So I say 'thank you' for the music

Originally published 12 December 2020

A few weeks ago one of my workmates celebrated his 50th birthday. Sometimes people have entertainment arranged for their party, and they did in this case - except he was the entertainment. He’s good with the cello so he rounded up some of his friends to perform with him during the party.

I offered to take some photos during the evening and for the most part the photos turned out okay. I’m still not used to taking photos of people because, well, I can be a bit awkward especially with people I don’t know! But the bigger challenge was the lighting - it was a bit flat during the afternoon with the diffused sunlight streaming in the windowed ceilings, then it turned to a really difficult and dark indoor lighting setting.

One thing I was worried about was the noise in the photos. But seeing as no one I’ve shown the photos to have mentioned it, apparently only photo-hobbyists even care about it at all!

*100mm, f/2.8, 1/160s ISO 6400 | Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8*

Anyway, the evening itself was fun and photo-wise went off without much of a hitch. I tried focusing on getting the right exposure settings in-camera as best as I can knowing that the editing process was what’s going to make the photos better.

I did recently learn of the new colour-grading function on Lightroom so I have been playing around with it with mixed results. I think it’s going to be a long, continuous process of trying to find my own editing style but it’s been a decent start with figuring out how to get more out of the blander unedited photos.

For example, the following photo is quite grey, so a bit of tuning with the colour has given (in my eyes anyway) some more atmosphere to it.

Similarly, you can see how the lighting in the hall looks quite flat and dull in the next picture. But with the edits I tried to make it look livelier and I think it does pop a bit more than the original. I had been using the Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 lens on the E-M1ii for the longer reach, and it’s handy having a bigger f/2.8 aperture to keep up with the dimming light. Otherwise I would have really struggled with the Panasonic 45-175mm f/4-5.6 which I didn’t bother taking this time.

Paired with the E-M10ii was the Panasonic 15mm f/1.7, handy for a quick, wider-angled view and for low light. I set the exposure to maintain the colour from the lights in the background, knowing I can bring up the shadows a bit to get more detail. Again, the noise to me is still noticeable especially on the E-M10ii’s 16 megapixel sensor compared to the E-M1ii’s 20mp, but I’m trying to ignore it as I only pay attention to it because I edit the pictures.

I did swap the 35-100mm for the Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95 when it got really dark. The extra stops of light came in handy during the late evening. I’ve waxed on before about how much I love this lens and I’ll echo it again here.

One of the main downsides is that it can be slower to shoot with because I have to manually set the focus. The auto-focus on the other lenses makes the process almost like a point-and-shoot camera, but I enjoy taking time when creating photos.

The slowness can sometimes make it awkward if people are purposefully posing, but I think I’m getting better at finding focus faster these days. I compensate at the moment by keeping the aperture open up to f/1.2 only, but maybe when I’m more confident I can push it to wide open at f/0.95. The Voigtlander does have a different look to it at f/0.95, so maybe I’ll try and incorporate that in future shots.

*42.5mm, f/1.2, 1/160s ISO 1600 | Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95*

In the picture above I’ve tried to keep the exposure down to avoid washing out the lights in the background and their colours, but I decided not to go too low and make it harder to lighten up the girls’ faces in the shadow. I think too much contrast between the shadows and the light from the desk lamp would have made it more difficult to keep the facial lighting consistent.

Also at this point in editing my eyes were getting used to the colours, so I definitely think I could have done better with the result here. But the idea is there so at least there’s something for me to take and learn.

The next picture was probably the most difficult one to edit. Again, trying to keep the lights discrete enough rather than washing out altogether meant you can hardly see the two gentlemen in the foreground. I had to use the brush tool to raise the brightness of only the gents, but you can tell I’m still not great at it when you look at the edges. There’s still some spots where I hadn’t covered it or I’ve gone past the outlines, but I don’t think anyone cared enough to look that closely.

Anyway, with all the lessons learned making this sound too critical, I thought I’d finish with two of my favourite shots (the other favourite is the banner photo, which someone commented could be an album cover!)

I really like how the next photo turned out. It was very much a be-quick-or-you-miss-it picture as the two of them looked quite sweet. I keep umm-ing and ahh-ing on whether I like this photo or not because I didn’t get the lady’s face in full. In the end I kept coming back to it because I think her eyes barely peeking through under the balloon actually gives it a nice feel of mystery. And then I decided I don’t like the fact that that was entirely unintentional! Oh well, I guess we should take the good wherever it may come from. So now, I actually really like this photo.

*42.5mm, f/1.2, 1/160s ISO 2500 | Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95*

And then last but not the least is the next photo. There’s something about it that I find adorable. I think I really like this one because it’s a culmination of the Voigtlander 42.5mm being a joy to use, and that despite me sometimes being a socially awkward penguin I feel like this photo is a reminder that I can find that human element to put into (digital) film.

*42.5mm, f/1.2, 1/100s ISO 6400 | Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95*

So there was lots to learn after this evening, but I also feel like I made bigger strides in this shoot compared to a few others recently. It doesn’t necessarily show technically on the photos, but for me as a person learning photography and the processes related to it, there was a lot for me to digest!

So I say 'thank you' for the music

With the lights out, it's less dangerous

Follow the madness! Alice, you know, once did