We Will Rock You

Last Saturday night My Lovely Assistant and I decided to hit the bustling streets of downtown Saint-Lambert in order to take in a concert held during the Festival Classica.  The show was a tribute to the classic rock group Queen.  Songs by the band were performed by a symphony orchestra and sung by a large choir, as well as guest vocalist Jean-Sébastien Lavoie,a singer who had previously appeared on a reality talent show called La Voix.  I had brought my camera with me because I knew that if I didn't, I would end up regretting not having done so.  I was hoping to get close enough to the stage in order to get some shots, but even getting to the site an hour and a half before the show was not early enough to get a good spot.  My Lovely Assistant and myself decided to walk around the site where we were happy to bump into my photographer friend Pierre Bourgault, who was there to take some shots of the event.  Disappointed that I wasn't going to be close to the stage, My Lovely Assistant and I found a good spot to watch the show, and settled in for the concert.  Midway through the show, we decided to move around a little bit as it was kind of a chilly evening, so we walked around the concert site and found ourselves back on the main street that the concert was being held on.  The crowd had thinned out a little by this point and I managed to get a little closer to the stage than I had before.  We continued to press forward a little bit as the songs went by, and by the time of the encore, I was about five rows of people from the stage.  It was time to take some photographs.  As mentioned in my Future Villains update, it was suggested that I try shooting shows with a somewhat smaller aperture in order to make the photos a little more sharp.  As I got closer to the stage, more light became available to me to use, so I decided to give my fingers a little action as they spun the dials of my camera as I tried shooting at different apertures.  However, there is a sad part to this story.  While my fingers were spinning the dial, I accidentally ended up changing the focusing mode on my camera from One Shot to AI Servo.  Instead of focusing what I wanted to focus on, it would lock on to what was in the center of my screen and try to keep up with whatever was moving from there.  Instead of getting home with some crisp photos using this new method, I got home with photos even less sharp than before.  I decided to see what I could do with Photoshop to try and save my photographs, and I think I may have saved a couple using the 'Sharpen More' Filter.  They're not perfect, but I still really like these photos, especially the fourth one here where I not only captured the singer and orchestra, but also a very excited fan who happened to be near the front of the stage.  It's pretty easy to see that he was having a pretty good time.  As did we.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 57mm.  The second was taken at f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 1000 at 55mm.  Number three was taken at f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 50mm.  The fourth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 800 at 70mm, the fifth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 43mm and the sixth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 1600 at 48mm.  As I mentioned, these photographs aren't perfect, but they did provide me with a bit of a lesson.  I need to slow down while taking shots of shows.  Especially if I'm playing with the shutter speed and aperture.  It's important to take the time to make sure that I haven't changed any of the other functions while that could cause me to screw up my photos.  I was able to kind of save a couple of shots, the best of which I have shared with you here, but there were many others that found their way into the Recycling Bin of my computer because I didn't take the time to make sure that the settings were right.  I hope this lesson sinks in faster than the lesson in resetting the ISO on my camera after I'm done.  Which reminds me, I better go and make sure that I did that before I get another unwanted surprise the next time I go out.  As we begin to wrap things up for now, here's a final shot, a bit of a cropped panorama shot that I like to take.  It was taken at f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 24mm.  It was a fun show and with summer just about upon us, hopefully I'll be able to sneak my way to the front of a few more crowds in the coming months.