Micro Blog: 2nd August 2010 (Lowlight Indoor Photography)

Invitation from a friend to cover an event with him saw me unwillingly drag my gear out the door. It's true that I am one to avoid shooting events and weddings and I just do not know why. Perhaps it was the fear of shooting without a tripod or my filters that freak me out from this areas of photography. All I know is if I were to ever change my mind and start doing either one and given the weekly offers to shoot them, it will really pack my schedule to the brim...and I will be served personally at the local bank in no time.

That said, I decided to give this shoot (a launch and a performance) a go as my friend needed my help and since I was backing him up, it was fine with me. A punctual arrival saw us being able to do a recce and that set my mind and fingers at ease. At least I was able to foresee any difficulties in advance. Nothing much was troubling till I saw that the stage was going to have changing lights and that meant exposure will definitely pose a problem. I have tested both the 5D Mark II and 7D and concluded that ISO 1250 for the 5D was fine and the 7D could hold up to ISO 800. Manual mode was the choice as I wanted to adjust both the aperture and shutter speed on the fly.

The launch went smoothly and we were soon ushered to the auditorium that was packed to the brim. The front row seats were fortunately unoccupied and I stationed myself right on them. TAO started their totally awesome performance and having 2 bodies with 2 zoom lenses allowed me to capture much of it. The 5D had the 16-35 while the 7D had the 70-200. It was a good range to work with and with the drastic lighting changes on set, the shutter speed was pushed to the limits of handholding. Image Stabilization was a godsend and I would not have gotten much if not for this technology that has been taken for granted.

Sounds from the camera could be an issue here thus I fired at a fast frame rate only when the drums were going off in unison and I knew that the sound of the shutter and mirror slap would be drowned in the booms from the huge drums. When it was quiet and an enchanting solo performance ensued, single frames were captured with an interval between each one.

It was definitely a very different type of shoot than what I am normally used to but I was rejuvenated and was glad I had taken the break from my comfort zone to push myself that little further.