Thanks for posting your findings from ACTION; it’s nice to hear what others did/didn’t do and what they learned. Yes, I know @jamessaddon recommended using aperture priority mode (and I did for a little while), but in the end, it just wasn’t working for me and I wasn’t happy with the results. James was surprised when I told him, but she said to do what worked for me. Noisy photos also really bother me…so going up super high in ISO was hard; that was one reason I opted for the Tv setting. And, unfortunately, I forgot about being able to use our instructors’ lenses.
If I had been using that wider angled lens (like you were using), I may have switched back to aperture priority mode. For me, shutter speed priority mode was best for eliminating motion blur since I only did one posed shot all weekend; everything else was candid and in motion. Since I was shooting in the better lit areas, namely the hallways and main entrance, aperture wasn’t really a problem until the one general session on Friday night. I can’t remember if I changed modes for that or not…
The only other lens I own is a prime 50mm and I knew that just wasn’t going to make the cut. I was shooting with a Canon 7D but it’s not a full frame.
For the shooting of the vendor hall scenario, I absolutely agree – 70-200mm would not have been a good option. I wasn’t shooting in there in April…I was outside on silent auction, and though I did run into the problem of people in the way a few times, but the long lens did work well all considering (besides being heavy to lug around all day!).
Thanks again for sharing!