The Pep Rally and the Limits of Photography

The Ada Cougars’ recently enjoyed pep rallies in advance of their playoff football games.

Both pep rallies were hosted by Doc’s Food Truck Park, which is fun and says that Doc’s is really engaging with the community.

Ada Cougar football team members play "Musical Chairs" at a pep rally Thursday at Doc's Food Truck Park. Shot at 1/40th of a second, there is some motion blur, but I happen to like the way the blur shows us what's happening. — Ada Cougar football team members play “Musical Chairs” at a pep rally Thursday at Doc’s Food Truck Park. Shot at 1/40th of a second, there is some motion blur, but I happen to like the way the blur shows us what’s happening.

The stage and a sound system are lit by couple of street lights, various LED lights on food trucks, and a few dozen string lights, low-wattage light bulbs strung across the park. The light is enough to see by and have a pep rally, but it is somewhat challenging photographically.

First, there’s not a lot of light. In the film era, this essentially meant we would need to use a flash to get an image at all, or rely on mounting our camera on a tripod and shooting at long shutter speeds.

Secondly, the light is from all sorts of odd angles, and is all different colors, so there isn’t really a “correct” white balance setting.

As digital has evolved, cameras have gotten more and more capable at very high ISO settings. ISO is one of the three items in the triad of exposure control, with shutter speed and aperture.

This is a side-by-side comparison of Adobe Lightroom's noise reduction tool, and you can see how effective it is at cleaning up very-high-ISO images. — This is a side-by-side comparison of Adobe Lightroom’s noise reduction tool, and you can see how effective it is at cleaning up very-high-ISO images.

For my coverage of these events, I dialed my Nikon D3 cameras up to ISO 12,800, which would have sounded like science fiction in 1980. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I would have believed you then if you told me that ISO 12,800 is even a real thing.

The D3 is an older camera, but actually creates a very usable image in what I like to call “the ISO stratosphere.” The images are somewhat noisy, but in the last 18 months, products that I use like Adobe Lightroom have introduced some very sophisticated and effective noise filters.

Shooting in the low-light regime doesn’t just test the high-ISO capabilities of your camera. It also takes lenses, image-stabilization systems, and your ability to see and manage a situation, to their limits.

Cheerleaders and Couganns perform at a pep rally Thursday at Doc's Food Truck Park. I shot about 40 frames of this performance, and only a couple are decently sharp. But I also recognize that getting really sharp images isn't always as critical as photographers make it out to be, and a better priority is to tell the story. — Cheerleaders and Couganns perform at a pep rally Thursday at Doc’s Food Truck Park. I shot about 40 frames of this performance, and only a couple are decently sharp. But I also recognize that getting really sharp images isn’t always as critical as photographers make it out to be, and a better priority is to tell the story.