Rock 'n' Roll is Here to Stay

The 2007 Fortune Battle of the Corporate Bands had their Western Regionals July 7th on the Sunset Strip at the Key Club. Six bands competed and 2 finalists were chosen. 4 Inch Studs from MBH Architects and High Definition from NBC Universal are the 2 bands that will play at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland October 5th and 6th for the final competion. I work at NBC and seeing a Vice President pounding the drums is wild. This is an annual fund raising event and all the bands were great but I have to say the best 2 bands did win. Many thanks to Steve Dobo for doing a great job putting this together and making it rock. The sound, lighting and crowd were all terrific.

Now for my tech notes. I used a Canon 5d set to 3200 ISO and f-stops ranged from 2.8 to 4 and shutter speeds around a 50th (some as low as a 30th). I shot in short bursts. This cuts down the shake from any camera movement. I’m sure a stabilized lens would help some, but since the guys are moving some blur would still occur. I used A Tamron 28-75 2.8 and a Canon 70-200 f4. I cleaned them up a bit with Imagenomic Noiseware on the landscape setting. You'd never see the grain on these small pics for the web but it helps if you want to sharpen them up for larger prints. Run the Noiseware first then sharpen in PhotoShop with High Pass. (Copy to a new layer then - Filter - Other - High Pass - 8 - Layer blend mode to Softlight and back it of a little.) I haven't sharpened these yet. You can find 2 of the shots at the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame's website and I've posted a gallery on my website of High Definition. See ya in Cleveland!