Last night I had my first gig and I thought I share my experience.
It was a freebie for my aunt & uncle in-laws 50th wedding anniversary party. It was at night an open plan venue with a well lit inside and OK lit outside.
All my experience to-date comes from practice and knowledge gained from this excellent forum.
As you can see from my equipment list I am quite limited in range. Initially, I had my zoom mounted and hoped there would be enough light to avoid using flash as I am not yet too confident in using it well. I bumped the ISO to 800 and left it there, white balance was on auto as I was moving in and outside pretty much all the time and didn’t trust myself to reset it each time.
I thought I would stay on Av mode and everything would be hunky dory. No cigar. Even with ISO 800 and the aperture wide open I couldn’t maintain a shutter speed fast enough to avoid blur, so I switched to Tv mode and kept the shutter speed at 160 so whatever I zoomed to I would avoid blur, the aperture reading kept flashing all night and I switched on the flash and hoped for the best.
Yep, I could have started using my 50mm and I did try but it was too awkward to get good composition, in the well lit room there wasn’t a lot of space so I gave up on that. Only at the end when everyone was clapping, cheering etc did I move to the 50mm prime and got good exposure readings so I could avoid using the flash, in this last 20 minutes I got what I consider to be the best photos.
I’ve read before people talking about lens motor speeds, now I can see why they are important. Many times I missed an opportunity as the focusing had to catch up; it’s very annoying when that happens. Also, I now can appreciate the need for fast lenses if you want to take this game seriously. I already have a Sigma 12-24, 24-70 and 70-200 on the way, the latter two having apertures steady at 2.8. Unfortunately not in time for last night.
I was there about 4 hours and took 700 pictures. Never thought it would be that many. Needles to say I will junk probably 80% and keep the best ones.
Anyway, I take my hat off to everyone who does this professionally and admire their skill and stamina. I was knackered!
