500 shots later... LKR event post-mortem..

The LKR event went pretty well last Thursday. Like last year it was a pretty good challenge. Anytime you mix low/bad lighting with fast action your in for some fun.

I shot the event with two rigs. For flash photography I used my 40D with a stroboframe flash bracket (the one that rotates the flash around the lens), and a 580EX flash with a Lumiquest soft box attached. I use that configuration anytime I am doing direct flash. The 5DmkII was used with a higher ISO and available light as it has superior low noise performance. Most of the night was shot without flash.. The 5D had a 70-200 f2.8L IS on it and the 40D had a 24-70 f2.8L (although i switched em around from time to time).

As I noted earlier this was the first time I had two simultaneous cameras. Again the Black Rapid strap I use kicked some serious ass. Also some kudos to LensRentals.com for coming through with the 70-200 f2.8 on short notice since Unique doesn't seem to have many of em in stock (and my f4 version just wasn't going to cut it).

As far as the event is concerned.. it was fun, and the VIPs were great.. Because of the tables it wasn't possible to get up close to the stage during the show.. but the room isn't too big so the 200mm was fine.. but none of the usual concert style shots that people seem to get.. more journalistic.

This was the first time I have had to deal with competing media photographers who attended the show (last year I was the only shooter). The posed shots were difficult because I had to fight for everyone's attention during those windows of opportunity. They generally stayed out of my way for the rest of it though. Having a bigger camera then everyone else helps with that..

Bernie and Kris posed for a billion photographs with people and had pretty good stage presence (Kris in particular). The kids did great.. etc.

Ended up with 500+ shots which I culled down to around 180.. for the most part I am pretty pleased with how they came out. Took me a few hours to develop the raw files into TIFFs, and then about a hour of batch processing time to put them through noise reduction, fractal size reduction, and then output sharpening.

I know a few people have already asked me about checking em out.. When they (or whatever they pick from the ones I send) become public by LKR I'll post a link... For various reasons I won't be posting any publicly.