Sunday night M and I went to local event at an club known as Area-51. This reminded me of the days of the Reptile House in G.R., in the mid 90's without the cage dancers -- but I digress.

A fashion show of sorts was to take place and M was going to model - so I brought my gear. Once again I went light because I didn't want to look like a gear freak and I was confident I could just "make it work".

Since it was a "club" I figured the light was going mixed, if any at all -- and I had no room for a flash and frankly I didn't want a flash - as the conditions were right for the look an feel as I would learn anyway.

D3s and the 80-200 f2.8 af-s performed incredibly - and as I tweeted - it was like cheating with the D3s as it sees in the dark. My zoom was maxed most of the time and that meant at least a 1/200 second shutter speed. Why -- sutter speed matches the focal length to maintain sharpness. Since the shutter speed was driving the exercise - that meant Shutter Priority. I set the shutter and the D3s drives the rest.

Since I was basically in complete darkness -- well -- I figured I would be wide open at f2.8 and an ASA somewhere around 9000-12,000. Yes -- those numbers are not typos; 12,000 asa and they are better than my D2h at 400 ASA.

I burned about 400 frames -- shooting continuous at 9 frames and it was a blast. Frame, compose and shoot -- frame, compose and shoot.

Every once in a while the camera would choke -- I may have a bad memory card - that happened at the Race in Salmon -- I hit the release and I would pulling about 3 frames a second, not 9... I may have to send it in.

Here's something else -- there were some other photographers in the crowd - and I was really surprised at their actions upon taking a picture - they would instantly chimp. Frame, chimp, frame, chimp -- it was painful... I don't get it...

So -- the set is really good -- and in this case - the gear made the shoot - I wouldn't have been able to get these photos with anything else..