Nadia Ali - Avalon in Boston - Part 1

[amcorona]

You'd have to be an electronic music fan to really enjoy these shots.
Nadia Ali (formally of IIO)
See www.nadiaali.com (http://www.nadiaali.com)

Guy in the Fedora is known as Rosko. (singer, songwriter)
See www.roskomusik.com (http://www.roskomusik.com)

Bass - Lance Jordan (singer, songwriter, producer and DJ)
See www.lancejordan.com (http://www.lancejordan.com)

Lessons learned - Use a lower ISO. I had a lot of noise on these because I was at ISO 800.
Using the adjust levels and the select black point tool cleaned up a lot of noise in these photos.

I used 3 lenses. 50mm, 85mm and 20mm. The 20mm shots aren't posted.

I also am beginning to dislike red lights.. especially when I don't use a flash. RED = BAD IMHO

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/01.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/02.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/03.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/04.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/05.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/06.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/07.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/08.jpg

[amcorona]

Part 2
http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/09.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/10.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/11.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/12.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/13.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/14.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/15.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/16.jpg

[amcorona]

Part 3

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/17.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/18.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/19.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/20.jpg

http://www.amcorona.com/nadiaboston/21.jpg

[René Damkot]

Lessons learned - Use a lower ISO. I had a lot of noise on these because I was at ISO 800
I also am beginning to dislike red lights.. especially when I don't use a flash. RED = BAD IMHO


No. Use a higher ISO. That will allow you to use higher shutterspeeds and / or close the aperture. Now a lot of these shots have motion blurr or too shallow DoF. (1/50s @ f/1.4 isn't enough IMHO)
Also contrast is too high in most images (probabely because you used the eye dropper in levels)

Pity, some would have been nice images otherwise.

Agree that red lights can be a pain. Be very carefull not to blow out the red channel.

[amcorona]

No. Use a higher ISO. That will allow you to use higher shutterspeeds and / or close the aperture. Now a lot of these shots have motion blurr or too shallow DoF. (1/50s @ f/1.4 isn't enough IMHO)
Also contrast is too high in most images (probabely because you used the eye dropper in levels)

Thanks for the feedack. Some of the motion blur photos are great though. Like the one of her spinning. I think most are too soft and will work on that in the future. I'll try the higher iso but the noise really bothers me. Shallow DoF has also been an issue with me. I do tend to lean towards higher contrast though. I want my blacks to be "black" not some off black or have a lot of noise.

See the following for more DoF blunders

http://www.amcorona.com/component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,29/?g2_itemId=590

[narlus]

was that the 1st time you shot @ Avalon? were you sidestage the whole night, or did you move into the crowd to get some of the shots? i've shot at the club before, but only once w/ a pass and i decided to stay upfront in the crowd (the yo la tengo pics i posted last month).

i agree w/ Rene; boost the ISO and get a faster shutter. also, using partial metering could help w/ some shots as well. and if everything's got a red cast, do a B&W conversion.

[DwightMcCann]

These are all soft and dark. Did you sharpen after resizing? A lot of them are cropped funny with parts of people sticking in or guitar necks cropped off or a lot of extraneous dead space. It helps a lot if when shooting people, especially bands, if you think FACES, Faces, faces ... always faces of the main subject as it will help focus your overall cropping and make the images much more interesting. Looks like you have a huge opportunity if you can continue to shoot in this venue. You have some nice captures and interesting moments.

[amcorona]

was that the 1st time you shot @ Avalon? were you sidestage the whole night, or did you move into the crowd to get some of the shots?

Sorry for not replying... for some reason I am not getting email notifications on this thread. I moved around. Side stage, Crowd and the back of room.

Yeah it was the first time I shot there. Didn't know I needed a pass though :-) mgmt didn't say a thing

[amcorona]

These are all soft and dark. Did you sharpen after resizing? A lot of them are cropped funny with parts of people sticking in or guitar necks cropped off or a lot of extraneous dead space. It helps a lot if when shooting people, especially bands, if you think FACES, Faces, faces ... always faces of the main subject as it will help focus your overall cropping and make the images much more interesting. Looks like you have a huge opportunity if you can continue to shoot in this venue. You have some nice captures and interesting moments.

I didn't sharpen after resizing and I didn't crop at all. I have over 400 photos to crop. Just posted these before I started working on them. They are dark because I used the level black eye dropper tool to get rid of the noise.

[narlus]

Sorry for not replying... for some reason I am not getting email notifications on this thread. I moved around. Side stage, Crowd and the back of room.

Yeah it was the first time I shot there. Didn't know I needed a pass though :-) mgmt didn't say a thing


nah, Avalon is generally cool w/ cameras (their policy is that they defer to the band's wishes), but i did get a question about my bag once, and they wanted me to check it. my wife took it from me and told security it was her purse.

i've shot there three times, but only once w/ a pass, where i figure you would get side-stage access. i didn't try though, as it was sold out and i didn't want to lose my place up front.