At the theatre / photo processing blues

The year is more gone that not so it's definitely time for another post. Don't take my silence to indicate a lack of shooting - far from it. In fact, I've shot so much, I now have a serious backlog of frames to process. While I'm happy to have a full-time job, it really does cut into the time I'd use for editing!

Of course work also cuts into time I'd use for shooting, being most of the daylight hours, but it does allow me to buy the odd bit of camera gear. In particular I'm now the privileged owner of one Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L. It wasn't the lens I really _wanted_ to buy, but it was the one I _needed_ for the work I've been doing, being mostly theatre shoots. I didn't have anything fast wider than 50mm, which on a crop-frame 7D is a bit of a handicap, and knew I was going to need to be up close to the stage in the relatively small theatres for the gigs I had coming up. Especially when the rear seats are significantly higher than the stage - the 70-200mm f/2.8 would do the job but I didn't want all my shots taken looking down from "the gods".

And the verdict? I really can't say I'm unhappy. Photographers must of course constantly deal with compromise, but in the theatre 24-70mm is quite a usable range, allowing me to take a reasonably wide shot while still giving me a short telephoto in an instant if I need it. The light levels generally mean I'm shooting at ISO 1600, almost always wide open at f/2.8 so I can get a reasonable shutter speed (1/100 or so) that doesn't leave me with a bunch of blurry actors. I was a little reticent about the lack of a stabiliser, but I haven't really missed it - I seem to lose shots more to motion blur or focus issues than camera shake.

So my rig now is generally the 7D, 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8, plus my 430EX II flash (rarely used, but useful enough to carry with me), which is all I need for what I get time to shoot at this point. I won't say I've got everything I _want_, but I recognise that this is a pretty good photographic base with which I can (and should!) make a lot of progress by concentrating on using it, not agonising on what to buy next (a 5D? 70-300L? 16-35? *grin*).

Anyway, those 8000-odd frames (representing about 1000 frames/night) aren't going to process themselves, so it's back to the Lightroom for me. Hopefully I'll be done before Christmas!