February 2014 - TimeLine Media Blog

February 28, 2014

SingStrong 2014 – First post

This is the 5^th year that I have covered this annual a cappella music festival. In college, I sang in a group and their scheduled performance at this festival 5 years ago spurred me to ask the organizers if I could get access. Now, I volunteer to cover it every year just because it rekindles my love of all-vocal performances. SingStrong donates all proceeds from ticket sales, merchandise, and the silent auction to the Alzheimer’s Association. Singers from across the region, and even farther will travel to attend workshops, and perform in the shows over the weekend.

It is so nice to cover singers that are sharing the passion for their art with similar minds. The styles that all-vocal groups can take is widely varied. Groups can be choral, or barbershop, they can specialize in covering pop songs, or all original music, and some take advantage of technology to loop voices or use microphone technique to emphasize percussive mouth drumming, or beat boxing. Whatever brings you to a cappella, you will be able to listen to leaders in the genre at SingStrong. I have been introduced to many different groups, and have enjoyed seeing what they come up with every year.

Here are just a few of the photos from the weekend! I will be finishing up the edit soon. If you were in a group, or are looking for a specific section of photos, please let me know, and I will pass along the link to those when they are ready. It was just another great weekend overall for charity, and for singing. In future posts, I feature other photos either on stage, or behind the scenes. Enjoy!

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February 27, 2014

Photography, Technology | 0 comment

New Nikon D4S Announcement – Tech Thursday

Upgrading Tech

Has it been 2 years already? Nikon releases new camera bodies less frequently for their top end professional line (thank goodness). For them to take such a long time in between the release of a new body, they try to make improvements making it worthwhile for users. You can find rumor and review sites to read the specs. However here are my impressions on the new developments for their flagship Nikon D4S that was just recently announced.

16.2 megapixel sensor – This is a redesigned sensor from the Nikon D4. Additionally it does have some better improvements with the link EXPEED 4 image processor. I like that they did not up the megapixel count! The 36 megapixels in the D800 are a bit of a chore to work with. They take up so much hard drive space, and they take a big chunk of memory to process on workstations.
Group area Autofocus – This is a feature that Canon digital cameras have had. Consequently, I was waiting to see it in a Nikon. Something has changed in the way that Nikon has designed their auto focus systems that has made me have a little less faith in how accurate they are in locking focus. Both the D4 and D800 have had more misses due to backfocus, or other missing focus compared to older models. Considering they have not changed the options and setup of auto focus in the camera menus, I am having more trouble with them. I am hopeful that grouping together a bunch of focus points to cover an area to track focus will improve the performance.
XQD and Compact Flash card slots – Disappointing! Till now, I have not seen any other still camera manufacturer support the XQD card format. I do like that it handles like a more robust SD card with super quick transfer speeds, but having to carry around two different formats of cards neither of which have built in readers for laptops is a pain. I would have preferred 2 XQD cards, or even two of the new UHS-II SDXC cards – they can transfer at up to 280MB/s, with readers that are readily available on almost any laptop.

In any case, it is nice to see that Nikon is still trying to improve on image quality. Images that I shot with the top end Nikons from 4 years ago are holding up nicely especially compared to any image made on a smartphone, and many modern DSLRs. But it still depends mostly on what is in front of the lens to make the photo. It is just fun to geek out once in a while.

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February 26, 2014

Ballroom Dance, Event, Photography | 0 comment

Triple Swing – Professional Showcase

Arthur Murray - Alxandria, VA - ©TimeLine Media

Who is ready for a triple swing? In reviewing old blog posts, I found that there are still some professional shows that I have not posted about from the Arthur Murray Fall Showcase. There was a large number of shows from this event! To be sure I do not want to leave any of the dancers out! They are too nice to ask when their featured photos will show up. With this in mind I have gone back to make note of which ones I have not blogged yet.

Arthur Murray Swing

Today’s show was a triple swing performed by the Arthur Murray franchised dance studio in Alexandria, VA. They danced to a popular song at the studios – “Lollipop.” I recall dancing a showcase routine to this a few years ago – it has a quick tempo requiring you to keep steps compact. It is also a challenge to dance at that tempo for the entire length of the song which these two did very well! They even though in a lift in the middle just to up the ante even more. The fun lollipop prop and dress really brought out the whimsical feel of the dance that the audience responded to nicely.

Tysons, Virginia

Professional Dance Showcase - Arthur Murray, Alexandria, VA - ©TimeLine Media — Professional Dance Showcase – Arthur Murray, Alexandria, VA – ©TimeLine Media

After post this, there are only two other shows from this event that I have not posted on the blog. I am thinking about having a Facebook poll about the photos from each show. We only have a limited space to hang posters from the previous event’s professional shows, so we need to narrow down the candidates soon. Stay tuned here to find out more on how we decide to print these. Thanks!

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
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February 2014 archive

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Upgrading Tech

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Arthur Murray Swing

Tysons, Virginia

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