Hanging Around

Have you ever waited to photograph a sunset as the sun recedes from the horizon and... nothing.  You pack your gear and start heading to the car.  Get in and drive down the road a bit and look in the rear view mirror only to see a spectacularly-lit sky!?  Many times, it pays off to wait a bit longer than you think for a good shot to come along.  The image here, the T Jarrod Quartet (a great local Austin band who recently played at the Elephant Room), was playing for more than an hour until they took a break.  I was ready to put my camera down when T (keyboards) and Jim Stringer (guitar) struck up a joke.  Click.  I really like the image because it captures an in-between moment of what would otherwise be two musicians playing instruments.  Not that playing is bad but this shot captures an alternative view.  Note the size you are seeing here hides the terrible low-light capability (noise) of the Canon 20D.  Instead of attempting to sharpen the musicians and blur the background or use a plugin like Noise Ninja, which would rob the photo of already limited edge detail, I chose to "hide" the noise by using Silver Efex Pro, which can be used to simulate popular black and white films.  Introducing a preset increased the "film grain," thereby making the square pixel noise more rounded and less "digital."  A 100mm lens was used, ISO 1600, F2.8@1/30.