I have been making pictures of recent shows for Homewood, so between that and the weather, I haven’t been off campus making pictures for my blog, but I hope to someday.

Making pictures of shows here at Homewood is a challenge and I find myself working at the limits of my cameras and lenses.  The following image is an example of the limits made as an out-of-camera jpeg using the Olympus E-M1 Mk II and the Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 lens.  The image was made at ISO 6400, 93mm, f/2.8, and 1/50 sec. and is a crop of the lower right-hand portion of one image I made last night.

I manage to get-by, even if they aren’t as good as I would prefer.  Actually, I would rather output them as B&W images as shown below.

My problems are multi-fold.  First, I have problems with access and I have to photograph from the rear of the room and am often limited in being able to move side to side.  Second, the lighting isn’t good, and I have to deal with bright lights and dark areas while keeping my shutter speed as fast as possible to stop subject motion.  If I could just do them in higher contrast B&W I would try to increase the ISO even higher to stop all subject motion.  I would also probably photograph at a fixed ISO level for all areas of the room rather than using the auto ISO function of the camera.  I think I could then better correct for the effects of less dynamic range, color shifts, etc.

For those who are wondering, I do not use flash since that disturbs the audience and I photograph in the camera’s silent mode for the same reason.  I bought the Panasonic 35–100mm f/2.8 lens rather than the Olympus PRO 40-150mm f/2.8 lens in order to keep the size and weight down, but I am considering it to gain a little more reach.  That is another reason I am using micro 4/3 system gear.  I also sometimes use two cameras with prime lenses in order to be able to photograph at f/1.8 when possible; but the longest I have is the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 and I have to crop and sometimes resize the images.