no peace for the wicked....
so I'm not going to let you guys rest!
5 more gigs in two nights.........
3 on Thursday, 2 last night - at different venues -
had to go across town.....
Thursday usually means the dark jazz club - but I had an early start -
ISO4000, f/3.5, 1/50; 18mm; 0 comp
just after 8pm - obvious strong back-lighting - this was at a coffee house.
The band is
Little Tybee one of my favorite local bands - try
.
Of course the gig went on until it was dark outside -
ISO5000, f/4.5, 1/13; 43mm
hello ISO5000 - surprisingly it was as dark as the dark jazz club stage area.......
(there was no stage lighting as such - just the normal cafe/room lighting)
I really like this shot -
ISO5000, f/5.6, 1/13; 50mm
great rim lighting in her hair - fabulous expression - sort of mischievous grin -
I had to do some selective area pp in holding back on her violin bow and poster in the background - otherwise they would have been blown out to all white, and the already feint bow would have disappeared, and would not have made sense..
- back to normal scheduled service -
yes, the Thursday night dark jazz venue -
doesn't it get boring week after week?
- no, the music is always interesting -
and the photography is always a challenge -
ISO5000, f/3.5, 1/15; 18mm -2 stop comp
I am beginning to admit - it is ridiculously dark in there for photography - note the -2 stop compensation (this means the "correct" exposure would have been 1/4 sec with everything else the same) - even as it was, the center face was nearly burnt out - again I had to do selective area processing in holding back the face.
ISO5000, f/4.5, 1/25; 38mm; -1 stop comp
-1 stop comp to prevent face from burning out -
still had to hold back the face in pp.
ISO5000, f/3.5, 1/8; 68mm; 0 comp
like the reflection in the glasses and the lighting on the bottom of the cymbal with holes. Had to bring the brightness up quite a bit on this one - and it was difficult, if not impossible, to focus on the face as it spent most of the time in the shadow of the hat - so I focused on the T-shirt instead.
some of you may have noted I seem to mostly shoot from the trumpeter's left-side - well - it's simply because I am normally on that (right) side of the room to cross to the left usually means disturbing the audience. However there is another reason, for a trumpeter that is the better side to shoot from (although for sax and trombone their right-side is better)
anyway to show I don't always shoot trumpeters from their left -
ISO5000, f/4.5, 1/60; 80mm; -1 stop comp.....
ISO5000, f/4.5, 1/50; 95mm; -1.3 stops comp
I prefer to shoot from trumpeters' left, because the hand positions are slightly better.
Last stop of the Thursday night -
ISO5000, f/3.5, 1/15; 18mm; 0 comp
I had a really difficult time at this venue where I normally shoot a lot - but with my compact with -1.7 comp slow sync fill-flash - just could not get a consistent white balance - the normally sterling AWB on the K-x persistently gave red/orange images - eventually I had to resort to using tungsten white balance. Trying to do flash shots with similar -1.7 comp fill slow sync - did not work that well - now I know my compact does the flash thing differently to the K-x - this means I have experiment and learn more about the K-x flash characteristics.
...before we leave Thursday - please look that window on the right behind the bassist......
Friday - another difficult for me venue mainly because to be at the front I have to be on my knees or sitting on my hind-side - don't get me wrong the audience at the front are very understanding and kind - but I cannot just jump up and block their view for their kindness, now can I?
And strangely I am normally able to shoot AWB - but for some reason last night the results turned out orange/red - so again I had to switch to tungsten WB - as it was, some shots were just too blue -
yet for all the times I shot here K-x AWB did better than I could doing manual WB, and I hardly ever had a color balance issue.....
ISO5000, f/4, 1/25; 31mm
one can see I've done this before - for me it was waiting for the chorus when there was supporting singing to get more than one person on the mic - with right expression - this was later on in the show when I moved to the back of the room to get the overall shot.
ISO5000, f/4, 1/30; 20mm
up front on my @ss literally by the lead vocalist's feet.
run, run, run - right across town back to the venue where I shoot a lot but with my compact - have I learned anything from the night before?
well straight away I knew to set tungsten WB -
ISO5000, f/3.5, 1/30; 18mm
strong colors - the area to the left that's blue - is not that blue - but hey, I'll take it - had to reduce saturation pp otherwise it's look way too garish.
ISO3200, f/5.6, 1/25; 26mm
ah, but with -1.3 stop compensated flash.....
which achieved the clarity I wanted -
but compare with -
ISO5000, f/4, 1/40; 28mm
no flash - but boy did I have to work hard to achieve this - merely upping the brightness/contrast - gave a way over the top saturated result - so had to quite severely reduce saturation - then again adjust the brightness.....
Oh what was all that about noting the window before?
again Tungsten WB - that is normal night street low pressure sodium lighting out of that window - that shows how yellow/red the stage lighting was........and I think out of the adjustment range for the K-x AWB........