Dance Recital

[Chad Gladstone]

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[heiko]

Hi Chad,

I love your pictures. This is just one of those.

How is the 50mm 1.4 D? I consider buying it (I have the old 50mm 1.4 AIS with MF and want to switch).

Keep posting!

 

[Chad Gladstone]

Hi Chad,

I love your pictures. This is just one of those.

How is the 50mm 1.4 D? I consider buying it (I have the old 50mm 1.4 AIS with MF and want to switch).

Keep posting!

I love the 50. It is usable at f/1.4 and sharp by f/2. The bokeh is average. I am looking at replacing mine with the sigma 30 f/1.4 if the sigma preforms as well and additionally has faster focusing and smoother bokeh. I'm actually hoping that it preforms badly because if it doesn't, I'm going to need an 85 as well. I don't mine purchasing the 85 f/1.4, but I a certain, that the moment I do, the lens will be updated with af-s (and possibly VR).

 

[Steve S]

Cute kids, cute outfits!

but I think you could've used a faster shutter speed, imho. There's some unacceptable motion blur gong on here. Arms ok, but their heads gotta be sharp. It seems the balloons are in perfect focus, but the kids aren't. I would've increased the ISO, noise be damned, and stopped down a little bit more, to hedge against the shallow DOF, but then I'm not very steady either I'm one that subscribes to the theory that shutter should be *at least* equal to your focal length, and that includes the 1.5 crop factor. So, obviously, in this instance, I like to see a min of 1/75th sec shutter in my viewfinder.

 

[Chad Gladstone]

Re: Cute kids, cute outfits!

but I think you could've used a faster shutter speed, imho. There's some unacceptable motion blur gong on here. Arms ok, but their heads gotta be sharp. It seems the balloons are in perfect focus, but the kids aren't. I would've increased the ISO, noise be damned, and stopped down a little bit more, to hedge against the shallow DOF, but then I'm not very steady either I'm one that subscribes to the theory that shutter should be *at least* equal to your focal length, and that includes the 1.5 crop factor. So, obviously, in this instance, I like to see a min of 1/75th sec shutter in my viewfinder.

I agree wholeheartedly with the shutterspeed, however I chose this speed to get some motion blur into the image to create some sense of movement (and my daughter's face is relatively motion free which is why I chose this particular image out of the others I shot of this sequence). I boosted the iso but found that 640 f/1.8 at 1/50 was the best blend of exposure, noise and acceptable motion blur I could get under deplorable lighting conditions. The WB was just about perfect. I agree, there could be a camera shake issue here because I was leveling with the stage and some of the shots are off a few degrees so I must have a tendency to follow through with the shutter - I'll look into that. Overall, I am pretty astounded I got anything usable at all. I saw some of the parents shooting slow lenses and I just had to shrug knowing that my 70-200 was not nearly fast enough unless I shot at iso 1600 - I which case I would have rather just enjoyed the performance the viewing it through my tiny viewfinder.

 

[Pa]

I think it's a great shot.

Last week we pulled out some slides of my daughter's dance recitals at that age (she's 31 now) taken on Kodachrome ASA 64 film with a Minolta SRT-101, 55mm f/1.8. They are terrible, and I realize the challenges involved. Wish I had then had the equipment I have now, but I realize it would still be difficult.

The current younger generation will be the most photographed in history! There are no pictures of me or my wife at that age except the annual schoolday snapshots.

 

[Chad Gladstone]

I think it's a great shot.

Last week we pulled out some slides of my daughter's dance recitals at that age (she's 31 now) taken on Kodachrome ASA 64 film with a Minolta SRT-101, 55mm f/1.8. They are terrible, and I realize the challenges involved. Wish I had then had the equipment I have now, but I realize it would still be difficult.

The current younger generation will be the most photographed in history! There are no pictures of me or my wife at that age except the annual schoolday snapshots.

I really cherish few pictures I have from my childhood and wish I had many more, so I plan to overcompensate until the time until my kids refuse to pose anymore. When that time comes, I will be forced to buy a longer lens.