One9Design

This past weekend I was planing on shooting my friend Joel’s Jazz Quartet at our favorite wine bar, Tessora’s. I was thinking that they would set up inside and I would be able to get some good shots with my homemade mini softbox. This was not the case. The warm summer evening compelled them to set up outside by the patio. Once we got there the light was quickly fading. “No problem,” I said to myself, “I have my 50mm f1.4 in the bag.”

I didn’t. It was at home in my other camera bag.

So. I have my 28 – 70mm f3.5-4.5, my flash and my wits. I almost gave up. I decided to try somehting. I put my flash in wireless IR mode (no sync cable or radio triggers either) put on my stofen, attached an index card, and set the flash on the floor in front of Joel. I then started to play. In hindsight I should have upped my ISO to about 400 or 800, but I have a fear of noise (I don’t own Noise Ninja or even Photoshop for that matter). I only took a few shots as I was not really satisfied with the results from the back of my LCD.

f4.5, ISO 200, 1/100, 60mm

Once I got home and on the computer, I was able to salvage this in Lightroom. I am actually pretty happy with it.

Lessons Learned:

1. Don’t be afraid of noise from high ISO settings. Try it out before ditching the idea.
2. Make sure you have all the gear you want to have
3. Keep all decent exposures until you have at least reviewed them on the computer. The LCD can be misleading.