Christmas Program 12-02

Collin's Christmas music program was cute! And it was nice to finally see it in a warm auditorium with a stage, so you could see everyone's faces while they sang (ALA had a circus tent last year, and we do not miss that!).  Anyway...we were running late, so we didn't get good seats. It was so packed by the time we got there - next year they are splitting the grades up into 3 music programs instead of just two to remedy the crowd!  I like to get up close when taking photos at an event like this, so I left my back row standing spot and walked my way up closer to the stage and took video and photos.
Anyway, I happened to sit next to Natalie Norton, sitting a couple of rows from the front, whom I had never met in person, just through photos (I love her photography style!).  So as I sat there clicking away, she leans over to me and says, "hey, do you want to swap your lens out? you look like you know what you're doing", pointing to her massive lens, which I recognized right away - after all, it was just the 70-200 mm f.2.8 IS L-glass (my other dream lens). I couldn't resist, so right there in the dark auditorium I put that baby on my camera!
My favorite part was getting to talk a little bit of photography after she told me who she was, and I said "oh, you're THE Natalie Norton", told her I loved her photography, her photo blog and all that jazz.  Lucky her kids had just finished their parts in the Christmas program, so she didn't have to click away during Collin's singing.

 This is as close as I could get with my 85 (we were probably sitting about 30 feet away).
85mm 1/200 @f 3.2 ISO 1600 no flash

145mm, 1/160 sec @ f3.2, ISO 1600 no flash

(Technically, my shutter speed should have been faster to get a tack sharp image, but it came out OK still, good lens!)

 

   200 mm 1/160 @f3.5 - still pretty good at 200 mm, and high ISO levels and no flash. 

 Collin, Cameron, and Ethan

 How lucky, too, that Collin was standing right by his two friends from our ward (to his left)?