Visaka Bucha Festival- hi ISO with XA1

Beautiful festival on Visaka Bucha Day which is the full moon of the fifth month at our favorite Wat here in Khon Kaen, Thailand. It is the most holy Buddhist festival to celebrate the 3 important events of Lord Buddha's life-birth, death, and ascending to Nirvana. Candles and incense are lit and monks lead a procession 3 times around the temple.

I only had my trusty 35/1.4 and found it a little tight when walking in the crowd, and few chances to stop and set up shots. I wish I had the X70 or a least something wider than 35.

https://picasaweb.google.com/108002018185535305525/6287640952656831105?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Here is the link for more photos in a Google+ album.

Be interested in comments from you pixel peepers on my clumsy attempts to sharpen and denoise in Lightroom 4. Also tried some B&W filters. Here are a few samples of photos taken mostly @ ISO 3200.

Well I'm not a pixel peeper, so no lessons from me, and my tag line tells you how I feel about sharpness. I thing you gave us a nice set of photos plus a little lesson on Buddhism, which I know very little about. I think the second image is fantastic and the first one is right behind it. Thanks for sharing.

bs1946 wrote:

Well I'm not a pixel peeper, so no lessons from me, and my tag line tells you how I feel about sharpness. I thing you gave us a nice set of photos plus a little lesson on Buddhism, which I know very little about. I think the second image is fantastic and the first one is right behind it. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the comments, and not being a pixel peeper. Being a good Maoist from university days in the '60s, I definitely second that tag line by HCB re sharpness. And yes, I've moved on in philosophical terms and find Buddhism a more sophisticated and gentle way to live one's life than the pedantry of Mao or Marx, or indeed most other forms of cultural systems of behaviours and practices.

I was hoping for some feedback on using Lightroom B&W filters and sharpness and denoise. I know there are more sophisticated filter sets such as Topaz and Nik, but my old version 4 of Lightroom seems to do the job quite nicely for my purposes, certainly better than the basic filters in Picasa or other rudimentary programs.