Barnum & Baily Circus

JWilbur26

Last night I went to the circus...yes, 26 is a little old, but I never went as a kid. This was really my first chance to shoot some low light and it wasn't as bad as I thought. lens was wide open with mostly ISO 1600. I was able to down it to 800 and even to 200. Here are a few after a quick pp. There are more and I can do a better job with PP on these but would love any insight you can give.









Thanks for looking!

Seneca

You're never too old to go to the Circus.:ivar Good pics.

Dizzy

The tiger shot is awesome! The last circus I was at was actually more of a Cirque du Soliel...no animals. Haven't been to one of those in years but your shots make me want to find one...might be hard to find on in the middle of winter in the mid-west. Great shots! Dizzy

JWilbur26

Thanks for the comments...I will try to post more this weekend or a least the link to the gallery.

Happy Friday!

kygarden

I guess that tall haired guy has a secure job! He's been with them for awhile now I think. He's pretty funny. If you don't mind, here he is from last year when I went. Oh and I noticed the web site says no cameras with detachable lenses....so I'm not likely to take my D200 back a second time. I'd be the poor guy that they'd make an example of and kick me out!




And here's a shot I loved. As for the shooting tips - Use Spot Metering when you can (when the spot lights are in use and most everything else is dark). Worked out great for this one. I spot metered on the woman...and this is a crop from a larger photo (only had a 18-70mm with me - and not a fast lens at that, but the spot metering did the trick.)

DoctorIt

Nice work! any of the babble we discussed the other day help?

JWilbur26

I don't mind at all...I like your shots. I didn't mess with my metering. I am still learning the basics but will look at it more now. I called before I went to be sure about the camera. They didn't give me any hassle. Just wanted to make sure I couldn't video. They let my girlfriend and her P&S in without a problem which I found rather funny. There were quite a few DSLR's from what I could see.

DoctorIt, yes...it was a big help. I kept it fully manual most of the time. The RAW went well until I ran out of room. Kept the autofocus on without a problem. I was able to go down to 200 one or two as a test (elephant shot above) but was mostly at 1600. I have a few candidates for B&W and hopefully should have some time this weekend to get a few in.

Going in with the expectation of having these shots as "memories" helped out. Being new to photography, I am always looking for shots to print realizing I may get 1 out of 100. This was a great learning experience.

Thank you all...I will post a link to the gallery when I am done.

kygarden

JWilbur26 wrote:

I don't mind at all...I like your shots. I didn't mess with my metering. I am still learning the basics but will look at it more now. I called before I went to be sure about the camera. They didn't give me any hassle. Just wanted to make sure I couldn't video. They let my girlfriend and her P&S in without a problem which I found rather funny. There were quite a few DSLR's from what I could see.

You did good though I use Nikon so I'm not sure what metering options you have on your camera. But if I ever see a situation with low light in the room and a big spot light blasting on a subject, that screams out Spot Metering to me! All you really care about is the main subject anyway. Here's a small gallery when I used spot metering a lot - similar situation but with Elvis this time: http://nikon-photog.smugmug.com/gallery/1116709

Yes that's funny about the P&S cameras being allowed because almost all of THOSE do video!... I think in general you're ok with D-SLR cameras if you don't try to walk in with a 4 foot long lens attached to the camera . Doubt they'd really say anything about short lenses. However, I think it all depends on the venue - who's doing the checking. I bet if the circus people were the ones actually checking cameras, they'd turn away a lot of people. I imagine the people operating the facility where the circus is being held wants to turn many people away. That would be bad for business.

Tommyboy

These are really nice shots. Mind telling us what lens/lenses you shot these with?

JWilbur26

Thanks Tommyboy!

These were shot on my 55-200 f/4-5.6

JWilbur26

I've touched up a bunch and uploaded...

here...