Night shots of Thames festival parade (How to improve?)

[Jim Kuo]

I attempted to take some pictures of Thames festival parade last night. With the crowd and the constantly moving subjects, setting up a tripod and long exposure were out of question. I cranked up the ISO and shot at 1/30 to avoid camera shake. The lighting was dark so the camera (X100) had a hard time auto-focusing, I had to manual focus and use a smaller aperture (F/5.6 when I could) for enough DOF, hence I couldn't always use the maximum aperture.

Under these compromises, I had to apply some heavy post-processing in LR3 afterwards. I am not entirely sure about the final results. It would be great to hear some advise and experiences from the users here

ISO: 3200
Exposure: 1/30 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Built-in flash fired

ISO: 3200
Exposure: 1/30 sec
Aperture: 4.0

ISO: 3200
Exposure: 1/30 sec
Aperture: 5.6

ISO: 3200
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 2.8

Thanks
Jim

 

[Pete Askew]

I like these Jim, they've come out well and that second shot is a cracker! Without the movement etc it would be nothing special but as it is, it is superb. Might to nice to crop the bottle out of the bottom left and the odd bits intruding into the frame at the bottom though. A slight vignette might strengthen it even further (although it doesn't really need it).

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Pete

I will try out the cropping suggestion when I get home tonight.

Edit: Cropping on #2 done