Stopped shooting catwalk on a regular base years ago, really no serious money to be made there anymore
It basically has become the playing ground for too many amateurs with digital cameras, who offer their images for free or just give them away in return of a 'credit'
That said, from past experiences I know it's the perfect testing ground for a new body, with the fast moving models, and too often bad/funky lighting
Or unpredictable action demanding to eg flip the camera from portrait into portrait mode (and back) in a split second, or fully zoom in and out the lens over its full zoom range for the best composition
Allowing only a split second to (re)frame the picture and take the shot, and not in the last place, the camera to find correct focus.
So I yesterday took my new 2nd hand D850 to a catwalkshow from my old school, the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague (class of 1987, I'm really feeling old )
As expected it had all the above elements, including a 30+ meter long catwalk (even with a 70-200 the models could, by far, not be shot in a more or less frame filling way in portrait mode) and areas either fully lit by the stage light, or only at a much lower intensity by the spill from the lit area's, mixed with daylight from the windows in the high above roof of the venue (an old factory hall)
Took the period during which I shot my first couple of hundreds of shots to find my stride (best settings and way to operate/handle) with the new body
But in the end managed to do so, results eg look like this (all images D850, 2.8/70-200 VRII, Matrix Mode, WB Auto1, fixed 1/320 shutter speed and f4.0 aperture with Auto ISO)
Shots are almost the full image
But when the models stepped on the catwalk, for some reason suddenly the stage light got completely turned of leaving only the spill of the daylight from the roofwindows
Consequently the Auto ISO raised the ISO up to ISO 18000 in the first, and 16000 in the 2nd picture
http://a4.pbase.com/g10/20/670620/2/167656680.bncoMxPr.jpghttp://a4.pbase.com/g10/20/670620/2/167656681.6mIvn2si.jpgThough this one was shot at ISO 3200, some serious shadow recovery was needed here, as due to the light gray/white concrete floor, the black clothing and face mask got seriously under exposed
http://a4.pbase.com/g10/20/670620/2/167659181.KK2FI1cN.jpgOn the other hand, a lot of high light recovery was needed in this image, as, even if the shot was taken at 'just' ISO 4000
Due to the mainly black clothing and background, the face got seriously over exposed/almost burned out
Also it's cropped of less then 45% of the original full length picture, as it's combined with a another complete full length shot on the site
http://a4.pbase.com/g10/20/670620/2/167659192.fIocZma6.jpgNote:
Due to the fact I'm a hardcore Nikon Capture NX2 (2.4.6) user, I'm can't process D850 NEF's
NX-D requires Mac OS Sierra, which in its turn does not allow to use NX2, and I also don't have eg Photoshop (last time I used that was in 1994, with PS4) nor any other alternative software
So instead I shoot Medium Size TIFF's, with about 77 to 80 MB still smaller then a 14bit NEF ( I have two 64GB SONY QXD G cards which can hold around 775 of the above described TIFFS)
I still keep the original large TIFF's, but save the processed files to smaller TIFFS (approx 10 MB for a TIFF around 20 by 30cm, at 250DPI) which I then for web purposes convert to 3 to 4 MB Jpgs (and again resize on the webpage to save bandwidth)
My conclusion:
It's a shame I don't shoot much, if any, catwalk anymore this body really is a game changer for that type of work
But the results promise a lot for future alternative uses like fashion and event (I'm planning to shoot eg more dance in future)
