I shot the Vandiver rehearsal without much in the way of expectations. It was just a rough rehearsal with jackets on to keep out the cold. But it was a good opportunity to both work a little closer in with my 16-80 f4.0 lens and try out some new processing ideas. The processing of high iso exposures has experienced a number of improvements over the last four or so years – one measurable leap occurring in the past couple of weeks. A decade ago iso 1600 was pretty much of a push – I would do it and have to work myself to death to eke a usable image from the result. A year ago I found myself working between iso 12,800 and 51,200 – with similar results, as well as effort. It looks like 12,800 is the new 1600, with 25,600 and 51,200 being the new 6,400 to 12,800. Interesting, if a little heavy on the effort required.

Enough progress has now been made that I wish I had the time to go back and work so many hundreds of exposures all over again from scratch. Admittedly it’s still a lot of work – but the range of what is recoverable seems to keep expanding. I’m really looking forward to my next couple of shoots…

In the meantime, more from the rehearsal session, beginning with two of Nate that I couldn’t choose from:

Then little brother Caleb and daddy Ed Gordon:

Added at the front of the Vandiver folio in the Rogue section HERE… where they all appear full size.