fundraiser

Jwill

Hi, just posting a few pics from a church fundraiser dinner/concert I attended recently. It was dark, crowded and I don't as yet have a decent flash, so I was shooting at ISO1600. I'm a noob, so C+C desired .

Father and son - doing some mixing.


Many sociable older folk present, dressed for the occasion.


The event organiser and pianist extraordinaire, concentrating on a masterpiece.

NeilL

I like your ideas here, Jwill. Would be interested to know if you did any NR on these? The pools of image in shadow are evocative, the effect is similar to using bokeh to isolate the subject of interest. Just like with shallow DOF I think the subject needs to be really interesting, really sharp and really popping for the shot to be successful. I like the third pic the best, but for me there needs to be more of these two faces and better images of them. The high ISO works against you, I understand, but I don't think flash is the answer. Were you using a tripod? Your dream 70-200 f2.8 IS would certainly have helped. What lens did you use, and at what aperture and shutter speed?

Neil

1pocket

NeilL wrote:

I like your ideas here, Jwill. Would be interested to know if you did any NR on these? The pools of image in shadow are evocative, the effect is similar to using bokeh to isolate the subject of interest. Just like with shallow DOF I think the subject needs to be really interesting, really sharp and really popping for the shot to be successful. I like the third pic the best, but for me there needs to be more of these two faces and better images of them. The high ISO works against you, I understand, but I don't think flash is the answer. Were you using a tripod? Your dream 70-200 f2.8 IS would certainly have helped. What lens did you use, and at what aperture and shutter speed?

Neil

Or even a monopod, or perhaps even some simple bracing against the theater seat, wall, etc that might have been available.

I agree -- no flash is good here, though. I also don't mind the high iso in the b&w conversions. You can also "reduce noise" in the color, and then convert to b&w for a smoother effect.

Yes, a little more face in the second image especially -- maybe at least to include one eye?

Jwill

Thankyou both for the feedback. I completely agree - more face and a sharper image would have been great. I need to update my info - I have recently acquired the 70-200 IS f/2.8, and thats what these pics were taken through, at f2.8. Shutter speed was 1/15, 1/25 and 1/13sec respectively, hence the less than sharp images, as neither the subjects or my hands were still. These were all handheld - a tripod is on my list together with the flash.
I didn't do any noise reduction on these - I only have canon's DPP program, and when I tried noise reduction it seemed to make the image less sharp and a bit more bitsy when viewed at 100%.
I think next time I'll stand up to take shots - didn't do that much this time as carrying that big white lens makes me feel a bit obvious/obnoxious