The Last Burst of Fire

After a week of juggling between work and photography, I’ve finally finished clearing up my folders for the Night Festival 2013 for the Redux performances…

This post will be the Redux performances at the Night Festival 2013. I apologize for constant postings of the fire performances by them… But I really find their performances amazing!

Here, I’m sharing the last 5 photos from this performances.

Throughout the performances, I do have a couple of long exposures shots too. Doing long exposures during this kind of performances is similar to light painting. You can get interesting perspectives of how the performance is like. Thou you have to trial and error to get the timing down.

Techie Corner

If you have read my earlier posts, you would know that I’m shooting mainly with my 5D mkIII with 70-200 f2.8 IS II (I LOVE this setup).

There are frustrating moments where you will be unable to focus on the subject as the lighting is pretty bad if it’s not lit by the fire. Manual focus is NOT an option in my opinion. Especially so when going for close ups in low light actions. Shooting at f2.8 @ 200mm, a slightest shift in subject’s position will make your frame useless. I went in with one-shot focus instead of AI-Servo. Tracking is (in my opinion) useless as it will be tricked the moment the fire is not hitting the focused area.

Most of my shots are around 1/250s to prevent any handshake and to have a decent freeze in the subject’s motion. Thou I did attempt creative shots using low shutter speed like 1/30s. But didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked.

Now, to the long exposure portion… I’ve a tripod setup with my 500D 10-22 combo mounted on it just waiting for the action to happen. Set with Evaluative Metering mode with -2ev. Shooting with Shutter Priority mode (Tv). The reason for using Tv over manual is to minimize the time required to adjust the “effect” I need.

Certain scenes are more suitable to do longer exposures, while some shorter. Bulb mode exposure isn’t really a choice as it will require too much effort on my end to keep shooting with 2 cameras at the same time. (Yes, I’m shooting both cameras at the same time. I’m using a wired remote to control the 500D)

The timing is subjective, but I’ve done from 3secs up to 13secs. For the 2 long exposure pics, the top one is 5secs while the bottom one is 13 secs.

Whatever you do, don’t take too much time to decide. Just set it and shoot it!

Afterthoughts of the Event

There’s a sin that many photographers (including me) make while shooting…

That is, not enjoying the event as much. While frustrating yourself trying to take that shot, that moment, etc. These amazing performances are going on. Reviewing photos while the performance is going on.

So, what are we (photographers) doing over at the performances if we are not there to watch the performances? Looking thru the viewfinder or LCD screens is NOT watching the performance!

It’s easy to get hidding behind the viewfinder and start spamming the shutter while the event is going on, but I still firmly believe that there must be a balance between appreciation of arts (and the performers) vs photography if one is to be shooting at the event such as this.

That said, I’m as guilty to be spending at least 80% of my time looking thru the viewfinder and I hate myself for doing that… I’m trying to put down my camera more often to enjoy the event more often now rather than looking thru the viewfinder all the way..

Regards,
YK

Flames of a forgotten night…

I should have posted the shots from the Night Festival Redux last night…. But due to some reasons or another… Completely forgot to post it up here…

Sharing another 5 shots…

 

But to be very honest, I wasn’t very pleased with the results I have for this particular scene. I can’t seem to grab the feel that I wanted….

Will keep on trying… But at the event, it’s hard to compose as wanted..unless you have shot it upteen times and you know the timing and sequence very well…

So one of the better advice by another photographer is, shoot wider.. So to get abit more leeway for cropping to composition..

Think I may want to try that the next time.. Sure sounds very logical, but just that old habits are hard to kick… (get it close..)

No processing of photos tonight… As it’s been a tiring day after a whole day of work… My brains are barely “working”. Under this situation, I think it’s best to go to bed early…

Hope to post more either tomorrow night or on Sunday night… Hopefully it’s the last 1 or 2 post on Redux…

Regards,
YK

More on Redux!!

More images from Redux by Starlight Alchemy at the Singapore Night Festival 2013… Although this event is already over the previous weekend, but I’m still processing the pictures…

Progress have been slow so far… been trying to cope with the work load I’ve left behind last week and at the same time trying to find time to process the picture.

For now, another 5 more from another scene in the performance.

Another 3 more scenes to go…

 

Just adding in a short technical section here…

Despite using top end gears like 5d3 and 70-200 f2.8 IS II, focusing is still an issue in low light situation like this. so it’s like focus when there’s a chance, spray and pray. Therefore while selecting and processing the pictures, there are many frames that are almost completely black (because the flames didn’t lit up the face when it’s abit further away).

Also, to be honest, I was also fiddling around with my settings when I was shooting throughout the performance. *Did I mention in another post that I’m in Shutter Priority Mode (Tv) most of the time and in evaluative mode*, so those fiddling around is purely with the control of the exposure compensation (ev), by “default”, I’m already in -2 for a “normal” shot, so, if the flames gets stronger, I will dial down more etc. (almost like instinct).

 

Although I did say that the focusing is an issue, but this is nothing compared to the 2nd week of the night festival by the same performers too… but with LED lights. It’s the first time I really felt so frustrated using the 5d3 and 70-200 combo. I’ve yet to review the photos from that event, but from the small LCD screen, I have yet to see any keepers…

Now, back to work…More to come tomorrow..

Regards,
YK

Redux (Night Festival 2013)

A Monday night posting…. Was still too busy yesterday after being away for 5 days serving the nation.

Right when I’m out of the uniform, I just grabbed the camera and went out shooting for the 2nd week of the Night Festival… So most of the time during my last weekend is spent on sorting out pictures captured on week 1 and those shot on week 2… Before I knew it, it’s already past midnight..

Anyway, now, I’m back to processing the photos from week 1, I know it’s abit late especially when everyone have already posted their photos up… but… oh well…

Anyway, sharing the wonderful performance put together by Starlight Alchemy – Redux @ Night Festival 2013.

I’ve still got alot of photos (800+) to go thru for this performance. But I’m trying to keep it under 5 shots per scene in the performance. So more will be coming up in the week…

*Now back to my photos…*

Regards,
YK

Singapore Night Festival 2013

It’s the annual night festival again!

Just 1 year ago, I was covering the event with my 500D with 55-250 and Sigma 17-50 f2.8. And was struggling to get many of the actions shot and using high ISO. During then I was really frustrated during the post processing phase where many of my shots were underexposed even at ISO3200. But thanks to heavy noise reduction, some shots are still decent enough to be shared on Facebook..

Back then I knew that I will be upgrading to either one.. But never did I expect that I would get so poisoned to acquire BOTH (body and lens) the top end gears like 5D mk III and 70-200 f2.8L IS II.

Ever since I have switched to 5Diii. I’ve never once really cared about the ISO during performances and events. I let the ISO go rampant from 3200 to 12800 (I’ve set it as the upper limit).

Here are just a couple of shots (of a particular performance…) I’ve got during the event.

Overall, (looking at the event lineup) I find last year’s performance way better than this year. There were more fast paced action performance, this year, most of the events are relatively slooow. Running in background for the event is also some matching slow music which basically kills my mood for the event…

Technicality

So, literally, I (and the rest of the photographers) was down to shooting the Fire show (Redux). It’s the ONLY more action packed performance this weekend. And it’s a damn challenging subject.

Reason being, the intensity of the fire in a scene is always changing, so metering will be an issue. The other being, the priority of Fire or the exposure of the face….The 2 don’t play nice with each other…

So, no matter what metering you are using, you will be faced with some form of problems.

So in the end, I picked my ‘poison’, I used Shutter Priority (Tv) and evaluative metering. playing around mainly with the exposure compensation to quickly switch between dark and lighter frames.

Exposing for the flames will mean darkened face, while exposing for facial will result in total blown flames.

Most of the time, I’m trying to balance both… Getting abit of flames and facial details… But usually I result in blown out flames but with abit of facial details (but at times NONE!). Well I’m trying my best… And equipment is definitely not at fault here… But my inability to utilize it. After posting a couple of shots to my Facebook wall, I got some really nice tips on shooting fire…

One of advice which I will try out again in future fire shows is exposure bracketing (meaning +1, 0, -1). maybe more depending on the situation. But something I will really want to try out again if opportunities comes along.

Now to wait for the 2nd week of the night festival… But at this moment, nothing over there really spark my interest.. Will see what I can make do with the situation over there…

Regards,
YK