I recently had some fun photographing the events at the Freeplay independent games festival held in Melbourne, Australia.
The events I photographed took place in an auditorium at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), a theatre at the State Library of Victoria, an exhibition space in the State Library and a dimly lit bar where the awards presentation was held.
The lighting conditions varied from marginal, lit by spotlights of various strengths and colours to almost pitch black lit by dull red spots (the bar).
The white balance was non-existent, depending on where the speakers were standing, what was being displayed on the screen behind them and whether or not they were using a tablet for reading notes.
This was an excellent chance to try out the low level response and focusing of the new 5D Mark 3 which had arrived a week or so earlier.
The first surprise was the focusing, much, much faster than the original 5D I had been using prior to this. It was grabbing focus as fast as I could press the shutter button, even in the dimly lit bar there was no lag or focus hunting.
The low level performance was brilliant, it can practically see in the dark and this came in very handy in the bar for the awards night. Sure the files have some noise, but this cleaned up to an acceptable level for the conditions. I’ve never shot an image at ISO 25600 before. This gave me 1/80 at f4.5 and combined with a monopod I was able to document the evening and capture not only the presenters and award recipients, but also the visuals on the screen behind them. See more of the images at the Freeplay galleries.
