circus pictures - lens was not up to the task - here are few pics

[samal]

I went to circus today. I knew that my Sigma 18-200 f/3.5-6.3 was not a good tool for the task, but thats the only one I have now besides a fifty.

I had no idea how badly it would suck though I took close to 300 shots - all hand held from not the best seats in the house - I only got the tickets 2 days before the show and all good spots were taken already - Chicago United Center was packed. out of them maybe 20-30 were salvageable

at 200mm the lens was so slow for the light conditions, I was limited to 1/30 -1/60 shutter speeds even at ISO 1600

here are some half decent:

 

[icassell]

I think you did well .... I especially like the first 2 of these. Only a few keepers out of 300 shots is not unexpected in this situation, and these are quite good.


Ian

 

[samal]

Thanks for kind words. they look decent in this resolution, but if viewed at 100% zoom - they are still grainy. Interesting that after using adobe light room to process them, I found that Nero snap viewer has surprisingly effective noise reduction algorithm for what this program is - way better than LR IMHO. I have to splurge for Noise Ninja one day...

 

[icassell]

Check out "Neat Image" -- you can get a trial for free at neatimage.com

BTW a bit of graininess doesn't hurt these

 

[KhronoS]

I like the second one. But remove in photoshop the 2 cables, the one from bottom left, and one from the upper right corner. Then the eyes will only on or subject without going and checking the cables out (there are a distraction)

 

[Dionysus]

i would imagine it would be a lot harder to work w/ that lens in low light conditions, and especially hand held. but you managed to get a few keepers..thats not bad.

 

[Prophet]

I think you did well .... I especially like the first 2 of these. Only a few keepers out of 300 shots is not unexpected in this situation, and these are quite good.


Ian

I concur. Shot 1 was good except for the blur (or out of focus) on the young lady in the back ground. The last shot is the best. Good detail and vibrant colors. I think you did well.

-JD-

 

[samal]

I concur. Shot 1 was good except for the blur (or out of focus) on the young lady in the back ground. The last shot is the best. Good detail and vibrant colors. I think you did well.

-JD-

Thanks for your good reviews

There was no way I could get both of the girls in focus - I was shooting in Av mode keeping lens wide open and at the long end of the lens zoom - DOF was non-existent. I was really surprised by the quality of this shot.

 

[epp_b]

Having that few keepers with such a slow lens is no surprise. If you want to get reach in poor lighting, you need to spend big bucks on a fast telephoto zoom or prime. I think you got some pretty decent shots for such a slow lens.

 

[maulrat]

Don't sweat it Samal. The circus is a very dark place. Even those $1500 lenses have a hard time in that little light. This is where your OS helps out because you could shoot slower. I have this lens and yes, it does get a little frustrating in low light situations. OS has saved me on multiple occasions; enabling me to get some tough lit shots. I tried turning off OS on the same shots and they came out blurry. The hard part is getting your subject to be still enough to take a 1/30 or slower shot, hehe

 

[Dragoness]

I must say I LOVE those and if you saw the ones I took from the circus last summer you would find yours MUCH better than you think they are

Here is one crappy pic to compare, you did a LOT better, but we were far back and in my defense this was the exact same say my "optic neuritis" if that is indeed what happened started for the first time, so I could not SEE in order to focus.

This photo is embarrasingly bad and the circus itself was pretty poor, a total ripoff so there were no really interesting subjects anyway.

If that doesn't make you feel better about your own pic I don't know what will! But yours look great to me