[Ira]

Cabstar:

Can you explain the rationale of posting a photo that you're proud of but that's destroyed by that incredibly large and annoying copyright text?

It's not even a photo when you post it like that. It's an advertisement.

[fractal]

You might try experimenting with different NR options. Right out of the camera JPEg's are not so hot, but most PP programs have very simple ways to batch process an entire gig and get ISO 1600 and even 3200 (push-processed equivalent) looking as good or better than 90% of what's out there in magazines and so forth.

I haven't really looked into NR much to be honest. I had a look through your Flickr and did notice quite a few shots at F2.8 and ISO 1600 and they looked quite clean. However, in some shots the noise is quite noticeable.

[Marc Sabatella]

Many of the ISO 1600 photos I've posted are actually underexposed and push processed, for the equivalent of even higher ISO - the average for any of the jazz clubs pictures is probably closer to 3200, with some pushed as high as the equivalent of 6400. So the cleaner ones you saw are probably ones where less pushing was necessary. The color of the lights and other factors also has a big effect - the more highly colored the light, the noiser the results after trying to WB it. Also, I've never really used any high-end NR programs - just the controls built into my basic image management program (ACDSee Pro). Results using LR 3 or soething like the Topaz program everyone is o excited about these days would be better still.

Anyhow, as I said, the standards for concert photography are such that nosie is pretty much expected. It's visible in virtually every published photo taken in similar conditions. Expecting the same sort of quality one sees in photos taken under good light just isn't reasonable. Once one accetps this and stops obsessing about nosie too much, concert photography becomes a lot less frustrating. And relevant to this thread, opens up a lot more chocies for lenses and shooting technique. Using a fast fifty (or similar) is great for the relatively small numbr of shot I take at that focal length, but the vast majority of my shots are miuch longer - 100mm or 135mm. f/2.8 is basically as good as you're going to get there (maybe an extrra half stop at most, if you don't mind shelling out hundreds more and carrying twice the weight). And for those preferring wider angles, as I suggested, the kinds of shutter speeds you need to combat blur at telephoto focal lengths (including 50-55mm) just aren't necessary. At 20mm, the shutter speeds you get at f/2.8 will be just as useful as the shutter speeds you get at 50mm and f/1.7 - both in terms of camera shake *and* subject motion (for preciswely the same reason - wider FOV means the same physical motion translates to less angluar motion within the frame).

[cabstar]

Ira because my images are for sale by various agencies, any I post personally on the web in the past have been stolen & used illegally & even with a small watermark has been removed. So now I post them with a huge & difficult to remove watermark.

If this looks like advertising then I apologise. My clients are national press & the music press so how this can be advertising to that market I am not sure.