Classy cocktail social for Boston’s Greek community • Nea Parea • Spy Bar, Revolution Hotel
Another lovely evening for Boston’s Greek community (and their non-Greek friends!) hosted by my friends at Nea Parea. I photographed another one of their events last July right upstairs at Cosmica Restaurant in the courtyard of the Revolution Hotel. (See those images here!)
Nikon Zf + 40mm f2 lens: a powerful yet low-key combo excelling at candid event shots even in extremely low light.
Geeking out about the Nikon Zf’s insane low-light capabilities
This was the first event I shot with my new Nikon Zf camera. I could not be more excited about it: this thing is a low-light BEAST. All the candid and no flash shots in this gallery were shot on my Nikon Zf.
44 out of 52 shots delivered from the Nikon Zf were shot between ISO 9,000 and ISO 32,000. In fact, ISO 32,000 was my most commonly used setting, accounting for 19 of the 52 delivered shots. There was so little available light that I was shooting at a wide open f2 and slowing my shutter speed to 1/160 or 1/125 and was still forced to raise my ISO to 32,000. Yes the files were grainy, but they cleaned up nicely after running them through Lightroom’s AI Denoise or DxO PureRAW 4. I felt more confident at ISO 32,000 on my Nikon than ISO 8,000 on my Fuji X-H2. Not only did my Nikon files hold up at these insanely high ISO ranges, but the autofocus also performed remarkably well in these dark conditions. In AF-C mode (continuous focus), the Zf quickly and reliably locked onto my subject’s eyes. This little beast allowed me to bring my documentary shooting style into an extremely low-light environment and capture the ambiance of the event, where previously I would’ve had to use a flash, making both my setup and my shooting obvious and intrusive.
I still shot some flash photos using my Fuji X-H2 with Viltrox 13mm f1.4 lens and Godox V1 flash (with a MagMod lightsphere diffuser attached to the flash). I love how the wide 20mm focal length of the 13mm f1.4 allows me to fit groups of friends into a vertical frame — perfect for posting on social media.
