Padma Sugavanam in concert

This image is part of my ongoing portfolio of images of Indian

classical musicians. Padma Sugavanam is a vocalist trained in the

Karnatik (South Indian classical) tradition.

Thanks for looking. All ratings and comments are appreciated.

I am not an expert in portraits or concert photography ( or anything else for that matter:-)), but I thought I will shoot off any way!.

I feel the lighting on the face is very good, and the moment you have captured is also very good.

Major distraction is both the mike and the tampura artiste being out of focus, obliterating the information that the mike is in front while the other is at the back.

Since this is a concert photgraph, the relationship of all the three secondary elements (incl. the moving hand) assumes importance.

Just my opinion, for whatever it is worth!!

Ranga:

Thanks for your comment. Your perspective is indeed quite interesting.

I had indeed applied a Gaussian blur to what I regarded as distracting elements, but I hadn't thought about its implications on the "documentary accuracy" of the image.

I am attaching the unmanipulated image so that others can see what you are talking about.

The img attachment looks very good and sharp. Of course the penalty is in the higher noise level, but with xti at ISO 800, that seems pretty good. Interested in knowing  the lens you actually used.

Ranga:

Thanks. The lens was a Canon EF 75-300 f4-5.6 ISM lens. This is a somewhat maligned Canon zoom, perhaps because it is a relatively inexpensive lens.

I got this lens for my film camera (EOS Elan 7), but have found myself using it a lot more after going digital, as it gives me a bit more of a telephoto range on my APS-C size sensor (in the Canon EOS Rebel XTi).