A spotlight shines on piano keys. The spotlight here is an LED flashlight. I’ve had a lot of fun with this flashlight. The light is a very clean white light. It is strong enough that I can handhold the camera at reasonable ISO. Here the ISO is 1600, 1/160 sec, f/6.3. I could take the ISO down further, but for the image sizes I have been working with, the grain is not a problem, or at least not as much as a blurred image would be. The camera was a Nikon D90. This generation of Nikons really started to gain ground in the quality of high ISO; it’s one of the reasons I upgraded from a Nikon D50 a few years ago. I understand recent DSLRs have even better grain at higher ISOs, but it is going to be a while until I can afford to test that.
I like the simple composition here. It makes it nice for stock photography use. It has room for copy. It is an iconic subject. The piano in question is actually an electric piano. The keys are a bit plastic-looking. When I have access to an acoustic piano I would like to try this again.
The lens used here was once again our do-it-all Nikon 18-55mm AF-S VR DX. We are at 44mm, which just coincidental rather than a deliberate choice. By only going up to 55mm, this lens fills a similar niche to a 50mm “nifty fifty.” The loss is that it is not as bright as a 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4. To date, I have gotten by without a bright 50mm, thanks to the swiss army knife lens, the 18-55mm.
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