Mad T Party Photo Essay with the Sony A7 & FE 70-200mm f/4 G Lens - NIGHT

Just like the prior post, I will be a bit light on the text. I just wanted to do another photo essay that displays the over top spectacle that is the Mad T Party. From the lighting to the costumes, this part of California Adventure truly embraced the spirit of Halloween. I decided to match mood with the editing, albeit a tad bit heavy handed. Hope you enjoy.

A fantastic duo - Josh Disan and Dani Kerry as the Mad Hatter & Alice

The lights are pretty true to what I saw. The band dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller

A darker version of the Hatter

Photography Tip #4 - The exposure triangle for available light photography

Ashley Morgan, one of the new Alices to grace the MTP
ISO 1000, f/2.8 at 1/320th second

For several years, I was the photographer who relied on the automatic modes to help me properly expose an image. Scratch that, I relied solely on Aperture Priority mode for all shooting conditions. It wasn't until I decided to get serious about sports and concert photography did I realize I was severely limiting my ability capture decent photos. In a previous post, I discussed how important it was to have the appropriate shutter speed to stop motion. There are multiple ways to properly expose an image and depending on your shooting conditions certain settings are more appropriate than others. In this post, I want to help you use a base line reading from your automatic modes to get you to the settings necessary to capture the image you need in Manual mode.

The wonderful Dani Kerry as Alice - shot at ISO 1000,
f/4, 1/250th second 

The exposure triangle consists of 3 separate and controllable features in your camera: Shutter Speed, ISO, and Aperture. The chart below breaks down each individual component of the triangle by one stop. Strangely, I believe wikipedia describes a stop in the most appropriate way: "stops are...unit[s] used to quantify ratios of light or exposure, with each added stop meaning a factor of two, and each subtracted stop meaning a factor of one-half". Each jump to right in the chart below means you gather twice as much light, while a move to the left means you gather half as much light. 

Shutter Speed

1/4000th

1/2000th

1/1000th

1/500th

1/250th

1/125th

1/60th

1/30th

1/15th

1/8th

Freezes motion & gathers less light -----------------------> Introduces motion/blur & gathers more light 

ISO (sensitivity of camera sensor to light)

100

200

400

800

1600

3200

6400

12800

25600

51200

Clean images & gathers less light ----------------------------------> Grainier images & gathers more light

Aperture

f/32

f/22

f/16

f/11

f/8

f/5.6

f/4

f/2.8

f/2

f/1.4

Greater depth of field & gathers less light  -------------> Shallower depth of field & gathers more light

Concert Photography Tip #1 - Know Thy Shutter Speed

The extremely talented John Flanagan and Dani Kerry

Going to Disney’s California Adventure to photograph the Mad T Party band is not only therapeutic experience for me, it’s a perfect way to practice my technique and be entertained all at the same time. I have made several mistakes and missed "the shot" and had a ton of “Light Bulb” moments upon studying my EXIF data.  I figure this would be a perfect opportunity to share both my photos and provide a quick tip to help you improve your concert photography.  So for my first tip: Know thy shutterspeed