Together

This is one of quite a large number of shots I took at the Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival last Sunday. (This is a three day event, from Friday to Monday over the Queen's Birthday long weekend.) There will be more to follow, with the focus (quite literally) on some of the musicians.

Out of those that I've kept, this is the 4th shot of the day. I had my DSLR over my shoulder, but decided to start off with my compact, as I was more interested in the people and the crowd at this stage, and the smaller camera lends itself to this type of situation so well.

About the title:
I almost always enter a photo in the VFXY Photo Weekly Theme, but usually have to go through my Aminus3 archives searching for something suitable. Tonight, I was halfway through processing this photo, with it still open in PS, when I decided to take a break and check my email. There was the invitation for this week's theme, and it happened to be called "Together". The choice was obvious for me, then! So if you click on VFXY's Weekly Theme, you'll see this photo there, and you might want to consider adding one of your own, too...

A technical note:
I'm sure I could never have taken in the very wide brightness range so satisfactorily without shooting in RAW. This was actually only half the story, as it had to be followed up by some quite extensive manipulation of highlights and shadow areas in Photoshop. My aim, though (as always), was to only use these techniques in an attempt to present the scene as much as possible in the way that I remember it being at the time.

Also, note the depth of field provided by the small sensor size at f2.8 and a focal length that's equivalent to 28mm in 35mm format. The only time you'll see a photo of mine from the G10 at a smaller aperture will be if I've zoomed in and consequently lost the widest setting. Reviews point out that with this camera, stopping down results in an immediate loss of resolution due to defraction. Please don't ask me about that... I only take the pictures, but I know it's bad. (You can find out all about it on Google, anyway, if you don't know already.)

I mention the above, as it's I think it's an interesting point to consider. It can't just be assumed then that stopping down to a smaller aperture always produces a better result with every lens.