Deadman’s Carnival – March 2015

Posted on March 8, 2015 in Blog Post, Photography, Professional Photo Portfolio

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I took the 85mm for a spin at last night’s Deadman’s Carnival event at the Mirimar Theater in Milwaukee. Even managed to get some decent seats.

 

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Although entirely recreational, this was an illuminating shoot. While getting settled in our seats, I realized that my lens was missing focus, something I noticed at a portrait shoot a few days earlier. Since the band was playing music prior to the show, I decided to calibrate the lens. I found that it was front-focusing pretty significantly (-15 setting). Fortunately I was able to dial in before the show started.

 

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While the show was going, it occurred to me that there are hot spots on the stage from the overhead lights. I think the next time I shoot this event, I will have to pay closer attention to this. I also noticed that at times my dynamic range was being challenged, and it occurred to me as I was working in post that I might be better using a single point or center weighted metering setting instead of matrix metering, given that the subject is often brightly illuminated on an otherwise very dark background. I don’t generally care if my blacks get crushed, but I do care if I lose detail in my highlights.

 

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And last, while I missed being able to adjust my framing with my zoom lenses, I did appreciate the quality I was able to get working with a faster lens. Even though the f/1.8 lens is only 2/3rds of a stop faster than my f/2.8 zoom lenses, I was able to shoot at a significantly lower ISO. Most of these shots were taken at ISO 1250, f/1.8 and between 1/100 and 1/800. One of my goals for later this year is to invest in a Nikon 55mm AIS f/1.2 lens. Although that’s manual focus, I think it would be really interesting to see the difference I could get with another 2/3rds of a stop aperture.

 

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