in a small venue that only holds about 200 or so people. It was quite a mix of younger and older fans — we weren’t the most mature couple in the room.

We used to go to these kinds of smaller-venue shows quite often, but work and parenting (and the associated fatigue) don’t always agree with our plans.

Anyways, this time we went to see a young indie band called A Short Walk to Pluto that I’ve been following on social media for quite a while. They do a lot of awesome covers, but they have also written and performed their original material.

They played a mix of tunes at the recent show at Toronto’s Drake Underground, which was the final stop on their first U.S./Canadian tour. It’s also their city of origin, so I hoped they partied hard after the show to celebrate their accomplishment.

Anyways. I’m never sure if certain music venues will allow DSLRs, so I didn’t risk bringing it and being turned away since it was outside our city. Instead, I brought my new-ish iPhone 15 Pro, and since it was a small room, we managed to get up close to the stage.

Pushing the iPhone to its max

I set my iPhone up for optimal images, including setting it to AppleRAW. (If you’re not sure how to do this, you can read this tutorial that I followed.)

I also downloaded an iOS app called Moment, which lets you take more control of your iPhone’s camera. As you can see, you can set ISO, shutter, exposure compensation, and more using this app.

I find stage lighting is often too strong for iPhones to handle. You can darken subjects that are too bright by tapping on them on the screen while shooting. However, even when using the standard camera app, the people on stage still looked washed out.

By using the Moment app, I was able to increase shutter speeds/lower ISO to give my subjects a more natural look than you’d get with a DSLR. They’re not quite up to par with what my Canon 6D would have given me, but I was pretty happy with what the iPhone 15 could do.

We were about 10 feet from the stage. I wanted to get a little closer so I could do a wide-angle perspective shot across the stage, but the crowd was a little too thick there.

I was able to achieve this angle closer to the stage during the opening act, a great young band called Misty Blue.

So we walked further back from the stage (where the sound was better) and I snapped this wide-angle image that uses the long ceiling lights to lead viewers in. I held my camera as high as I could with my 6’2” frame so I could avoid the heads of the people in front of us.

I edited all the images in-phone after, using the iPhone’s standard filters/adjustments. I didn’t do much except blacken the blacks, crop a little, and add some warmth. I converted one of the images to black and white using the in-phone app, although I could have done it easily in Lightroom.

I’m hoping A Short Walk to Pluto comes to Hamilton, where I live about an hour from Toronto. I know the venues better in my own city, and I often bring in DSLRs to shoot bands with no issues. (If the members of Short Walk to Pluto are reading this, Mills Hardware is a great little music spot in Hamilton.)

This dynamic foursome of talented musicians is something to watch. Perhaps one day they will be famous, and we’ll be able to say that we caught their first tour! (I have the shirt to prove it.)

I think once music labels discover them, they will be climbing over each other to sign them. However, they’re no strangers to the spotlight: they have 234K followings on Instagram, and they’ve been endorsed by Howard Stern on his radio show.

I’ll leave you with my live performance clip of the band performing a cover of Barracuda by Heart. (Video shot on iPhone 15 Pro.)

Thanks for reading! Do you have any tips/tricks for shooting a small venue/indoor concert with a smartphone? Let us know, or point us to your articles on the topic!