R as an event camera

The University of Colorado held its first in person graduation ceremonies in three years last week. In addition to the massive ceremony for thousands at the football stadium, each department and program holds its own graduation ceremony, where the students are called individually, and come up to accept their degrees and various awards. That's the one that most of the faculty attend, because it's a chance to congratulate the students and their families in person. It's also a chance for (most of) the students and faculty to dress up in fancy robes. I usually take a camera to our Philosophy Department ceremony, and grab some pictures. This was the first one since I got my R, so I took it and the 24-105L, and it gave me an excuse to walk around the room, instead of just sitting in a chair waiting for my turn to present a couple of awards. The lighting was a mix of natural and artificial light, but I had no problem with electronic shutter, which I used throughout. The ISO varied between about 800 and 10,000, but I knew that DXO Deep Prime would take care of it. I also had to crop quite heavily on most of the shots, because I was standing behind most of the audience, so as not to obscure their view. The AF behaved really well. I used face + tracking to grab the subject and reframe, and it missed focus (grabbed the background) on fewer than 10 shots out of 420. The more I use the R, the more impressed I am by the AF system. The most challenging thing was the white balance, which varied quite a bit, depending on the framing of the shot and what the balance was between natural and artificial light in each image. I had to do quite a bit of tweaking of WB in PL5, and will probably go back and redo some of them. Because of the constant changing of angles (some students came from one side, and some from the other), and how much of the window was in the frame, I can't just do a custom white balance for one of the shots and apply it to all the others, as I could if the lighting were consistent throughout.

Here are a few samples:

One of my colleagues. He claims his finger position was unintentional.

Some newly minted Philosophy BA's, with family in background

Each student was invited to say a few words. Most thanked their parents for financial support!

Not everyone chose to wear robes

Students who wrote Honors theses got to give a brief description of their thesis

Another Honors graduate

And another

And now for the graduate degrees

An Army Captain who got his MA with us, and will now be teaching at West Point

One of our Ph.D recipients, talking about his dissertation (I might redo the WB on this)

And now he gets "hooded" by his advisor

A brand new Doctor! (But don't ask him for a prescription)

Another Ph.D, trying to explain his dissertation on Plato and Aristotle

At least he made his advisor laugh (and everyone else). Who knew the ancient Greeks were so funny?

The recipient of our award for best graduate student teacher, describing her teaching techniques

All in all, I was very pleased with the performance of the R with the 24-105. I opted for the versatility of the zoom over the speed of a prime (like my 85 F2), because I knew that the R could easily handle sensitivities up to (and beyond) 12,800. The truly silent shooting was very welcome, and the AF was great. The 70-200 F2.8 would probably have been better for most of my shots from behind the audience (but I did use the wide end of the 24-105 for some when I was closer to the front), but it would also have been far more conspicuous. Even a 6MP (3000 X 2000 pixels) tight crop from the R works well for web posting, and printing (at least up to letter size). None of the crops I did were tighter than that, and most were closer to 10MP.

Edit on battery life. I was in one shot electronic shutter shooting throughout, and reviewed quite a few of the shots on the screen or in the EVF. I took about 420 shots, and the battery level showed 63% at the end. That's well over 1000 shots on a charge, and not using burst shooting (which can give up to 3000 shots on one charge with the R).

Excellent in every respect: the pictures, the topic, your commentary, the feelings that emanate from peeking over your shoulder at these fine scholars.

No text.

Great photos.  The R did a great job for you.  My oldest daughter went to grad school in philosophy a bit north of Boulder in environmental ethics.  She came up a bit short of her Masters when she abandoned her thesis a bit short of completing it.  And I had been looking forward to the trip home to Colorado to take these same kind of photos, as well as a side trip to the Roaring Fork Valley.  Despite coming up short on the thesis, the philosophy education has served her very well.  And I have learned to never argue with someone with an education in philosophy

danferrin wrote:

Great photos. The R did a great job for you. My oldest daughter went to grad school in philosophy a bit north of Boulder in environmental ethics. She came up a bit short of her Masters when she abandoned her thesis a bit short of completing it. And I had been looking forward to the trip home to Colorado to take these same kind of photos, as well as a side trip to the Roaring Fork Valley. Despite coming up short on the thesis, the philosophy education has served her very well. And I have learned to never argue with someone with an education in philosophy

Thanks Dan. Was your daughter at Colorado State in Fort Collins? They have a particular strength in environmental ethics (as do we in Boulder). There's something about Colorado, at least this part of it, that makes you want to take care of the environment.

Very nice images. Nice expressions. 100% PPP (pixel peep proof), despite the higher ISO values.   Two benefits of the digital denoising magic:

1. you can use a pretty flexible zoom

2. you have a larger DOF. It's nice to have a large aperture to have the option to have a thin DOF, but digital denoising magic allows you to have a larger DOF.

Yes, she was at CSU. She did her undergrad work here in Ohio at Otterbein, and grad school came to a choice between Georgia State and Colorado State. Having been born and raised in Colorado , I was very happy that she chose CSU. It gave me added incentive to make the trip home a couple of times while she was there. And I knew that she would get a good education in her chosen field, as well.

Well Done! As a UCCS grad, I can appreciate these a bit more. Great University!

I really do enjoy the versatility of the R. I also have that lens and it is very capable.

Really nice images of the event!