Lydian Collective photos

Lydian Collective – 606 Club

Last Thursday I went to the 606 Club to shoot the Lydian Collective for London Jazz News.

The band is great, their music has very well-rehearsed themes and conventions, and moments of beautiful improvisation.

I shot the gig with a 24-70mm and a 70-200mm f/2.8. Quite difficult to photograph, as the lights created very contrasting spots and harsh shadows.

My camera’s ISO was around 1600 and 3200. Usually, event photographers only care about the noise when working with high ISO, which is superb on the D750. I can go even beyond 3200 in most situations and not get bothered by the noise. However, one detail when you work with high ISO that most event photographers neglect is the lack of dynamic range.

The dynamic range is the difference between the lightest point in a photo, before clipping, and the darkest one. The higher the dynamic range, the greater the details on shadows or highlights of a photo will be, as well as the amount of information about an image. The D750 has around 14.5 stops of dynamic range at ISO 100, but if we raise it to 3200, it will drop to 10 stops (see the chart from DxO Mark below). This means that the images at higher ISO will have fewer details at its highlights and shadows. On the other hand, the image needs to have enough light to be seen, so it is up to the photographer to choose the best camera settings to capture the image with the best quality possible, creating a balance between noise, dynamic range and depth of field. .

It is interesting to notice that landscape or architectural photographers are very aware of this dynamic range limitation, because it is a very important element of landscape photography; all details need to be captured, and this is usually achieved with a little help from a tripod.