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I took today’s photo on a recent bike ride I took up Highway 99. The location was somewhere between Talent and Phoenix, maybe 8 miles or so from my home in Ashland. Wagner Butte is in the background. I want to climb Wagner Butte before going to Denmark in a couple weeks, but I don’t think the snow will melt before then. This year, due to the low temperatures and high precipitation, the trails up Grizzly and Wagner are opening much later than normal.
This was the scene outside the Rogue Theatre in Grants Pass, Oregon at midnight when Floater finished their performance.
A little earlier in the evening…
Floater at the Rogue Theatre in Grants Pass on May 20, 2011. As you can see the atmosphere on the stage changed frequently. And from the last photo you can see a bit of crowd surfing action.
More from last week’s Floater show today…
I took a few shots and one video (below) from the balcony. I’ve come to the conclusion that my lens (AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II lens) is simply not great for low light photography. I’m thinking about picking up a Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens for low light situations.
Floater covered Rush’s “Working Man” and then immediately went into their own song “Seventeen” at about 1:40. Rather than cut the video into two I just left it as is. The sound is a bit better on this one as I’m closer to the mixing board, but the audio for the bass is still not handled well in the D7000’s auto sensitivity mode.
It’s Day 3 (of 7) for Floater week.
Today’s video is “Ghost in the Making” in which my D7000 thoroughly messed up the bass line. The internal microphone on the D7000 picks up too much in quiet (focusing sounds) or loud (concert) settings. I have it set to the auto sensitivity setting but will try low sensitivity the next time I use it at a concert.
Continuing Floater week, here are some more photos from the May 20, 2011 show at the Rogue Theatre in Grants Pass, Oregon.
David Amador is the Floater guitarist.
Another picture of Rob Wynia…
Today’s video is of the song “Cinema” from the Glyph CD, Floater’s 2nd CD released back in 1995. The audio is really bad at times although things sounded great in my ears. I had ear plugs in which usually fix some indoor concert noise. My camera didn’t have the earplug luxury. Still, I wonder if the recorded sound would have come out cleaner had I been near the mixing board.
Last night Eric (pictured above) and I headed up to Grants Pass to see Floater for something like the sixth time. I brought along my Nikon D7000 to practice shooting concerts with before the festivals this summer for which I will likely have a press pass (Roskilde in Denmark and Getaway in Sweden). I didn’t really expect them to let me in with it, but they said nothing.
I’ll post a couple dozen photos and some videos from the show over the next week.
Robert Wynia on bass and vocals
Pete Cornett on drums and backing vocals
The Rogue Theatre’s poor lighting didn’t make photography easy. I tried a half dozen different settings and never really found anything that worked great in low light. Most of the shots that came out OK were on the rare occasions when the lighting got almost half-way decent for a moment.
The D7000 video capabilities aren’t too amazing in low light, or I didn’t have the settings right. Anyone know good settings for recording video at a concert on the D7000? I should have filmed the videos by the sound board for higher quality audio. Lesson learned.
Last night Robert Wynia of Floater put on an absolutely magical performance (for me anyway) at Johnny B’s in Medford. He performed at the same place back in March.
This time I was familiar with his new CD, Iron By Water. I don’t know if the familiarity with the new material was it, or if there was just some pixie dust in the air, but I was spellbound.
I decided to try out my son’s Panasonic HDC-SDX1 (1080p HD Camcorder). While it was easy to use, lightweight, and I had a perfect view of the entire performance (recording over a dozen songs and only skipping three from the entire set), the results aren’t what I was expecting. Things looked great in the viewfinder and the sound was good at the venue, but the videos aren’t very clear and the sound is not always good. I’m disappointed as I thought the camcorder would do much better than my TZ10, which is what I used last time in similar conditions. It turns out the TZ10 can take better video, at least in a poor lighting environment.
Floater returns to the Rogue Valley next Friday night. They are playing in Grants Pass. Perhaps I’ll try my Nikon D7000 then and see if I don’t have better luck.
Since the quality isn’t where it should be, I’ll post just one of the videos. You can find the rest on youtube. This is “Cast Aside” off the new solo CD. It reminds me somewhat of Pink Floyd.
Photos can’t capture the magnificence of Crater Lake. How can such an unnatural looking blue be so natural?
I took a little trip up north on Tuesday to see a Swedish band I had previously seen in Sweden in 2008. If you are interested (I know most of you probably are not) then check out the photos and video I will post here.
The venue was the Wonder Ballroom, located right in the middle of a residential neighborhood–very strange. The building was cool, though, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.