Some basic settings

Last entry, in broad strokes, I basically said, "Use Manual mode and experiment to figure it out," which might not have been terribly useful. I still stand by "Use Manual mode." In fact, most of the time I still shoot in full manual mode, but maybe I can make a few more concrete suggestions.

For starters, I'm going to assume you are not shooting with a flash. I might discuss flash in later entries, but honestly, I'm not that good with it myself, and it's something I'm still trying to learn.

This is what I used to shoot Camp Hollywood this year, and I think this is a good starting point for an lit indoor venue (competition, as opposed to a darker social dance):

Images link to bigger versions.

Here's two at 1/60 sec





And a few at 1/125 sec

• Exposure 1/125 sec. Not too much blurring. Ideally, it would be faster, like 1/250 sec or better, but swing dances are usually pretty dark. Sometimes, I've gone down to 1/80 sec to lower the ISO.

  For me 1/60 has a just little too much blur, though I've accidentally shot some contests that way (like the first 2 images on the right), though you can see the difference between 1/60 and 1/125 is subtle - compare the feet, and try to imagine how fast they're moving in each.

  
  
• F-stop f/4-f/5.6. Even if the lens can go lower, I usually will still shoot competitions at f/4. I've had issues with the focus, especially since all my subjects are constantly moving. f/2.8 is sweet when it works, blurring out the background, but is really unforgiving if autofocus picks the wrong thing to focus on(but really, try it for yourself).
  
• ISO 3200. The 5D mark 2 can go up to ISO 6400(not including special "H" modes). But with all cameras, as you get to the higher ISOs you start getting more noise. I like to back off a little bit from the top.
  
• White Balance 2500 deg K. Just stay away from "AWB" (Automatic White Balance). Camp Hollywood just has really warm light, and with the yellow walls and lampshades, the Color Temp is wayyy down there. It's really just metadata anyway, so you can adjust it in Lightroom later. In other venues, you might want to shoot with Tungsten or Florescent presets. But take a test shot or two and adjust accordingly.
  

That was my starting point. Quickie terminology: "Down one stop" means halving the amount of light. "Up one stop" means doubling the amount of light.

• Every factor of 2 in Exposure/shutter speed is one stop
  
• Every factor of 2 in ISO/ASA is one stop.
  
• Every factor of square-root-of-two (1.414) in F-stop is one stop (there's an area calculation involved). BTW, multiply sqrt(2) by itself a few times - you should see a familiar progression (1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, ...)
  

If you change one(and I encourage you to), you will need to compensate with one or both of the others to maintain the same amount of light. For instance, let's say my image is more or less okay, but I decide I want a really crisp shot and decrease my exposure from 1/125 sec to 1/250 sec (1 stop down). Then I will need to compensate by either dropping my f-stop from f/4 down to f/2.8 or increasing my ISO from 3200 to 6400, and I have to weigh the depth of field change against the added noise I would get from the ISO. Often though, the lower f-stop means a more expensive lens, so you may have to just live with the added noise.

But for more details about camera fundamentals, I suggest:

• The Negative (Ansel Adams Photography, Book 2), Ansel Adams, originally published sometime in the 50's, many many reprints. - Though it's about film, the concepts are still relevant if you're doing digital.
  
• Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites, Syl Arena, 2010 - I like what I've heard him discuss on podcasts. I'm actually only about a third of the way through this book, but what I've seen so far is very good. And the first chapter or two of the book is more about general camera stuff, and doesn't start into flash yet.
  

Let's try this again...

Okay, it's been a couple years, and it's not like I have any more free time now, but a couple people have asked me for some tips, and I have a few ideas that I wanted to write up, so I'm going to try to give this a shot again.

In a nutshell, for the last few years my day job has been doing Lighting and Compositing work for Animated Features like Bolt and Arthur Christmas (if you're looking for a Lighter in LA, give me a call. :) No, really. I'm looking.) and have some background in software, so I might tend to approach some things from a technical angle. While I've used a camera for many years, I think I only really started taking photography seriously starting around 2007. I've never even done darkroom(though that's not a source of pride). I'm just sayin... I'm not a pro or anything.

I like swing dancing so it seemed like a natural thing to start shooting. I've been shooting mostly competitions like Camp Hollywood for a few years now. You can see in some of my early posts here that some of my early stuff wasn't really very good, but I've been trying to learn and improve, and honestly a lot of this is summarizing/explaining/interpreting what I've heard in various podcasts and classes.

So here goes... I'll start with a couple simple ideas and try to get more specific later.

The first idea is: Shoot Manual and shoot with intent.
Put your camera in manual mode. In a Canon SLR, that's the "M" on the main dial. For consumer cameras, it's a lot harder to find - you'll have to explore the menus or read the manual. In an iPhone, you probably need to find a specific app. But you should try to get independent control of the shutter/exposure, the f-stop, and the ISO/ASA/speed. In a consumer camera, you may only get access to two or even one of these. But the point is to get out of automatic mode, and start making decisions for yourself.

I really suggest getting an SLR because it's easier to get into manual mode. I use the Canon 30D and 5Dmark2. If you're starting out, the 20D, 30D, 40D, and 50D are an excellent starting point. The Rebel line shares much of the same electronics, but the Rebels have more plastic, are a little lighter(I think this makes them less stable), and I don't like their controls on the back. But that's personal preference. The Rebel line is more affordable, and has pretty much the same functionality as the 20D-50D line. I've heard rumors that the 60D is closer to the Rebel line than the 50D line, and some have indicated it's a step back from the 50D, but haven't checked it out for myself.

Any number of books, classes, and websites can describe the relationship between shutter, f-stop, and ISO, and you should start experimenting and learning the tradeoffs.

Next idea: Shoot a LOT of photos
Use a giant memory card (I have several 32 Gig), and shoot in RAW - this will give you more flexibility later. Shoot multiple shots of anything you consider interesting.

• Try the rapid-fire mode. Even if you're just taking candids at a birthday party or something, inevitably someone blinks or looks off to the side or something. Hold the shutter down for 2 or 3 shots. You can immediately check on the back display and delete the bad ones.


• Try a different focal length if you're using a zoom. Try some alternate framings. Specifically, try to get some more closeups. Most consumer cameras are targeted at going too wide to make sure you get something. But try getting in closer to get something good. Even with a prime lens, try taking a couple steps closer to your subject.


• Shoot from a different angle. Are all of your shots shot from about 5 to 5.5 feet off the ground? (like where a standing person's eye would be) Try crouching down. Try standing on a chair. Try lying down on the floor.
With dance shots, the low angles are often more dramatic. Though it's a tradeoff - the lower you go, the more you're limited to not being able to see past the first one or two couples.

To put some numbers to this, at the US Open 2010, I shot roughly 10,000 photos. At Camp Hollywood 2011, I shot around 7900 photos. Not all of them are good though, which brings me to...

The last idea for this post: Delete a lot of photos - at least, don't post everything.
This goes back to the first concept of shooting with intent. I think pros probably display about 1 in 10 of what they shot. I'm not picky enough yet, so I'm around 1 in 4 or 1 in 5. At a sporting event, the pros are probably shooting thousands of shots, and maybe a dozen get published in a magazine. (Yeah, maybe I'm dating myself with the idea of magazines printed on paper and the idea of staff photographers.) For the US Open, I think I shared around 560 photos out of 10,000.

Sometimes, looking through various galleries, like when they're at the same event as me and think(not say), "You know, there are some great shots in there - like some better than mine, or some moments that I just plain missed. But there's a lot of mediocre ones too. If they had just only posted the gems, I would have thought they were a better photographer." I don't intend to be mean about it - I certainly have my share of mediocre and crappy shots. We all do. And honestly, I still get attached to some shots and post too many too.

I think though that deciding what to share or delete is an important step in growth. If you were limited to only show 1 in 4(or 1 in 10 if you're more advanced...) of your shots, how would you decide? In later posts, I'll discuss what I look for in my shots, and make a few suggestions. But for starters, try the exercise of looking through your own photos from an event and pick your favorite 25%, any criteria you want. Just try to come up with a reason why you chose one over another. This is harder than it sounds, and for something like Camp Hollywood, it takes me days, if not weeks to do.

Once you've chosen, try looking at the "favorites" set as a whole, and try to figure out if there was a common theme. Try to figure out what your criteria was, and it may even teach you a little something about yourself and your ideas. If you can articulate why your top 25% made the cut, try to apply those ideas to the next time you go out shooting.

Okay, okay, one more idea, kind of running with the analysis idea:
Look at some other people's photos, especially at the same event. If you can find some shots that you like better than others, try to figure out why and try to figure out how your favorite shots were done. Then try to do that too the next time you go out shooting. If you can't figure out how they did it, try email/PMing them, or the next time you run into them at a dance, ask them. I've found most photographers I've talked to and asked for tips are pretty receptive to sharing techniques.

Marla!

Back in 2007, I took my camera to see Marla Sokoloff (she was on "The Practice," "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "Sugar and Spice") sing at the Derby. It was VERY dark in there. Now, I emailed the Derby ahead of time and they said "photos okay, no monopod, no flash." So I didn't use monopod or flash, but lots of other people were using flash and the Derby bouncer guy didn't harass them at all.

All I could do is shoot at ISO 3200. I did manage to shoot at 1/125 sec though and just tried to hold the camera as steady as I could. 1/125 isn't so bad now, and even without a monopod, 1/60 sec is possible. I think I brought up the exposure for these in Lightroom.

Now, I could say that I posted this to discuss really low light photography, but really, I just think Marla Sokoloff is cute, I like her music, and I was excited about meeting her. I emailed a link to the site to her after the show and she said she liked the photos. :)

My Kit and My Process - A Summary

So far, over the course of many blog entries, I've discussed how and why I assembled the kit that I did. Now, it's time to summarize. Also, I'll update it a little bit to describe developments in the past couple years, and modifications I would suggest if you're starting now.

• The camera: Canon EOS 30D - I've been very happy with this camera. Canon is known for good optics. (So is Nikon, but I don't know the Nikon cameras as well.) This is an SLR camera (detachable lens). I almost always shoot RAW format now and use the complete Manual mode. The most important consideration to me when buying the camera was the 22.5mm image sensor.
  
  • More recently, there have been a 40D and a 50D which have better light sensitivity and higher resolutions. I think the 7D is the next in this series and can even do HD video and image preview.
    
  • There is a cheaper line of these cameras - the Rebel, Rebel XT, XTi, etc. These have a disabled version of the same chip, the same image sensor. The camera is lighter than the corresponding 10D-50D, and it is missing the back dial. There are some buttons there instead. Personally, I think the interface would drive me crazy because I'm constantly adjusting both the exposure and the f-stop. You can still do it with the Rebel series, but I think it's just less convenient.
    
    You never know until you try it though. Go to a camera store and try it out for yourself. If the Rebel is good enough, you can save yourself a few hundred dollars.
    
  • There is a more expensive line of these cameras - the 5D and the 1D. These cost about twice as much as the 30D did. The main difference is that they have a full 35 mm image sensor. I believe the 5D Mark II also has video capability. I wish I had one of these, but it's just too much for me.
    


• Lens: Canon 24-70mm L series f/2.8 - I love this lens. It can do f/2.8 for the whole range, so I can use it in fairly dark rooms and bars. The 24-70mm range is good enough for a big venue like Camp Hollywood. I highly highly recommend this lens. But it ain't cheap. I got a good deal on it and got mine for about $1200 - almost as much as the camera body itself! But in photography, just be ready to spend on the lenses...
  
  • I did get some good use out of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime lens and it is cheap - only about $80 - and that was from a retail camera store. It's fast enough for good indoor shots with this, and some decent outdoor ones too. It will be close to what you see, so don't expect many dramatic shots. But it is a good lens, and worth the money.
    
  • Recently, I used a friend's 50-200mm image stabilized zoom lens, and it was really nice. I've thought about getting the L series 70-200mm f/2.8 one after using that - it took great closeups at Camp H, that some nice blurring on the background. A bit pricey for me right now, but it's definitely on the radar. I might buy the cheaper ($350) first and get the $1500 one later after I've saved up a little more.
  
  
• Extra battery.
  
• I use a SanDisk Extreme III 32 Gig Compact Flash card, with a 8 Gig Extreme III backup. I also have a couple 4 Gig cards from before I got the 8 Gig. If I was to do it over, I might buy 3 or 4 (at least 2 though) 8 Gig cards, just in case one goes bad. I try to clean out the cards as often as possible during a shooting weekend.
  
• monopod - mine is a Manfrotto 680B monopod. It has some nice weight behind it so it's easy to steady.
  
• 430 Flash I've only started using this now (2009). I'll blog about it later. There's a better one out there - the 580 - which can be remote triggered. So far, the 430 has been enough, but I'm actually starting to think about whether I should use a remote trigger - that just starts getting super expensive though.
  
• Belkin USB card reader - very useful so you don't have to worry about communication protocols with your camera. I've had issues with my Nikon coolpix when I connect to the camera, but everything has been fine when I just plug the SD card into the reader.
  
• LowePro CompuDaypack Photojournalist backpack - I got one for about $70 at Amazon. I use this as my carry-on on all flights. There's a padded section to hold the camera and another padded section to hold a laptop. Plus another medium sized pouch for accessories. It's good for holding all camera and computer stuff, but don't expect to fit a change of clothes in there or anything. BTW, once I get to the hotel, I unpack the laptop and use the laptop section to hold my dance shoes.
  
• Adobe Lightroom - available on both Mac and PC. I'm using version 2 and I think they're up to version 3 now. It is AMAZING processing software. It's great for organizing my photos, reviewing photos to figure out which ones to delete, making color balance changes to a group of photos, fixing exposures, exporting to JPG, etc. Most importantly, it is really helpful for navigating what you can do with a RAW image.
  
  I think some people like Aperture, which does similar things. I don't know anything about Aperture, so I won't comment on it, but just thought I'd mention it.
  
• Adobe Photoshop - I'm sure everyone's heard of Photoshop, so I won't describe it too much. I'll just say that now and then, there will be something I can't do in Lightroom, like make a spot correction to one little part of the image, or if I want to apply a Gaussian blur somewhere, or use smudge tool to obscure a license plate or something. Honestly, I don't use it very much, but I thought I'd mention it.

So that's the kit. Just a few more pointers...

• In Lightroom, I output as JPG with a quality setting of 90. They're much smaller than quality 100, and visually, I can't tell the difference.
  
• I share the photos at the max resolution of 1600x1600. (One dimension will be smaller). Again, when compared to the full 3244 or whatever resolution, the files are around 1/4 the size. This seems to be about the biggest anyone wants. If there's a special need, you can always re-export a bigger one.
  
• I don't distribute the RAW images. It's like a negative.
  
• In the metadata, I embed a copyright notice, derived from Creative Commons. For me, the non-commercial, attribute, share-alike seems to fit my needs. Also, I put a description of the license on every gallery. I think it's not asking much to get credit for my photos.
  
• I haven't started watermarking photos yet, but probably will starting in early 2010. By the time you're reading this, I might have already started. I've seen a couple cases where people have not included proper attribution per the license. I don't really want to make a big issue out of it, and I don't believe they are intentionally violating the license. At the same time, I don't think they should be offended by an unobtrusive watermark.
  
• I keep my online galleries on smugmug The thing I like is that I can make the full res photo available, and I think the galleries are easier to navigate than flickr, though that may be my own personal preferences. But let's say you want to view the "large resolution" versions of each photo. In smugmug, you would click one of them into large resolution, then use left and right arrows to navigate the gallery. In flickr, it looked like I had to go back down to medium size before I could go to the next photo. I haven't explored picassa yet.
  
  If you wind up wanting a smugmug account though, let me know and I'll give you a referral code and we both get a discount.
  
  BTW, for the last 4 years or so, I've been using the cheap account, but next week, I may upgrade to the professional account. (Mostly to get the watermarking feature.)
  
• Favorite Galleries These days, when I shoot a dance weekend, I shoot a LOT of photos, like in the neighborhood of 3000-3500, keeping around 1600-2000. When I show you a gallery of 1600 photos, that's after I've trashed a bunch. That's quite a bit for anyone to navigate, and most people probably don't want to.
  
  While there's something I like about all of them, I understand they don't all mean as much to everyone else. Now, I go through All the galleries and tag the 4 or 5 star photos, and maybe the 3 stars and make a special "Favorites" gallery for that. I think people appreciate it, because I monitor the statistics and I see the Favorites gallery gets the most traffic. At first, I would do between 100-600 in the "Favorites," but after seeing that Facebook limits galleries to 200 photos, I try to put a cap of 200 on the "Favorites." Seemed like about the right number I was settling on anyway.
  
  As for the other galleries, they do sometimes still get some attention. I think that most people look at the Favorites gallery, and if they competed in something, they'll look for more photos of themselves in that gallery. Sometimes I'll see people use these photos (that didn't make it to "Favorites") in their Facebook or Myspace profile photos, so I think people still like to look at them.
  
• These days, I also keep Facebook galleries and release low resolution (640) versions of the photos there with a link to the smugmug galleries. I like Facebook's tagging - it actually seems to be the most effective way to publicize the gallery and show everyone photos I took of them. I sometimes post to some bulletin boards like SoCalSwing or denverSwingDance, but honestly, I see just about everyone on Facebook, and I barely see any traffic on the forums anymore.
  
• Indoor color temperatures are around 2800 K. Not written in stone. But I've just found that at Camp Hollywood and Cowtown Jamborama, my photos initially come in too yellow, and I need to lower the color temperature from what's in the photo, even though I set it to tungsten, which should be correct (assuming no flash).
  
• Ideally, dance shots should be 1/125 sec or faster. You can get away with something as slow as 1/30 sec, but your shots WILL be blurry. At 1/60 sec, they will be acceptable, but a little blurry. If you're in low light, you can generally get away with 1/80 sec or 1/100 of a sec and not feel bad about it. And if you're using a flash, you might be able to use 1/250 sec(but your SLR probably can't go faster), depending on your flash setting.

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.
  

LotR 2007 cont. - a word about color temperature

Last entry, I briefly mentioned that color issue - the white balance problem with the Sunday daytime competitions. That was pure slop on my part, and not the fault of the camera. But it highlighted the next piece of the puzzle. I went back and tried my best to correct the color on the Showcase competion (100-200 photos) but was severely limited because I was shooting JPG to save memory. That turns out to be a major mistake that my photographer friends have been warning me about for a long time. The main issue I had was that there wasn't an easy way for me to process a large group of photos.

Honestly, I don't understand white balance as well as I should. All I know is that different types of light get recorded differently. Most indoor lighting will be around 2800-3200 K, while outdoor lighting will often be 5500-6500 K. Shooting outdoors with an indoor setting will make your images too blue, while shooting indoors with outdoor settings will make your images too yellow (I'll show an example of that here). If you want to know more, I suggest reading the Wikipedia entry on color temperature


Let me first start by saying the Sunday afternoon competitions were insanely hard to shoot. I wasn't really happy with any of my Sunday afternoon shots, but this is just for discussion. This shot shows two big issues:

• Differences in color temperature. There are tungsten lights inside, which are actually pretty dim. Plus, there is some pretty powerful daylight coming in from both sides. There's the sky outside the windows in the photo, and obviously the sun coming in from the doors behind me.


• Differences in light. In the corner of the room, it's pretty dark. But the people in the lower right corner are getting hit directly by the sun. you can see it's actually blowing out (overexposed).
  

I was shooting JPG, so I couldn't manipulate it too much afterwards, but today, I would have shot it a stop or two down to avoid the overexposure, knowing that I could rescue the dark areas from a RAW image later.

I'm still not really sure what to do about the color temperature. I think I would still just play with it in Lightroom until I found one that was okay.

But to give an example of how much manipulation goes on...

This is what I started with - I set the wrong color temperature when shooting. Probably all photos taken that afternoon started out looking like this - way way too yellow and a little dark.



Here is my first attempt to fix the color, but I think it turned out a little bit too pink.



A few days after that, it just bothered me so much that I decided to try to neutralize the pink a little bit. I think it actually wound up adding a little more green to fix it. Actually, you can see in the mirror that one wall shifted blue showing I may have gone a little too far. But that's not the biggest part of the shot. If I was really trying to refine this one photo, I would consider taking it into photoshop with a few different color settings and mixing it differently in different sections.

The things to consider were:

• What should be white? The back wall? Teni's shoes?


• How white should it be? The back wall probably wasn't really white, but more a beige, very very slightly warmer. Also, there is colored light in the room, whether it's bouncing off the floor and stage


• What should the skin tones be? Try to pick something reasonable. Remember despite the crayola "flesh" colored crayon, everyone isn't the same. Check everyone. If worst comes to worst, you can use photoshop to fix people individually, but you can probably find a setting that looks right for everyone, knowing that everyone's skin tones can wind up different.

The thing is, making these adjustments is very hard with a JPG because the image gets the color temperature baked in. Though it doesn't even record the color temperature in the metadata in the image. With a RAW image, the color temperature is just a setting recorded to tell the software how to process the RAW data. But (I think) the RAW data is really the same whatever the color temperature is set to. After all, it's the same light that's hitting the CMOS sensor. The processing happens when it's turned into a JPG.

The bottom line:

Always shoot RAW.

The problems with RAW (and why they shouldn't concern you) are:

• The files are huge. A big high quality JPG may be around 2 or 3 MB. A RAW file is about 12 MB. Let's say you have a 1 GB Compact Flash card. You're looking at over 300 JPG images or less than 90 RAW images. That's a tough decision... in 2007. But today(2009), a new SanDisk Extreme III 32 GB Compact Flash card sells for $149 from Amazon's featured merchants. Now, 32 GB is a lot. That's enough for me to shoot a 4 day swing event without having to delete any photos (though you should delete the crappy ones). A 8GB Extreme III Compact Flash is selling for $50, and that's good for a whole day at a dance camp. And you can probably even find cheaper ones if you start exploring ebay and craig's list.


• They take a lot of disk space. Again, disk space is getting really cheap too. Today, quickly scanning Amazon again shows a 2 TB hard drive sells for under $200.


• Sometimes older operating systems (Windows XP) have trouble understanding what RAW is. I'm pretty sure XP and Windows 7 can handle them just fine, and now I'm using a Mac and OS X handles it great. But really, you should use Lightroom or something to process and view the images. Lightroom sells for something like $300 retail. But go take or teach a class or something and the educational price is $100.
  

So I'll revise that to say:

Always shoot RAW.

Get a 32 GB memory card, or several 8 GB ones.

Get a huge hard drive

Get Adobe Lightroom - I think some people also really like aperture, but I've never tried it myself.

My favorite lens - Canon L series 24-70mm, f/2.8

A week or two after Camp Hollywood, I decided to invest in a new lens. The Canon L series 24-70mm, capable of f/2.8 though the whole range. To date (2009) this is still my favorite go-to lens. I love this lens and I only wish I had bought it earlier. Don't get me wrong. There are other lenses I want now, but this one has been good for just about anywhere I go, and I highly recommend it.

As noted in my earlier Camp Hollywood Photography blog entry, I was dissatisfied with the lens length. 50mm was okay, but not great. So right before Lindy on the Rocks (Denver), I bought this Canon lens. It's a bit hefty, but it's great for indoor dance photography. The zoom range is enough for close-ups and also enough to get a dancer across the room. Now, you still can't get a headshot across the room or anything, but you can get a full head-to-toe shot, which is generally what I'm trying to get at a dance competition.

So the lens took its maiden voyage at Lindy on the Rocks, and I was really happy with its performance. There were a few minor glitches, like me forgetting to reset the color temperature for daylight in the Sunday competitions, but for composition and clarity, I was very happy with the quality of photos. A bunch of friends used them for their myspace avatars, so I guess others were happy with the photos too. So while I rated my Camp Hollywood photos as "fair to good, no excellents," I thought the Lindy on the Rocks photos were mostly good, with a few great ones.

Some of my favorites were:


I actually used this one as the basis for an oil painting this year(2009).


I don't know if I've ever seen anyone pancake as high as Shannon. This was a very memorable moment to me.





Solo Charleston contest... You can probably guess it was extremely dark here, and I was actually really impressed that the camera got what it did. For reference, in this last one, I was using:

• Exposure: 1/40 sec
  
• f-stop: f/2.8
  
• ISO: 3200 (H mode)
  
• focal len: 24mm
  

It's a pretty long exposure, but I did have the monopod to help me.

But even now, I wouldn't do it any differently. Actually, I take that back. I believe I was still shooting JPG and not RAW. I had my reasons back then, but now, I see it as a big mistake.