Last night a friend and I went to the Green Mill, a fantastic jazz venue, to check out their Sunday night poetry slam event. Before I launch into the technical crap know that you should definitely attend this slam! There are some really good poets reading there – and by poets I don't mean those boring dead people they force fed you in literature class. These are living, breathing people who fuse a sort of jazz, humor and feeling in their words. You can find out more about the slam here.
OK, now the technical crap -
The goal here was not to get any great shots, but to experiment and see what could be captured. Rather than take 950 shots like last time (http://upyourasa.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-years-eve-punkmetal-show-at-rhode.html), I took just 12 shots, trying only to get Marc Smith in a halfway decent pose.
Here are the specs on the shot -
Format – RAW
ISO – 12,800
Focal Length - 39mm
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture – 4.0
Picture Posted – the same shot was processed in color and black and white. An enlargement of approximately the same area in both photos was also processed and posted. All four pictures were posted at 72dpi with minimal JPG compression.
What I found - the reds in the stage lighting seemed to distort the picture. Intense reds seem to make the picture look “fuzzy” - I don't know how else to put it. If you switch from the color to the black and white you'll see that the image is much clearer. For the record, adjusting the curve of the reds down or desaturating short of going to b&w didn't really improve things.
Whether you look at the shots in black and white or in color it appears the focus could have been a little sharper (the shot was set to maximum sharpness in Digital Photo Professional, Canon's free RAW processing software). However, if you look at the closeups you'll see that the problem is not really focus-related. The issue us that the picture is incredibly noisy – that is the image is really chunky.
All photography is a matter of making trade-offs and compromises in order to get the picture you want. In this case, I wanted to get a low light shot of Marc Smith. The tools I used were fast ISO (12,800), maximum aperture opening (with this lens at this focal length 4.0), slowest possible shutter speed (1/125).
What I got for this was roughly the picture I wanted.
So what improvements could I make to get something more like I wanted? Next time I would use the following settings – 3200, 2.0 (which would mean bringing my fastest lens – a standard 50mm with a maximum aperture of 1.8) and a shutter speed of about 1/80th. Shooting with a prime, not a telephoto, lens, the picture would have to be taken from farther away to get the same framing. Or I would have to settle for a more of a close up. The background of the shot would also be fuzzier. Why? Because a larger aperture results in less of a depth of field. This would likely make it a better portrait shot, drawing more attention to the focal point, the poet's face.
As always, I will happily accept any suggestions or questions. Thanks!
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