Gig portraits

[DanW]

Hi all,

Recently, I was fortunate enough to be asked to shoot an album launch for a local group. Although I took a ton of group shots (might post them some other time), I really like how the individual portraits turned out. Of course, like most of these music gigs, the lighting was all over the place and generally very dark but I've tried to bring it back to something approaching normal.









All shot with the D700 and 70-200 f2.8. C&C most welcome.

Cheers

[surenj]

Dan, I like the expressions on these.

However, they appear quite soft. Your shutter looks adequate (with VR) but I wondered whether you could have pushed your ISO [which is not in the EXIF]. The other explanation is that the forum has resized your pictures causing the softness.

Interestingly the softness gives the second picture a painterly quality!

[DanW]

Thanks surenj

I think it's mostly high ISO noise reduction although resizing doesn't help! For these shots, the ISO was either at 6400 or at Hi1 (12,800) which was as high as I wanted to go. Hi2 just looked way too noisy.

I also seemed to lose a bit of sharpness doing the WB correction in Capture NX2. The colours were initially way off - stage lighting - and when I pulled them back it seemed to introduce some softness. I'll play with the software a bit more and see if I can figure it out.

[aim54x]

Very nice work there DanW...another D700 having me drooling!

[surenj]

In that case, apart from using a 200mm 1.8, you have pushed even the D700 to it's limits. Wait until 102800 ISO becomes mainstream

[DanW]

In that case, apart from using a 200mm 1.8, you have pushed even the D700 to it's limits. Wait until 102800 ISO becomes mainstream

Can't wait!! I still remember the first time I used ISO1600 film and was amazed at what could be done then. I feel spoilt with 6400!