Singer Songwriters Round @ MAP Fest 2019

On a chilly, rainy Sunday evening, I went to Publika to catch an acoustic live performance by some of my favourite local singer-songwriters in Malaysia. I was there to catch Hameer Zawawi and Beverly Matujal, both I have come to love their music so much. While enjoying myself with original awesome music on a lazy Sunday evening, I also get to work out the camera and get some shutter action. Nothing overly serious or crazy, just casual relaxing shoot.

The stage was quite dim, even with the F2.8 wide open on M.Zuiko 40-150mm PRO lens, I needed to boost the ISO to about 3200 and at times 6400 to get about 1/100 second shutter speed. I brought along two lenses, the 40-150mm PRO and also the 17mm F1.2 PRO (using the 17mm for any wide shots). I have been so used of using F1.2 or F1.8 lenses for shooting stage and live music that I forget how dangerously dim and challenging the light can get even for an F2.8 lens! What I normally could get away with ISO 800 or 1600, now I need to go up to 3200 or even more. Nonetheless, this was a shoot that was entirely personal and it does not matter if there were traces of noise in the image. The rendering of the 40-150mm PRO lens is just simply superb, creating a life-like image with good contrast!

The local singer-songwriters present for this particular performance:
Hameer Zawawi
Beverly Matujal
Amrita Soon
Azmyl Yunor

All images were shot with Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II and 40-150mm PRO or 17mm PRO.