30D Goes Jazz

Nikolai

Every year about this time Thousand Oaks' Civic Arts Performance Arts Center hosts local school district jazz festival.

Several school bands join together to present this gala-show. From total beginners to seasoned veterans, playing both separately and together, it is usually pure fun for both performers and the audience.

I've been to these events before, but this was the first time for me to use my Canon 30D and its amazing ISO 3200 capabilities in this large concert hall environment :clap . The pictures below were taken RAW and simply converted to JPEGs, I didn't even have to apply neither NN nor NI :-).

Most of the pictures in the gallery (except first few and #1 in this post) were taken with EF 100-400L IS, handheld, from the very back of the main sitting area (under sound control booth).

Here are a few shots.

#1: General view (note the dark rows far back):



#2: Front row trombone soloist:



#3: Far back rows - still in the dark (remember? no post processing!):



#4: Middle row flute players (can I call it "Red, White and Blue?" :-) :



#5: Remember far back rows?:



#6: Far back rows - now up close:



The rest of the pictures: http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/1445603

Enjoy shooting musicians:-)

LittleLew

IMO, #2 would be much improved if you cropped tighter, leaving just the two figures on the right. That focus's attention on the female trumpeter with the boy to her left as a supporting image. Having all 3 figures diffuses the impact.

If you like I will send you a cropped image.

LL

Nikolai

Ll,

LittleLew wrote:

IMO, #2 would be much improved if you cropped tighter, leaving just the two figures on the right. That focus's attention on the female trumpeter with the boy to her left as a supporting image. Having all 3 figures diffuses the impact.

If you like I will send you a cropped image.

LL

Thank you for the feedback, always appreciated!

I agree, it would benefit from the cropping!

However, since it was just one of a hundred+something snapshots I took mostly to check camera and lens capabilities in the dim-light-large-hall-no-flash-hence-high-ISO environment, I don't think we should spend any more time on it...:-) Nobody's gonna order its 20x30 print and frame it above the fireplace, you know what I'm saying ?

Cheers!

Seefutlung

3200 is amazing. I'm done some 3200 shooting HS sports with crummy HS stadium lighting ... and I am constantly impress with Canon's quality at 3200. I'm an ol' press photog and I would never go beyond 1600 with B&W film. And look ... you have color! This was a good test. I found that a proper exposure at 3200 is superior to a slightly under-exposed 1600.

-Gary-

Nikolai

Gary,

Seefutlung wrote:

3200 is amazing. I'm done some 3200 shooting HS sports with crummy HS stadium lighting ... and I am constantly impress with Canon's quality at 3200. I'm an ol' press photog and I would never go beyond 1600 with B&W film. And look ... you have color! This was a good test. I found that a proper exposure at 3200 is superior to a slightly under-exposed 1600.

-Gary-

I agree, nicely exposed 3200 is definitely on par with underexposed 1600. I also noticed that background makes a lot of difference. Concert shots with low light looked better than HS sports ones, where there is a lot of high light pollution from the stadium lights (whcih also usually happen to be right in front of your camera)..

Cheers!

saurora

Those are amazing! I haven't tried any at that high of an ISO yet. Nice to know how well it works in certain situations such as this one.

Nikolai

Saurora,

saurora wrote:

Those are amazing! I haven't tried any at that high of an ISO yet. Nice to know how well it works in certain situations such as this one.

Thanks! You should try it for yourself, you may like it :-)

Cheers!