Rock Stars!

So. Last night was pretty crazy. I got talked into shooting a bunch of crazy teenagers by my friend Liana. The church Poplar Creek had a contest going for quite a while with teams and at the end the winning team got treated to a Rock Star evening.

I finished up with work (You know... that thing that normal people do to pay bills) and rushed over to the church. They started to gather at about 5 and that was when i got off of work. I was shooting to get there by 5:30 and did pretty good pulling into the parking lot by about 5:45. I went and set up my lights the night before, so that helped. I came in and adjusted a few things then started to shoot.

My lighting was fairly simple. I used two strobes in the background pointed down and gelled pretty heavily. In the front I had an AB800 with a large softbox at about a 45 degree angle to the rockers. From there I just needed to turn on the fan and get them to rock out.

I shot all of them in groups and then we went out to the stretch hummers. From there we had pizza at a local restaurant and then went off to the lake front. Took some photos with my loverly 50mm 1.8. I love that lens! Get one. Now. We took the group photo, which was an interesting task. I packed my AB800, softbox, and stand and was ready to shoot, when I realized that I left my portable power pack in my car, which was about an hour away (I rode in the limos). So, no big light... that means I get to use a small one. Pulled out the 580ex II, put on the cactus triggers and shot away. I am a little frustrated with the lens I used though. It was the only option for the occasion, at least from my bag. I was using the Canon 28-135 IS, which has worked well for me, but it is reeeeeealy soft around the edges at 28mms. I hate that. Tack sharp in the middle, but soft as new socks at the edges. I really need a new lens. I am thinking of the Canon 24-70 2.8... anyone want to give me a grand? Anyoldways... I got the shot using the 580 on a stand over my head pointed at the crowd. It worked out.

After that we went to the bowling alley, where I didn't bowl, but I edited photos and had a mass of people watch me. It was kinda funny. I had a huge crowd watching me photoshop the photos, which was good because I got a lot done in a short period of time. Here is a before and after shot for you folks to see the lights and the original version as well as the PS version:

Pano!

Sooo... I was outside on Saturday just killin some time and doing a little reading. I saw Milwaukee and was like... hmm... I want to take a pano of that. So I leaned against a pole and took a ton of shots, pieced them together in Photoshop and presto, one hour later I had an 800meg file. Let me know what you think.