H.T. Fotography - Durban, South Africa

Pictures from live shoot at Burn Night Club
Model: Lead singer of Ankst. Y es we asked him to pose while in a live peformance (not)
Make-Up: You can ask him if he was wearing any
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : 50mm f1.8 - Fantastic Plastic
Aperture : f2.2
ISO : 1600 - grain o vision
Shutter speed : 1/30
Flash: Canon 580 EX II
Canon 430 EX


This picture was taken at live venue Burn nightclub in particular in Durban South Africa. I enjoy taking pictures at live venues despite the zombie drunk people and the potential liquid damage to equipment (beer) the constant fight to try to take a picture (zombie drunk people again) etc. So when you do get a few pictures and you have not had to spend a small fortune replacing equipment and even had a drink or three, one will feel pretty good about pictures one has taken. This particular night one of my favorite bands were playing Ankst. I generally have found the music they play to be to my liking, a lot to my liking. They play music of the Goth variety and thats just good with me. One of the things that I enjoy about the Durban live music sceen right now is the theoratical bands seem to be active. This makes for good pics to take home. These guys try hard to dress up and make an effort. Good on you guys. Anyway back to the pictures.

OK the picture Focus Focus Focus. Well being at a live venue im sure for anyone is fun and maybe not so much for someone trying to take a picture with a little more than a P&S. For this picture I decided to use my fantastic plastic or some may know it as the nifty fifty - 50mm f1.8 fixed focal length, the reason it is called this is the following. There is a camera out there called a Holga and it is made by Lomo, anyway someone at canon said one day "lets make a lens from plastic just like the holga and we can get the fuzz and out of focus and light fall off just like that." and so it was made. NOT although dont joke some guys are doing just that but I will save the explination for another day. But on a little more non BS note. The reason that its called the fantastic plastic, the nifty fifty is that the whole lens except the optics are all made from plastic and its a 50mm as well as it is canons cheapest lens in their offering (it feels that way too). Personally I feel each and every DSLR should come with one of these lenses I love this lens and I will upgrade one day but still one of my most loved lenses. If you dont own one go get one now. Go now. This lens is good on my camera, fast accurate focusing light lens with a decent aperture I could go on and on and on...... In front of the lens is a cokin holder with a cokin star filter and thats about it from the optics. My Beloved Partner was making herself very useful as a 430ex flash holder at the time the photo was taken. I wish all flash support systems could fight back crowds and look good too. I had a 580exII on my camera acting as master and not actually firing but setting off the 430ex in slave mode. The flash was set to ETTL mode I think and was facing Ankst singer face. It was toward the end of the evening so I was getting Creative (tired and tipsy) about The Iso and shutter and the second flash. Seeing as I had only got the 580 exII a few days before and I was still at that stage where I was trying to work out how everything worked on the flash.