I showed up with my 17-35mm lens and hotshoe flash attached to my camera. I also had my 50mm with me. (My 70-200 is being repaired right now or I would have brought it too).
The room was very dark. Stage lighting was all over the place, going from dim to bright and changing colors in a split second. A maximum of maybe 20 people occupied the dance floor at once. Often there were only about eight or 10 dancing.
Somehow I had to make this look really cool.
I started off shooting wide angle group shots with the flash on. I got down low and stood on chairs. I wasn't happy with the results. The wide angle was including too much ceiling or floor and there simply weren't enough people dancing to get the image I was going for. Also, the flash was killing the colors emitted from the lights in the shots. My lens wasn't fast enough to use without the flash.
I slapped on my 50mm and turned off the flash. The lighting was so dim that I had to bump my ISO up to 1250 or 1600 and shoot with the lens wide open at f1.7, still only getting a shutter of 1/40 or 1/50 at best. My camera had a real hard time locking focus due to the poor lighting and movement of those dancing. Despite these factors, my favorite shots were made with this setup.
I started thinking about how I could really capture some moments in as artistic of a way possible while making the event look as cool as possible. I snuck behind the DJ where I snagged one of my favorite ones. I moved in close on people to get tighter shots so you couldn't tell how few people were there. That's how I got the other two of my favorite shots. (None of these are cropped). Because of the slow shutter, I was able to capture some movement in the second picture which I think ended up working out well. The worst thing about them, I feel, is the amount of noise. My camera doesn't handle ISO 1600 real well.
I would love to hear some thoughts and criticism on the shots.
(50mm, 1/50, f1.7, ISO 1600)
(50mm, 1/40, f1.7, ISO 1000)
(50mm, 1/40, f1.7, ISO 1600)
The last one has several things going for it that are graphically appealing. The lines on the ceiling make an interesting pattern and the lines formed by the arms of the three ladies in front draw the eye around the photo. From a design standpoint, this makes this photo the strongest. From a pure, simple composition, the first one with the headphone guy uses the rule of thirds. In the middle photo, there is some nice motion in the girl's hair.
ReplyDeleteI think you need more faces and emotional facial expressions because, as a viewer and reader, this is what I connect with. As these photos are, they feel impersonal although I think they are technically pretty good for low light shooting. Your colors and exposures are great!
As far as the PJ artsy stuff that Jerome was talking about, I think you have Graphically Appealing and maybe Motion down but need to work on Perspective and Moment/Emotion a bit more.
I'm not trying to be hard on you here. I suck at this stuff too and that's why I'm taking the class. The easy part is criticizing the photos of others. The hard part is doing it right myself!
The middle photo has a very interesting, faint grid pattern across it. I wonder what caused that? Is it some kind of high ISO artifact?
ReplyDeleteThe first photo has it also. Maybe Jerome knows what caused this.
ReplyDeleteMike, this is not a criticism by the way. I'm just curious.
Yeah I noticed that too. I guess it's the noise from the camera. It was one of the hardest lighting situations I've shot in because of the constant changing of the lights and how dark it was in general. Also, because of the noise and my camera's poor ability with high iso's, a lot of detail is lost in the photos so it's hard to see facial expressions very well. Thanks for the comments and criticisms though. That's exactly what I was looking for. No offense taken.
ReplyDeleteNoise in this kind of photo is not a bad thing in my opinion. It sometimes adds that Rock 'n' Roll feeling to the scene that seems to fit to some kinds of music that is gritty, dirty and grungy anyway. For instance, a crisp, clean perfect photo does not always fit with Punk but a slightly blurry, grainy, streaky photo seems more in tune with scenes and sounds.
ReplyDeleteThat grid you see in the images is called "banding" and occurs when you're shooting at high ISOs. The color spectrum starts to fall apart, and the blue layer is the first to go so you'll see these stripes start to come across in the image.
ReplyDeleteI like the color and feel of motion in the bottom image.
The middle image is pretty good, I just wish you had more of a profile angle on the girl on the right. But I like how the DJ is in the background.
The top shot is a nice, simple composition. I would have liked to see a little more of the DJ equipment to bring more of a theme to the photo.
Not too bad of a take in bad lighting. You managed to find the good light. Nice work Mike.