Devon’s School Play 2009

For a lovely hour, on April 1st 2009, Marie and I watched Devon in the spotlight in the Malcolm Sargent School Years 3& 4 stage production of The Snow Queen. Don’t ask me what on earth happened in the play, I was too busy trying to make Devon laugh:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 70mm, 1/40 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1000, hand held no flash. This was a real low-light shoot. Famously you really want one of those awesome Nikon D3s for this sort of thing (I know I do), but the D300’s low light ability often gets overlooked in comparison. And sure, it’s no D3 – there’s no other camera that comes close to the D3 in low light - but the D300 is still one of the best cameras there’s ever been at high ISOs. None of the pics in this blog (apart from the last one, which was taken outside in the sunshine) is less than ISO 1000, which is a setting that people could only dream of using a as recently as three years ago – if you were looking to produce a sharp picture with vibrant colours, that is. Now, ISO 1000 is a doddle, and with a good lens on the front – the 24-70mm f 2.8 being one of the best in the business – you’re looking good even when sitting in the semi-darkness of a school assembly hall, watching nine year olds perform under the gloom of a row of 60W bulbs.

Look at the pic above, taken just before the play started… right on the limit as regards shutter speed (dangerously slow), and taken when the lights were dimmed. It’s grainy, and slightly noisy, but Devon’s in focus and – on the web at least – I think it’s a nice start to this blog.

Once things started rolling, Marie punched me in the ribs and made me promise not to distract Devon again. We were sitting several rows back, but I could still put him off by sticking out my tongue. With this simple pleasure denied me, I focused instead on using my unfeasibly large camera without making the other parents too upset. Flash photography was seriously frowned upon (especially by Marie, who gets embarrassed when I plop the huge SB-800 flashgun on top of the chunky D300 with battery pack plus the giant chunky 24-70 lens… I look like a real paparazzi), so it was all about trying to get a shutter speed high enough to get it sharp, but keeping the ISO low enough to keep some colour in the picture.

The one below is one of the better ones – and Devon is in full Elvis Presley mode: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 60mm, 1/80 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1600, hand held no flash. See that – ISO 1600. Lovely and colourful, nice and crisp, happy with that. Note how Devon’s hair was looking especially red today… I think that’s why they put him right at the front, right in the middle. He drew the eye.

This was the third time he’d performed the play, so he knew all the words, all the actions…

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 70mm, 1/80 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1600, hand held no flash. Devon definitely suits the all black look. But he still looks even better in Spiderman pyjamas.

Towards the end, they all got up on stage for the grand finale, and Devon was still one of the only kids who looked like he was truly in the moment:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 66mm, 1/60 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1600, hand held no flash. Still ISO 1600 and looking good – although I did take all of these pics into Paint Shop Pro and give them a little sharpening tweak, and a bit of  a contrast boost with the Levels command. You need to do that when you’re straining for every last beam of light.

On the one below, taken right at the end, spot the kid who’s enjoyed himself the most:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 70mm, 1/80 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1600, hand held no flash. Note the very bored King in the background, obviously realising that playing the Boss meant that you sat much further away from the audience, while the kids in the choir at the front got all the light and most of the attention. This is one of Devon’s proper smiles – he has a cheesy ‘pose grin’ which I can spot a mile off.

Finally, as the stage emptied, the lights went down again, Devon had to be dragged off the stage (here he’s grinning at Marie, who was sitting just to my left), and I pushed it all the way up to ISO 3200 for one last go at it:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 70mm, 1/200 sec at f 2.8, ISO 3200, hand held no flash. That’s a boy who likes the limelight. Note how the colours are less saturated, and yes that’s a lot of noise on the walls in the background, but this was really pushing it. They were moving about a lot, so I needed ISO 3200 to get the shutter speed nice and high.

Back outside, the D300 breathed a sigh of relief as I wound the ISO way back down again for one last picture of the next James Dean:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 lens at 24mm, 1/5000 sec at f 2.8, ISO 400, hand held no flash. How bright is that boy’s hair? He’s our matinee idol, sometimes you can see the adult he’s going to be, but most of the time he’s our boy Devon, not yet ten, naughty enough to send to bed early, but loveable enough to creep downstairs, half asleep, just so I can carry him back upstairs again…