[UnknownVT]

Last night was only supposed to be just two venues -
it turned into 4 gigs/acts -


Rita Graham - who was in the Raelettes (Ray Charles' backing singers)


Women of Rock featuring Caroline Aiken, Diane Durrett and Donna Hopkins




rather full for a small stage......


Flatt Lonesome - 3 siblings are Donna Hopkins' first cousins

Of course being Thursday..........

had to select center artist to hold back while upping brightness of rest of scene.

That is how the room looks -
drummer in the rear corner of lowly lit alcove:


just to show how dark relatively it is off stage -

obviously brightened - otherwise one wouldn't even see the seated trumpeter.......

Hopefully that gives a bit of context to off stage shots like -

---

Last edited by UnknownVT; 08-28-2011 at 08:55 PM.

[UnknownVT]

EXIF attached - had to use PDCU to get white balance right - AWB was fooled because of the yellow T-shirt.


Really like this shot


Look at top overall scene shot - the guitarist is on the extreme right of frame -
the "bright light" is actually just a white strip on the wall.......




EXIF attached - used PDCU to adjust white balance -
this area was really dark -
again look at the top overall scene shot - the pianist is to the extreme left of the frame.
(thumbnail in the EXIF shows how the original pic was)
below the metering limit of the K-x with the 50-200zoom (viewfinder exposure info flashing)
Then the semi-shadow area on the wall behind and to the right/front of the face - once brought up in brightness showed a lot of ugly looking cruddy noise - so had to deNoise - on default/suggested setting - even JPG with light noise was too much.....


can't decide if this is the shot of the night -
or one of the others.....

[rawr]

Excellent shots.

Working under challenging interior lighting conditions must be second nature to you now.

[UnknownVT]

Working under challenging interior lighting conditions must be second nature to you now.

Thanks rawr -
you would have thought that -
I don't think it quite gets to routine -
(otherwise I'd probably get bored with it)
but I think it just makes me better prepared
on how to deal with those situations.

Thanks,

[UnknownVT]

Just when you think it was safe.....
all from Sat Sep/10 (processed 8 bands from 3 different venues) -

street blocked off for make-shift stage....

Real main stage -









luck?

[UnknownVT]

Missed merely one week -
and I think I had withdrawal symptoms....


this shot may make it seem very dark - well it was dark, but not exceptionally so -
they fixed the missing third mini track lighting spot bulb and one can see the lights were on in the alcove -
I think it was merely because it was just much brighter stage center
and I did not want burn out/overexpose the face that the rest looks dark.

Liked this shot -


but then there were also these -








but I like these even better....

[UnknownVT]

help!
I feel trapped by photography and the K-x........





both have EXIF data attached.

[rawr]

Interesting shots, and quite a change in subject.
Is there a story behind your new arachnid friend?

[UnknownVT]

Interesting shots, and quite a change in subject.
Is there a story behind your new arachnid friend?

Hi rawr -
nothing too special - I think it's just a common barn spider (anyone who knows please correct or confirm?) -
they start becoming more noticeable around Autumn - according to: [pdf] Autumn Spiders

Barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus) can be found on porches, where flying insects attracted
to porch lights get trapped in their webs. These spiders are nocturnal, constructing a new
web every evening and taking it down before dawn. This rusty brown spider has legs
extending about 2 inches, making it look large and noticeable. These spiders hide during
the day, but at night are found in the middle of the web, waiting for insects to be trapped

It took to spinning its web in an upper corner of my front porch -
but I mainly saw it during the daytime - because it'd scurry up the web out of sight when I went past
- actually if I went round to the outside of the porch I still could see it on its web but on the outside wall part of the porch.

Opening the front door yesterday morning - I saw it with its prey - went straight back in and got my K-x and took a few "safety" shots with the 18-55 zoom - but didn't want to approach too closely - so the images of the spider were smallish -
then went back and mounted the 50-200 zoom - and surprisingly I had to take the shots at full 200mm (equiv 300mm) handheld.

A bit later on when I thought there may have been more sun on the subject I peeked and it was still there at the center of the web - so this time I mounted the 50-200 zoom and again took a few safe shots from the doorway then inched out staying as far from the web as possible - I guess the spider was too intent on its prey/food that it took no notice of me, and I shot from another angle to get the rimmed lighting on the second shot.

Both shots are cropped to get larger image of subject.

First set of shots I noticed a bit of dirt on my sensor - that dark spot near the left edge about 1/6 way down -
but it was not distracting enough to want to do anything about it in pp.
Used a "hurricane" lens blower on sensor - so the second set didn't have any dust spots......

But I guess Australia has much greater variety of spiders - probably some spectacular ones......

[rawr]

But I guess Australia has much greater variety of spiders - probably some spectacular ones......

Yeah, we got spiders...




and snakes...




and lots of other interesting wildlife

Wildlife - a set on Flickr

[UnknownVT]

Yeah, we got spiders...
and snakes...
and lots of other interesting wildlife

and if I recall .....
Sheilas too.....

Sometimes it's useful being not quite as "Unknown" as I'd like......
neighbor told me about this one by their garage......





EXIF attached - 200mm (300mm equiv) to keep distance and get magnification -
but still had to crop to use smaller area to get the subject size -
second shot was a fairly severe crop.......

[rawr]

Nice shots. I'm not a big fan of spiders, so haven't photographed them much.

The big and interesting spiders around the yard - big Huntsmen, big Golden Orb spiders - are only out at night and I tend to give a wide berth to them anyways. But it is a project I guess I could get into - I think the old Tamron 70-300 I have does reasonable macro from safe distances so I might try that out on some spiders.

It's warming up here at night and the spiders are starting to come out in force, so there will be no shortage of likely subjects.

[UnknownVT]

Nice shots. I'm not a big fan of spiders, so haven't photographed them much.

Thanks, neither am I -
but the first one just looked interesting - especially as it had prey/food -
I find that I am mostly an opportunist when it comes to non-music photography -
I just have to catch as catch can, and shoot when any opportunity arises -
hence these spider photos

[theodoros1978]

Just a quick question, the shutter button when pressed half way to focus makes a click sound OR it feels soft on finger? I ask cos on my k-x it's soft without a mid click indication and then when full pressed i feel the click.

A Nikon I used in past felt 2 clicks, both midways and fully pressed.

Is that a problem on my k-x?

[rawr]

Just a quick question

No, on the K-x the shutter button is 'click-free' all the way until you release the shutter.

After a soft initial press the power comes on and the AE and AF starts to work, then at full travel the shutter is released. There is no midway 'indent' or '2 clicks'.