The May 2003 COBA featured a presentation on concert and performance photography. Having just completed a three week tour with Vienna Teng, I was able to talk at length about the various tips, techniques, and equipment necessary for taking successful performance photographs. My typical kit consists of a variety of prime lenses (24, 50, 85), coupled with the excellent Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens. Yyou can’t beat the versatility and quality that these lenses afford.
The crowd was a little smaller than in previous months; it was nice, however, as the meeting felt more intimate, with a good set of questions and answers flowing around the room. We also had a brief show and tell presentation. Jean showed his fancy and powerful light meter, Karl demonstrated his angle view finder, clamp tool (when doing macro photography), and camera extender (for fine tuning the position of the camera when tripod-mounted). Chung demonstrated the Gripper, a sort of bracket for SLRs, and Steve showed off his tool for cleaning his sensor. Finally, I displayed my LED keychain light, which was indispensable during Vienna’s East Coast Tour. A number of people also showed this pen brush tool, useful for cleaning your lens of accumulated dust.
Speaking of the East Coast Tour, Bill, who was at several of Vienna’s shows in North Carolina, made a stop at the COBA meeting tonight! Tomorrow night, he’s going to see Vienna perform at the Great American Music Hall, where she’ll be opening for Luka Bloom.
Harold had brought his 17-inch PowerBook, which was a beauty to see and use. My 12-inch PowerBook looked so small sitting next to its big brother! The real estate on that screen is just amazing. 1440×960 compared to 1024×768 on the 12-inch. It’s certainly not as portable as my computer, but if you want a portable desktop computer, that’s the one to get right now.
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