Took a few snapshots before/during the Mardi Gras last Saturday, using my DAL 50-200mm. Quite an experience shooting in low light at the tele end, end up having tons of unusable shots, these are the ones that are not blurry

1. I quite like this one, although I am thinking it's a bit under exposed.


2.

3.

4.

5. I know this one's gone all blurry, but what you guys think of the composition?


Anyway, can I get some honest comment on these? I felt like I was useless at night

[Ari]

The compositions are nice - but are you using the built in flash? If you are, think about using a hotshoe mounted one. And you should immediately fix any redeye - lots of free programs out there for that do a tremendous job (including Picassa). Your lens isn't particularly fast at the tele end. Think about using the 55mm end and get closer to your subjects. Number five is a nice composition-think about focusing as close to the eye on these types of shots-his expression is the core of the photo.
No 2 (though it would have been better if you got the reflection of the subject's face in the mirror) and No 5 are definitely my favorites, in terms of composition.
Keep shooting tons of shots! You definitely have a good eye

[elpolodiablo]

Thanks for the comment Ari, really appreciated.

I am thinking I should start working on my PP skills and yes I was using the build in flash and a hotshoe flash is towards the top of my shopping list(after a fast prime tho).

[Ari]

I would think about getting a pretty good hot shoe flash first. There are always good, inexpensive primes coming up for sale in the marketplace here. The kit lenses are pretty good - the better (and higher, further from the lens) lighting will greatly improve the quality of your shots.

[Jonson PL]

Very well captured scenes

[fractal]

Night shots are not easy! A very fast lenses will help a lot.

You did well for the low light. Thanks for sharing.

[rawr]

Nice photos. Lucky it wasn't raining this year

But nothing shot above ISO 1600? With the K-x you could have safely gone to ISO 3200 (or even higher, depending on your preferences), which might have helped score a few more keepers for you when using a slow lens.

Another tip with variable aperture slow zooms is to sometimes go a bit wider in order to let you open up the lens aperture a bit more, and then if necessary crop the resulting photo a tad.

Otherwise there's no substitute for fast primes like the FA 50 1.4 or even f2.8 zooms like the Tamron 28-72 for this kind of event.

A good flash can certainly be helpful but with the Mardi Gras parade there is a lot of ambient light around that you should be able to take advantage of with the right lens(es).

[elpolodiablo]

Thank you guys for the comments.

rawr I think you are right I missed a chance to fully explore K-x's high ISO performace there, I set ISO to 1600 for the evening shots before the parade began but kinda forgot to change that for the main event.

shot wider and crop sounds like a good idea since I been reading somewhere the sweet spot for 50-200 is below 115 or so anyway, I would keep that in mind next time I am in this sort of lighting and needed to use telephoto lens.

Like I said before, a fast prime is on top of my shopping list but I am stilling saving up for that. Because I want one with Auto Focus, that means F50mm f1.7 or FA50 f1.4, unfortunately I haven't found one that fits my budget just yet, guess I have to save up a little bit longer then.

[rawr]

Yes, reviews like:

Pentax Lens: Zooms - Pentax 50-200mm f/4-5.6 ED SMC P-DA (Tested) - SLRgear.com!

and

Pentax SMC-DA 50-200mm f/4-5.6 ED - Review / Test Report - Analysis

confirm what you say about the sweet spot for the 50-200.

FA 50 1.4 can be affordable - I bought mine from Adorama in the US. Arrived in AU in 4 days and was cheaper than any local store, even with freight.

Also: this thread needs more photos of cute guys.