Official Band Photographer

[Sistereinstein]

Hi Everyone! I have been appointed the band photographer, and if I ever want to try and make a living from this - I have to wrap my brain around issues involving Depth of Field/Focus, and Lighting.

Could this be in sharper focus? I am aware of how slow this speed is - I was trying to catch some motion of the passing train.
The one change I would make is the erase the reflection from the sunglasses.

Here is my EXIF - Post Processing in LR2.6
Exposure: 0.2 sec (1/5)
Aperture: f/14.0
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Time of Day: 7:47 PM cst
Settings: TV

One important thing - I do not have a tripod. My hope is that it won't be needed, because I would like my band shots to be natural if at all possible.

[Lightwriter]

In this size the focus is fine but at larger size I can see that the people are rather soft. I know this is due to the long shutter speed. For this shot, go back to your editing program and sharpen just the people as much as you can without it looking odd. For the future, I would recomend stock-piling some longe exposure shots of trains etc. to Photoshop into the background so you can use shorter exposures to capture crisp people. (If you want to do a lot of long exposure shots, though, you really need to invest in a tripod. Check out ebay as you can get some really good deals there.) Hope this helps you!

[BigFuzzy]

Quick question, why does tripod not = natural?

Also, if I had to pick, I'd pick a tripod and sharpness over no tripod and blurred photos. In the end, it's just not sharp enough. You can see movement blur in the subjects.
If you used a tripod, you could take one shot that perfectly exposed them and another which was timed for the train then merge the two together easily since both frames would have been from exact position.

Alternatively to "fixing" the reflections in the sunglasses, you could have just slightly turned the angle of their heads to minimize the reflection.

Plus, why not move the woman one step to the right to not be almost blocking the guy in the middle as there was a nice gap between the two dudes.

It's a good concept in terms of context and background... but there are some basic flaws that should be taken care of first before the other things are relevant, and sharpness is one of them in my opinion. Despite me sounding harsh, it's not a bad start.

[Sistereinstein]

Quick question, why does tripod not = natural?

The simplest answer I can offer is that I see the tripod as restrictive, though I could concede that what is restrictive is my thinking.

Also, I don't currently own one for my xsi, so I am really really hoping that any technical issues I am having are a matter of mastering the settings.

BigFuzzy, you are not being harsh at all. This is the critique section, isn't it? If I wanted warm fuzzies I would have placed this in a different forum.

Lastly - If I cannot achieve a good focused shot of people without a tripod, someone needs to tell me this. For now, I am convinced that what I am having is DOF issues because I still need to wrap my brain around AV settings and when to use what and why.

[Lightwriter]

You can get great shots of people without a tripod but not when you take such long exposures intended to capture motion (people move, too ;P).

[utsc2006]

I like the concept. I would try to move them closer to you next time. Fill more of your frame with the subjects. We get to see their faces better which is important.