All posts by Passy

Originals Bands

Morgan Evans – June 2014

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Morgan Evans is a great Australian Country Rocker who is destined for International stardom.

We were lucky enough to have a break in our schedule when we found out that he was in Melbourne, and the regular in-house photographer at the venue was ill and they needed someone to do photos. What a Lucky Break!

We first saw Morgan in early 2013 at the Deniliquin Easter Festival and were totally blown away by this fresh original talent.

It was so good to see him again, and hear all those great original tunes.

What was very impressive was how much time he gave to his Melbourne Fans at the post show Meet and Greet.

“Revolver Upstairs” was a great venue to host the show, and the people there are very professional and great to work with.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Morgan Evans at Revolver Upstairs

 

A Flickr Gallery of the Meet and Greet Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Morgan Evans Melbourne Meet and Greet

Further information about Morgan Evans can be found at these Facebook Pages:

Morgan Evans Music Page

Morgan Evans Fans Facebook Page

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Camera One:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Sony HVL-F43M Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser

Camera Two:

Sony Alpha A-55 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8

As this shoot was an important event, I took my travel photographer friend Michael along, and he took photos on the A-55 with the camera set to Auto White Balance, and Auto “SCN” mode.

The A-55 was also used with the bigger Tamron lens, and it captured some very good images which have made it into the album.

The A-77 was used for all of the wide angle shots, and People Pictures taken with the flash and diffuser.

The A-77 was set to ISO’s of 800, 1250, and even up to 1600 for shots that featured both the stage and the crowd.

All shots were done in full manual mode at Aperture of 2.8 for band photos, and varying apertures up to 5.6 for the group shots using flash.

Shutter speed was set to 1/60 through to 1/125.

Unfortunately there is a blueish almost Avatar Movie hue in several photos, which I assume is due to me not getting the color “white balance” fully correct.

I used the A-77 WB setting of “Incandescent”.

I changed to Incandescent after firing off some test shots with WB set to Auto or AWB. These shots did not look the best, and so I changed the setting Incandescent.

I tried using “Levels” in Photoshop to adjust the color balance but this did not seem to improve the blueish photos that much.

Shots taken with the A-77 appeared darker than they really should have been, because the venue seemed to have quite good lighting, especially when you compare to the A-55 shots, which had much better color in them.

Perhaps the darkness of the shots was due to having the white balance set incorrectly, as the lights were not at the color temperature of incandescent.

White Balance is something I really need to work on for future events, as this needs to be set up very carefully to get good accurate colors.

 

The previously super reliable Sony Flash decided to malfunction for some unknown reason when I started to take the “Party People” shots. For some reason it just refused to fire off.

There was a flashing green light in the display, which is an indication that the camera could not focus in the low light inside the venue. Maybe if I had put the ISO up to 1600 to trick the camera this would have made the flash come good.

I am not sure how I fixed it, but it seemed to be that with a full reboot of camera and flash, and setting the ISO to 1000, and Shutter to 1/125, everything seemed to suddenly be normal.

It was great fun shooting Morgan, and hopefully he will be back in Melbourne later this year.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

Cover Bands

Adam and Casey Duo

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Adam and Casey are a great duo who perform a diverse range of songs on most Friday Nights at the Berwick Inn.

On this shoot I used the Lumix LX7, which is a great compact camera for low light, as well as the Sony A-77.

The duo were performing under the normal incandescent light in the venue, but I elected not to use any Flash, so as to retain the ambience of the setting.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Adam and Casey at the Berwick Inn

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Sony 35mm F1.8 Portrait Lens
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Panasonic Lumix LX7 Compact Camera

This shoot was the classic low light situation, with only plain incandescent lighting, like you would have from a low wattage light bulb in your lounge room.

The minimum ISO which could be used on the A-77 was ISO 800, and some shots were pushed up to ISO 1250. Shutter speed was varied from 1/60th to 1/125th.

Started off the shoot using the 35mm F1.8 portrait lens, and every second shot was out of focus, but the ones which were in focus were quite usable. I should perhaps have tried some continuous shooting so that the camera could get into a focus. The challenge with that F1.8 lens is keeping as still as possible while shooting, as just the slightest movement at an F1.8 aperture can throw the shot out of focus.

As always, shooting was in JPEG, spot metering was used, face recognition was turned on, and the camera was used in “M” fully manual mode.

I then changed lenses and used the 17-50mmm F2.8 Tamron, but even fully open at F2.8 it was finding the lighting difficult.

I also took some shots with the Lumix Lx-7, but unbeknownst to me, the auto focus switch had slipped onto macro plant shooting focus, and this is probably why I did not get a lot of great shots from the Lumix.

The brightness of the Lumix shots I did get was quite good at ISO 800, and it is much better in low light for brightened exposure than the Sony A-77.

Shots were brightened up in Photoshop, and Sharpness and a tiny amount of Gamma was added to some shots.

Overall the results were quite good given the very average lighting conditions.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

Birthday Parties, Special Events

Robyn’s Birthday

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This was a photoshoot of a private party in a very crowded room. The space was like the upstairs room in a restaurant, with all of the tables and chairs cleared out, and people packed in.

The people attending were dressed up for the event with some good colour, which really helped brighten up the resulting photographs.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Robyn’s Birthday Party

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Sony HVL-F43M Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser

The party was a tightly crowded environment, and I was very happy with how the Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser worked on the Flash at such close proximity.

The general approach taken was to shoot with the Flash set at 50mm width in full manual mode. The flash power was set fairly high to get brighter than normal pictures which could then be toned down later in Photoshop.

All pictures were shot at ISO 1000 and a shutter speed of around 1/100. Aperture was varied from F2.8 up into the 4’s and 5.6 for the larger group shots. The A-77 camera was set to full manual “M” mode.

This approach worked well, and with some exposure adjusting and air brush type retouching in Photoshop; the final photos came up well.

A very experienced professional photographer at a Melbourne newspaper even commented on how good they were, so we were definitely on the right track on this shoot.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

Tribute Bands

The INXS Show at Trak

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The Australian INXS Tribute Band played a fantastic live show at the Trak Lounge in Toorak on May 30th.

Photos By Passy covered this event as the band’s photographer of choice.

I went along with my standard Sony A-77 setup, and I also took a travel photographer friend along, (who has never shot a Band before), and gave him the Sony Alpha-55 to shoot with.

The band put on a great performance to a packed house, and we were delighted to be the guys capturing it in images for them.

We had access to all areas, including the VIP Bar, as well as the band’s backstage room. Trak Live Lounge certainly is a great venue with superb stage lighting, great video effects, and well designed tiered viewing areas.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of The Australian INXS Show at Trak

Further information about The Doors Show can be found at their Facebook Page:

The Australian INXS Show Facebook Page

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8

Sony Alpha A-55 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8

This shoot was done at ISO 1000 on the A-77, using the 17-50mm F2.8 lens with a shutter speed of 1/100 to 1/125.

We probably could have gone down to ISO 800 or lower for some of the shots, but chose to use ISO 1000 for the whole shoot.

The A-55 was set to SCN Sports Mode, and so all shots on this camera were done in auto mode.

The A-77 produced better shots than the A-55; however we got some good close ups on the A-55 using the 24-70mm F2.8 lens, and we were able to make use of these in the final album.

The lighting was so good that there was minimal photoshopping required of the images from both cameras.

All that was done was adding a bit of gamma, and sharpening up some of the shots.

The INXS Band is off to Darwin and Sydney over the next couple of months, but we hope to catch them again in Melbourne sometime in 2014.

The Doors Show was the support act for the INXS Show, just in case you were thinking you may have seen some of this write up previously.

We would definitely like to shoot at the Trak Lounge again, it is a great venue, with very good lighting and the staff and management are extremely professional.

 

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You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

Tribute Bands

The Doors Show at Trak

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This was a great show at Trak Live Lounge Bar in Toorak.

I took a travel photographer friend along, (who has never shot a Band before), and gave him the Sony Alpha-55 to shoot with.

We had all areas access, including the VIP Bar, and it was a great venue with superb stage lighting.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of The Doors Show at Trak

Further information about The Doors Show can be found at their Facebook Page:

The Australian Doors Show Facebook Page

 
 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77 Camera
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8

Sony Alpha A-55 Camera
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8

This shoot was done at ISO 1000 on the A-77, using the 17-50mm F2.8 lens with a shutter speed of 1/100 to 1/125.

We probably could have gone down to ISO 800 or lower for some of the shots, but chose to use ISO 1000 for the whole shoot.

The A-55 was set to SCN Sports Mode, and so all shots on this camera were done in auto mode.

The A-77 produced better shots than the A-55; however we got some good close ups on the A-55 using the 24-70mm F2.8 lens, and we were able to make use of these in the final album.

The lighting was so good that there was minimal photoshopping required of the images from both cameras.

We would love to shoot at the Trak Lounge again, it is a great venue, with vgood lighting and is very professionally managed.

 

Subscribe

If you enjoy visiting Photos By Passy, why not get a free subscription to the website.

You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy