RAW, Lightroom, and more 2007 dance camps

So now, I pretty much have my kit put together. And it's more or less what I still use now (2009). I'm pretty happy with it, and I'll show a few shots from Jamborama and Inspiration Weekend 2007.

Jamborama 2007:




I'm happy with these - white walls are white, colored low-light indoor stuff is colored, and I'm still not using flash. I'm using an ISO of 800-3200 in these, with exposure times ranging from 1/80 sec to 1/160 sec, which is the right range.

Later that year, I went to Inspiration Weekend in Irvine - the venues were often very dark, but I was pretty happy with what I shot. Here's some examples in different lighting conditions:





Except for the daylight shot, these were shot with ISO 3200 with exposures ranging from 1/125 to 1/200 sec.

So now that I'm pretty happy with my photos, what did I learn?

• Get a better seat. During the performance, I was way off to the side. This was mostly because this is where I stored my equipment, and I knew I wouldn't be in anyone's way. The shots are okay, but sometimes, it's just really obvious that the performance is out to the front and I was over on the side.


• When I put the photos online, I found that almost nobody downloaded the full original size(3504x2336). I was shocked and a little insulted! I was paying a photo site that would allow full res downloads and I wanted to make them available to everyone.
  
  But then I got over it. Honestly, even I usually didn't use the full original size. At the time, my screen was about 1600 across, and so even I only needed half size most of the time. Also, it didn't really account for cropping. Starting with Jamborama 2007, I started cropping a little bit for composition. I think in 2008, I made more extensive use of cropping. And I could hide it more with a 1600 resolution photo.