Today is the last day of the early-bird sale on all products from the DC Area Arthur Murray Fall Showcase! The photos will still be available on the website until March 31 next year. At this time only the 20% off sale is ending. To view and share photos from this event, click the link below:
The photos on today’s post are from the Professional Show by Arthur Murray – Alexandria, Virginia. Jessica is one of the hardest workers during these events trying to get scores collected, tabulated, and awards lined up for all the top students and teachers. When we arrive to set up our gear, she is already at the venue setting up and getting her things in order.
At this Showcase, it was nice to see her spotlighted during the final dances of the day! It was nice to see Jonathan too – we have seen him dance many times with his students at Freestyles and Showcases, but this was our first professional show that I can remember. Jessica is disappointed when we do not dance during these events, so it is nice to see when one of us gets out there! She also came by the booth to wonder why her studio was not featured on our posters – well, that may change at the next event for sure!
The new Fuji X100s was the only camera I took with me to a fundraising dance event that we attended as guests. This is one of the hardest conditions to test a camera with very low available light in the ballroom. My first impressions of the camera was very positive, but it is also VERY different from using an SLR camera. For once, I did not have to carry around a huge camera body and lens with an attached flash much like this:
I brought a camera that I could actually fit in my coat pocket! I did not need to have a strap, and it was so light to carry with me. Yes, there are a lot of compromises you have to make when using this camera. You do give up some performance when not carrying as much gear, but it almost makes up for it with the ease of carrying less. The above show was wide open at F/2.0 at ISO 4000. Considering how high the ISO, the skin tones still look good which is my biggest complaint of high ISO shooting. Another bonus of using these mirror-less cameras, is nearly silent operation. Because there is no mirror, you do not have a loud slap of the mirror and shutter curtain moving each time you take a photo. There is just a very quiet click when you press the shutter button – it is so quiet, the camera has a function to play a sound just to let you know that you took a photo!
This is perfect for making candid photos. For me, I can see this being very useful since I am not yet confident as to when the photo is actually taken with the camera. I end up firing 3-4 shots at one time. As with other point and shoot cameras, there is a slight lag in between pressing the shutter and the camera responding. Although it is not long, it does not seem as immediate as when shooting with a DSLR. Maybe as I get more experienced I will be better at know how and when to press the shutter. For now, it definitely cannot be used for an action subjects. Next, I will try the flash and flash commander functions to see how it shoots in more situations. I will only take this camera with me to Thanksgiving dinners to see more about what it can do!
A few posts ago, I asked if anyone could tell how this photo was taken. It is the first boundary stone that was placed at Jones Point in Alexandria, VA. It marked the origin of the capital city of the United States, Washington, DC. For sure it is a challenge to get access to it. Being that it has been protected behind a seawall underneath the ground in front of the Jones Point Lighthouse.
On the other side of the seawall is a very marshy area that leads to the Potomac River. I tried to walk the little ways to the window opening of the wall. Howver, the ground did not hold my weight very well. Perhaps the tide had just rolled out, and the timing was not right to walk. In any case, the overgrown brush was not trampled or stepped on. So, no one has ventured out to see the stone that way in some time.
I was determined to get a photo of the stone, but the bright sun and the thick glass above the stone meant that shooting from directly above would not make it possible. Too many reflections from the glass made it impossible to see. So my wife had an idea – hang the camera from over the fence to take the photo. PERFECT!
Glass covering the South DC Boundary stone
Camera Technique
Thinking about how to go about this – a tripod or monopod mounted to the camera would give me a stable way to hold the camera, but I did not think it would be that flexible. So I just checked that the straps were extra tight on the camera before DANGLING IT OFF THE SIDE OF THE FENCE.
Dangling camera by strap over the fence
Dangling camera by strap over the fence
For the camera, I zoomed the wide lens all the way out to get as much of the space in the frame as I could. Then I connected the Nikon MC-30 Remote Trigger Release so that I could fire the shutter when the camera was in position, and stable since it did rotate back and forth on the trip down. From the photo, the frame would be made upside down in the camera, but that is of course, a very easy fix in software. Mission accomplished!
I would not normally recommend dangling a camera from a strap. Nor would I recommend taking photos without looking through the viewfinder or the Live View from the sensor, but sometimes extremes are necessary to get a unique image. I’m sure next time I visit, everything will be cleared away, and you can just walk up and stick your camera in the window! Let me know if you have any stories of ways you got your camera into hard to reach places.
