Dance Concert and D600 Success...

[Remorhaz]

Two of my daughters learn Dance (sort of modern, funky, jazz, etc) and each year they and many of their friends participate in an annual dance concert.

I took some shots from our seats on the floor (I was about 6 to 8 rows back from the stage) with the new D600 and two lenses (the Nikon 85/1.8G and the 70-200/2.. Besides the annoying heads in the bottom of a number of the images I was really really impressed with how the shots all came out (I took many (500+) of course). This is about my fourth indoor/event type shoot with the D600 and I'm really liking how it performs.



The venue was indoors with lots of multicoloured stage lighting/spots but the D600 handled this with ease.

I had the camera setup in Aperture priority with AutoWB and AutoISO (set to min of 1 / 2 x focal length), single point focus with 9 point dynamic area AF and set to -1/3EV with image review off (so my LCD didn't light up). In the end I had almost a 100% hit rate of exposure and critical focus. If I compare this to previous indoor event shoots I'd done with my D90 and D7000 a few things immediately became apparent when I was looking through my images in Lightroom afterwards

- there's just so little noise - I had shots ranging from ISO 100 to ISO 12,800 (although the majority was from ISO 3200 down) and I didn't bother applying any noise reduction in Lightroom - it's not just the high ISO shots either - across all ISO ranges (even the lower ones like 100 to 1600) the images look noticeably cleaner and smoother
- my critical focus hit rate is much improved - pretty much all 500 shots are technically usable and focused where I actually wanted - now this may be a combination factor of a number of things - the new/better AF system in the D600, the fact that I've calibrated the AF fine tune of these two lenses with my D600 (using the Reikan Focal automated software), the fact that I changed my AF style a little - pretty much using the central area (centre or one or two off) AF points only and not using any of the far periphery ones, etc
- I did pretty much no post processing (I left all the shots as is as far as AutoWB, colour, contrast, etc is concerned - there's lots of multicoloured lighting coming from everywhere but I was happy with them as is) - all I did was add a little sharpening and for some adjusted the exposure perhaps 1/3 to 3/4 of a stop but effectively the vast majority were essentially SOC
- the 85/1.8G is a chroma monster but the 70-200 is much better in this regard

If I sound enamoured with the D600 - I am . I've yet to spend enough time with it to really find out how it performs as my Landscape camera (compared to say my trusty D7000) or for Sports but certainly for Indoor/Low Light/Event photography it kills the D7000.

A couple more images from the day...

[biggerry]

The fourth one is awesome - gotta love that separation of the BG.

[chrisk]

Yeah that 4th one is very special indeed.

[aim54x]

Looks like you are having a ball with this camera. I love #3, you have really frozen the moment

[Geoff]

Impressive quality shots with a nice camera, but the guy behind the camera needs kudos too! Well done!

[Remorhaz]

The fourth one is awesome - gotta love that separation of the BG.

Yeah that 4th one is very special indeed.

Thanks Gerry/Chris - probably my favourite of the day too - a sister and brother combo too (good fortune on placement)

Looks like you are having a ball with this camera. I love #3, you have really frozen the moment

Yep some of the ballet shots turned out very nicely - they certainly have a very different feel to the modern funky dance ones

Impressive quality shots with a nice camera, but the guy behind the camera needs kudos too! Well done!

Thanks Geoff

[surenj]

The 12 inches behind the D600 is doing good work.

I was a little surprised to see that you thought that ISO 1600 was 'much' superior with the D600. I thought that would be on par although higher may have been a different story. I was also surprised to see the DIGITALrev review dissin the D600 (vs 6D which is really like trying to market a chastity belt made by Kim Kardashian).

It's great to see that the real world experience sometimes doesn't really reflect these 'reviews'.

[devilla101]

Is this the dance gig that happened in Chatswood a couple of Saturdays ago? The same gig where the music stopped and the girls kept on dancing?

If so I was the bloke manning the 2 dslrs mid section to sell to the parents later

[Remorhaz]

The 12 inches behind the D600 is doing good work.

Some would say thats debatable but thanks

I was a little surprised to see that you thought that ISO 1600 was 'much' superior with the D600

"much" is probably non specific enough - but I'd say easily noticable - I'm not saying ISO 100-3200 on the D7000 is bad (because it isn't - it's actually very good) - but I can see in Lightroom that the shots are cleaner from the D600 - not just at 100% view - but even just at normal Lightroom fit loupe view they look better. e.g. with the D7000 if I shot anything above about ISO 1000 I'd probably had a very low level of NR in Lightroom (I have a preset for that - Luminance of 20, Contrast 10) and if I shot above say 3200 I'd go stronger (maybe 50) and so on. I'm finding with the D600 I'm not. Either because the noise isn't there or it's so fine looking that I'm not noticing it to care.

I was the bloke manning the 2 dslrs mid section to sell to the parents later

I'm one of the parents who's already ordered/paid

I remember seeing you there (I came up and had a sticky beak ) - you had a pretty nice possie in the middle and higher - I would have liked to have shot from there - the close ups on faces might have been trickier tho.

Did you also do the video at Homebush at the water park - that was excellent

[zafra52]

I think 3 & 4 as the best

[devilla101]

I'm one of the parents who's already ordered/paid

I remember seeing you there (I came up and had a sticky beak ) - you had a pretty nice possie in the middle and higher - I would have liked to have shot from there - the close ups on faces might have been trickier tho.

Did you also do the video at Homebush at the water park - that was excellent

Position was good but wasnt the best since I had to shoot while kneeling down and occasionally stand up to check focus. We had parents (rightfully) complained that we were blocking their views. So the compromise was to try and keep a small profile.

If you were in my spot you wouldn't have gotten close ups kids faces. Our longest lens was the 70-200 and at max FL I was getting head to toe.

As for the promo vid in Homebush, no that was my mate who shot that by himself. He shoots for the Dance Studio. I'll pass on your compliments