Sunday, November 15, 2009

Diwali at Princeton Chapel

The first Diwali in Princeton University Chapel was held yesterday (though this says it is the second; I believe the first "official" recognition of Diwali was last year, and this is the first event in the chapel).

The event was captured the spirit of Diwali. Well done!

The Chapel isn't exactly the best place to hold an event. It is large and full of reverberations, is dark with wood panelling and is poorly illuminated. The acoustics and lighting are challenging to say the least. For this photographer, lighting and position/perspective, both were less than optimum. 5D at ISO 3200, 70-200mm f/2.8 and flash were used - but the chapel seems to absorb all the light. A 200mm f/2 or 85mm f/1.2 would have been a good lens to have. Some pictures are here (clicking on the picture below will take you to a Picasa album). Consider these to be news photographs. :)
Diwali at the Chapel

PS: Trying Picasa's embeddable slideshow:
Posted by Arun at 11:16 AM

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Rajan P. Parrikar · 800 weeks ago

Excellent series, Arun-ji! I am trying to think what might have been an optimal set-up. I think 2 bodies, with 50L on one and 135L on another would have worked very well. The issue with the 70-200L f/2.8 in dim lighting is its weight and the problem of keeping it steady enough for IS to do its job. According to rumours, a new version with superior IS is coming out later this month.
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Arun · 800 weeks ago

50L would have been short, unless I could get closer to the floor. 85 and 135 might have been an excellent set-up.
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Rajan P. Parrikar · 800 weeks ago

The issue with 85L is its slow focus mechanism - it wouldn't work for the current situation. On the other hand, the 85 f/1.8 might.
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Arun · 800 weeks ago

Yes. Unfortunately I wasn't carrying it. I really need to do the Hanuman and carry an entire set of gear whereever possible. :)

BTW, http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/729839/0

wcastleman writes:


don mash wrote:
......How difficult is it to get focus with the 85 1.2? I wouldn't think that it is fast enough in focusing speed to keep up with the action.....

The 85L II focuses fast enough for gymnastics where the action is very fast (i.e., fast twitch muscle) but the subjects generally aren't moving away from or to you at a fast rate. Also, the gymnasts have standard routines. Once you learn them by watching warm ups, its relatively easy to predict where the gymnast will be at any particular point.

I wouldn't want to try to shoot basketball with the 85L.
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Rajan P. Parrikar · 800 weeks ago

I note that he uses the 1Ds bodies. They have an AF system superior to the 5D series. This may play into the equation, too.
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Arun · 800 weeks ago

Also, noise is greatly visible on shadow/underexposed areas of 3200 ISO exposures. On these cropped and downsized versions, the noise is not so visible.

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