Aqstik Soul at Szimpla

Malcolm Lakatani, 180mm, f2.8, 1/25sec, ISO 3200, hand held.

Off to the Szimpla Gastro Bar last night to see Aqstik Soul.  I'd never been to Szimpla before and was really impressed with the place.  It has a lovely atmosphere with half a dozen separate areas to either sit and chat, eat, watch TV or listen to musicians.  It was great.

Anyway, I took my 70-200mm lens as I thought this'd be a good place to see how well it performed shooting in low light, and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not could I hold it steady!

Not the lightest of lenses, the 70-200mm weighs in close on 1.5kg, but I must admit that it was a pleasure to use.  Focus was lovely and snappy, and I don't think I did too badly holding the camera still at 1/25sec.  Oh, the body is a D300 with a cropped sensor, so the effective focal length was 270mm.  The colours are lovely and rich and I was quite pleased with the result.  I think I'll have a lot of fun with this lens!

The other member of Aqstik Soul is the very talented Semi Leo on bass guitar.  I'd decided 1/25 sec. was a little slow, so switched lenses to my 85mm for the next shot.  I was now able to get a more respectable shutter speed of 1/100sec, but the 85mm has no VR.  Nevertheless, the shot isn't too bad and the bokeh is rather tasty don't you think?  makes Semi pop out of the shot.

The rest of the time I used my trusty 50mm f1.8.  The zoom was just too unwieldy in the bar area and the 85mm was just too long for what I was trying to shoot.

So there you have it.  A great night out at a wonderful venue not far from the airport.  Very friendly staff and a warm and welcoming atmosphere.  I reckon I'll be back!

Semi Leo, 85mm, f1.4, 1/100sec, ISO 3200

Such friendly staff at Szimpla, and rather nice cocktails too!!