The Camera and the Concert

On my way from Bandung to Jakarta in the morning, I passed a billboard showing the Evanescence concert that will be held today.

When I was thinking that I am gonna be missing out on their Jakarta concert, my friend texted me that her friend is still looking to sell her ticket. And this happened on the day of the concert.

I arrived in Jakarta early in the morning and I still had to go to the burial of my relatives. I was at the cemetery when I decided to go to the concert (The relative passed away that morning). On my way home from the cemetery, I decided to get a pocket camera. I have been wanting to buy a little camera, something small but can produce good image quality as well. I already had one, but I bought it 9 years ago, and for a digital camera it is VERY OLD!

The Camera
I decided to get a Canon S100. I have been reading many good reviews on this camera. Before going to the concert I play with the camera a little bit.

It fits nice in my hand. It is compact and can even fit in my pocket. I got the black one, and the surface feels a bit rough but it gives you a good grip, so it is not slippery.

It comes with the large aperture of 2.0. So it should be able to shoot better in the dark since it allows more light to come in to the camera. For a compact camera, 12 Megapixels will be enough for me. It has 5x optical zoom and you can push the ISO to 6400.

The Concert
I am going to the concert with my S100. They said that no DSLR is allowed, but I still can see some people with their big lenses. I bought the ticket for festival A area, which is behind the VIP area. I can still see stage pretty clear, but to take photos, I will need to utilize the zoom function which is unfortunately, as I zoom more, the camera sets itself to smaller aperture (I was using P).

Then suddenly the organizer decided to open the barrier that separates the VIP from the festival A. Everyone from festival A area rushed in to the front of the stage. I got the front row spot, although it is just in front of the speaker and a bit too wide from the cetre of the stage.

While waiting, I can actually peek at what’s going on at the backstage. The large black curtain that cover the backstage is moving due to the fan they are using and I can see some of the band member hanging out at the backstage.

Before the show started, “Gecko” a local band from Bali performed a few songs.

Then Evanescence came out. and the crowd started screaming. This is not my first time watching them. I watched Amy and Ben performing accoustic back in 2003 in Mt Druitt Shopping Centre in Australia. I was standing right in front of Amy back then. This time I got to watch them in front row again.

This is also the opportunity for me to test out my new camera. I would say the result come nice, especially for low light:

I had to set the ISO to 1600 and up because it is very dark.

Although the detail is a bit softer compared to DSLR camera result, but it looks pretty good

I didn’t edit the photos. The color from the stage light comes nicely and I didn’t have to do anything to correct the color. So happy with the result… 🙂

-Reir!

Solo Wayang Karnaval

My office was having a team building activity in Solo for a couple of days. So it was a nice surprise when I found out that when we were there, the city also had the Solo Wayang Carnival to celebrate the city’s 267th anniversary.

The carnival itself was scheduled to start at 14:00. When we got there, it hasn’t started yet. The city’s main road, Jalan Slamet Riyadi was closed and already filled with people and food vendors. Along this road the carnival will be held.

The city mayor, Joko Widodo, opened the carnival. Dressed as a Wayang, he rode on a horse and greeted the people who have been waiting to see the Carnival.

Lots of people dressed as many kind of wayang, from wayang golek, potehi or wayang China, gedog or panji, wayang kancil, wayang suluh or nabi, and wayang wahyu, go through the main road. Some are sitting in a carriage:

While most were walking:

Most of the participants come from high school and universities, while there are others who come from art studios and media.

Lots of colours and some are dancing to the gamelan music that accompanied the carnival.

Some plyaed it cool

While some were happy to give a nice smile to the camera…

And off course, the spectators. Some of them got really excited that they jumped to the middle of the road and posed with the carnival participants 🙂