Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set were back in Brisbane this weekend. And this time I didn't miss her!
The other Alpha Geeks can attest to my infatuation with Clare's acoustic ministrations (I was going to write aural, but you people either don't know how to spell or have dirty minds!), and me constantly sighing "Ahhh... Clare!" promptly followed by a disambiguating yell of "BOWDITCH!" since roomie ClaIre always walks into the room with a look of concern on her face.
It was simply awesome! I love the Zoo, a very easy going atmosphere, plus I discovered another act which I enjoyed, Andrew Morris, who has been getting some air play on JJJ recently. Very Bernard Fanning if I have to say.
So Clare B and TFS played a whole bunch of songs from their album "What was left", which I so dearly enjoy (there isn't a week when it's not played at least once!)
For the lowly price of $22 dollars I was entertained for more than 3 hours! Awesome!
The band say that they are going to take a break from touring and start work on a new album which I am longingly waiting for!
For the band's homepage click here
For links to the rest of my photos from the night click here
N.B.: Wrote all about the night and not about how I went with the photos! I guess this is starting to be a diary of my learning experiences with photography and the D200. All I had was my ONLY lens for the moment, the Tamron 90mm f2.8 Macro which equates to a moderate telephoto on the D200's sensor (135mm for those in film speak). It turned out to do a decent job, especially where I was in the audience.
I found the fancy matrix or centre weighted metering modes would do an alright photo but they tended to underexpose most of the frame due to bright reflections of the stage lights on instruments or shiny bits. The most reliable way I found of getting a decent exposure was to switch the camera to manual mode, leave it on the widest aperture (f2.8) and diddle with the shutter speed and ISO settings (god bless digital!), depending on whether I needed a fast shutter to freeze hands and instruments or if I wanted to go for less noise and risk a hand-held 1/30th or 1/15 (where's my Vibration Reduction lens!?).
Spot metering on the regions I wanted to expose for allowed me to set my shutter speed and ISO and recompose to take the photo. Yes I could have done this in Shutter priority mode and used the exposure hold button, but it seemed to be easier to do it this way since I had to balance the "film" speed as well.
Yet another area I need to get better at, I think it would help to have a faster lens as well like an f1.4 or f1.8 or heaven forbid a Nikkor 58mm Noct f1.2
10 comments:
Nice pics, that tamron is fairly versatile
How does auto ISO work on the D200, is it like the D70 or more like the D2x
Hey Frinky,
I'm not sure how it works on the D70 or the D2x, but in the D200 you set the max iso you want it to use and the min shutter speed you want to achieve. I guess I could have then used mode-S and used one dial to shift between 1/30 and 1/100 rather than flaffing about as I did.
I did think about it though and was toying with that idea instead of the manual mode, but I wasn't sure how it would effect the metering.
From Dad's film SLR (back in the day?!), I'm used to spot metering to get several values in the frame and choosing an average for say the subject face, dialling in the appropriate and composing the picture.
How would you do it? Would like to see any photos you had of low ambient light scenes with the odd hot spot.
I've got the 50mm f1.8 on the way but I'm thinking very hard about a 2nd 50mm f1.2 MF for low light work coz f2.8 just doesn't cut it.
How goes your 90mm macro gear, any nice stuff?
Hmmm ok, that auto iso sounds like how it works on the D2Xs (and the D2x with new firmware). Atm I can't really use auto iso in aperture priority which renders it pretty much useless for me...
Multi spot is cool but I don't really see the point these days with 3d matrix the way it is :/
Haven't done much low light stuff (the last stuff I did was half drunk at the Schutzenfest and I can't find those pics) but I'd probably just leave it in matrix (have the func button wired to spot meter), aperture priority, adjust iso as needed.. VR helps :P
Macro is going fine.. need to find some good stuff to shoot.
Hey with that auto iso on your D200... what's the fastest shutter speed you can tell it to try to stay above.. 1/120th, 1/200th...?
1/200th or faster would be very handy for some macros..
On second thought, never mind :P
I could probably achieve the same on the D2x shooting in manual mode, auto iso does what I want in everything except aperture priority :/
Hey mate, I'm finding with the 90mm macro at f4 when it it 1:1, you almost need to switch it to AF-C and select 1/250th. best results are obviously obtained with tripod.
Yeh 1/250th or faster is definitely a must. f/4 is just too shallow for the bees I've been stalking ;|
f/11-f/13 seems to be the ideal compromise between sufficient dof for a bee, blurring of background and exposure (using manual and auto ISO).
Wish that Tamron was AF-S tho :(
AF-C with focus priority works ok but I miss quite a few opportunities 'cos it can't focus fast enough.
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That sucker bee sharp :P
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Just like the toning on the eyes and legs even though it's not critically sharp.
There's a few compelling reasons here for picking up the r1c1 macro flash kit ;|
Nice work with da Beez. very sharp and good contrast. Did you bung on the teleconvertor for a couple of them? Do you find that you 90mm has a kind of warm colour cast to it? Your seem a lot natural if not cooler than my macros. I'm going to try a couple of experiments some day to see if this is the case.
I'm finding in many situations the SB-800 on wireless and diffuser is pretty good... which you can't do with the D2x... hmmm get the SB-29/8 TTL cord. Had a play with a LSPJ II diffuser, very impressed, might have to divert some funds in order to get one, light is not as cold or hard as stock diffuser. Probably works really well for macro photos too.
Long night last night... sorry for the spelling and grammar
No TC. No pp. Auto WB. D2x is probably a bit cooler with it's AWB than say the D70. Well actually the D70 is kinda all over the place, D200 seems pretty spot on from what I've seen.
If anything that lens is slightly cooler.. dunno.. it's all a bit hard to say :)
Nice colour/contrast rendition overall though.. I wouldn't go so far to say as it's as good as the 70-200 in that department.. but it's not far off.
If I go the off camera option with the sb800, i'll need a bracket. There's no way I could possibly hold a flash and the beast in separate hands :P
Might see how well just the stock diffuser and on body sb800 goes for macro.. only need a smidge of fill outside methinks.
LSPJ-II is well worth it I think.. get the dome for it as well if you wanna do direct fill flash outdoors.
Gary Fong must be making a killing :/
Like I care about grammar :P
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