Saturday night, my good friends Jim and Alicia invited me to go with them to see their friend, Alligator Records' recording artist, Michael Burks perform at Buddy Guy's Legends club. I jumped at the chance to go since I had not seen Jim and Alicia since last June's guitar get-together (see the June 2006 archives on my blog) and also I figured it would give me a chance to try out my new Fuji S5 pro camera in an ambient light situation.
I set the Fuji in manual and shutter priority modes and set my shutter to 1/30 sec. with an aperture of f 2.8 on my Nikon 70-200mm f 2.8 VR lens. The camera was set at ISO 3200... the highest ISO setting available for high sensitivity shooting on the Fuji S5. Dynamic Range on the camera was set at 400%. Neat Image noise reduction was applied to the first image in the photos above but not to the other two.
Wow! I'm impressed. Although ISO 3200 gave some noise, it's a lot lower than I thought it would be. The full-resolution files look great! These images on the blog of course have been downsized for web viewing, but if you click on each image, you'll see that the images hold up quite well.
As for Saturday's performance by Michael Burks, well all I can say is that he has a new fan in me! Wow! He was absolutely incredible! His band is ultra tight and the sound was fantastic! I'm impressed with the versatility of this performer. As I was not familiar with him until Saturday, I did not know what to expect. But Michael's performances of his own material was riveting and when he broke into covers of songs like Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" and a medley of Carlos Santana tunes which included "Oye Coma Va" and "Black Magic Woman," I was blown away. Inventive and fast is all I can say... this guy can play the guitar and sing!
Alligator Record's president was on hand that evening and since Jim and Alicia knows Michael and the band, we were given VIP seating in the area reserved for the performers. It was cool to hang out with the band and not have to stand to watch. The place was packed and that's how it should be for this performer. But even with VIP seating, I was all over the place taking shots... just like I do for a wedding!
If you ever get a chance to see Michael Burks perform, do it. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Thanks to Jim and Alicia for another great evening!
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