Slow Shutter Blues
OK — it’s not even middle of February, but what the heck — I nominate Blues Caravan for act of the year 2009. What a performance!
They are white, young and good looking, so what the hell do they know about the blues?! Well, I don’t know what it is, but they’ve got it! If you like electric blues, go and see them!
I was in “Die Fabrik” tonight, and it was a great concert. Joanne Shaw Taylor started it up, Oli Brown stepped up a notch and Erja Lyytinen with “Steamy Windows” absolutely lit up the crowd. And then, over two hours in total, it kept getting even better.
I’d completely forgotten about the concert, so I only had my digicam with me (but I did have it!). At first I thought I shouldn’t even bother, with the low light, fast-moving subjects and all, but I couldn’t resist and took a few shots. I put the Ixus in manual mode, chose auto ISO, turned off the flash and I fired away. The AF was very slow and unreliable, the shutter speeds were too long, and the shutter released about half a second after I’d pressed the button, but hey — I still got a few decent images. And I like the dreamy and blurred look of the photos.
BTW, Canon calls this shooting mode “manual,” but focus and exposure are still determined automatically. What you can do is turn the flash off, set a custom white balance or dial in exposure compensation.
Before you accuse me of too much Photoshop reickery let me assure you that all images, also the first one, are straight out of the camera. I don’t know how, but for the first image I’d somehow manged to put the camera into a funky custom white balance, and for whatever reason the blown highlights were rendered orange. I like the result very much! 🙂
