View Full Version : In-law's House Warming Function... how did I do?
My Inlaws were having their house warming function and i was there to attend the same.
As the function started, the only person covering the event was my 16yr old nephew with a Sony T9:eek::. It was late in the evening and pretty dark inside... and naturally, my nephew was'nt able to get any half decent pics. Seeing this my brother in law urged me to do the honours.
I only had my XTi with kit lens & the 50mm f/1.8. The 50mm would have been the ideal choice in these conditions, but was regarded useless due to the small angel of view it was providing indoors... so had to do it with the 18-55 kitlens. I decided against using the flash coz it was providing very uneven lighting and leaving harsh shadows. Put the cam in AV mode, f/3.5, ISO 1600 and off I went.
Also, the whole room was filled with smoke from the puja. Even the camera was having difficulty locking focus.
P.S.: Only the 8th picture was posed.
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2529.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2530.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2532a.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2533a.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2551.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2566a.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2568a.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2630a.jpg
Which would have helped better in these kind of shooting conditions??
a) A faster lens like 18-50mm f/2.8.
b) A Canon 430EX Flash bounced off the white ceiling.
Was it a good idea not to use the on camera flash??
How did I do overall?
These three portraits are of my wife, my neice and my brother-in-law.All were taken with the 50mm.
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2673A.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2784.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l96/rx100/IMG_2785.jpg
zmikers
07-07-2007, 03:38 AM
Considering the conditions and the gear you had to work with I think you did a fine job!
nqjudo
07-07-2007, 05:12 AM
Yup, it looks pretty good indeed. It seems like the rest of us here missed a great party!
RichNY
07-07-2007, 05:43 AM
Considering the conditions and the gear you had to work with I think you did a fine job!
Agreed.
Q. The first 4 photos look like they were shot in a haze or a smoke filled room. What were the conditions you were shooting under actually like?
Yes, indeed the whole room was filled with smoke from the puja. Even the camera was having difficulty locking focus.
Which would have helped better in these kind of shooting conditions??
a) A faster lens like 18-50mm f/2.8.
b) A Canon 430EX Flash bounced off the white ceiling.
Was it a good idea not to use the on camera flash??
Thanks everybody for the kind comments:)
SpecialK
07-07-2007, 08:48 AM
Which would have helped better in these kind of shooting conditions??
a) A faster lens like 18-50mm f/2.8.
b) A Canon 430EX Flash bounced off the white ceiling.
Was it a good idea not to use the on camera flash??
Thanks everybody for the kind comments:)
I think it was a pretty good job.
f2.8 is not all that much faster than the f3.5 you were shooting at. Plus, less and less depth of field may mean missed focus. However, the general image quality will be much nicer with a better lens.
The bounce flash may provide more light, but at a cost of the natural look.
SpecialK
07-07-2007, 08:48 AM
Which would have helped better in these kind of shooting conditions??
a) A faster lens like 18-50mm f/2.8.
b) A Canon 430EX Flash bounced off the white ceiling.
Was it a good idea not to use the on camera flash??
Thanks everybody for the kind comments:)
I think it was a pretty good job.
f2.8 is not all that much faster than the f3.5 you were shooting at. Plus, less and less depth of field may mean missed focus. However, the general image quality will be much nicer with a better lens.
The bounce flash may provide more light, but at a cost of the natural look.
zmikers
07-07-2007, 06:51 PM
I have never shot in a smoke filled room so please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a flash just inhance the smoke making the subjects less defined?
cwat212
07-07-2007, 08:11 PM
good job but my question would be about the food....how was it?
good job but my question would be about the food....how was it?
LOL:) Food was good!
wow. they are very impressive given the lighting conditions. i agree with special k here, the f2.8 lens wouldn;t have been that much better and the shallow dof wouldn;t have suited the occasion. however most 2.8 lens' are much superior optically than the canon kit lens so you would have turned out sharper pics at f3.5 than you did here. it also would have been more relaible from an AF point of view.
imo you were lucky you didn;t shoot with the 50mm at f1.8 cos you would have lost alot of people to out of focus blur so that was a blessing in disguise !
good decision not to use the onboard flash, they are a dispicable piece of equipment only to be used in absolute desperation or as fill flash. given the atmosphere you needed to capture here i think you have used the perfect settings scenario and the bounced flash would have robbed some of that intimacy and ambience, especially the smokey background which i love. somoene in the canon forum recently did a wedding and was loathe to use high iso's and used flash for the lot. they should look at these photos to see how well the cam can handle high iso's and how much nicer ambient light is VS flash.
the only problem i guess is that they are a little soft, not sure if thats any NR applied in-cam or PP or just the softness of the lens. i can;t see your shutter speed here but i assume if they were all wide open at f3.5 you must have been shooting them all at 18-20mm ?
you only need roughly a 1/20s shutter speed to avoid camera shake...so, i wonder if you tweaked it one or two stops higher to say f5.6 how much improved sharpness that would have given you compared to the lighting you would have lost and potential for more subject motion blur. your balance was probably spot on but you can always try a few diffrent settings during the night to see for yourself what effect they all have as a bit of an experiment. it's only your in-laws...not like they matter that much is the photos got screwed ! lol :D
great job viky. :) i can only guess what the T9 pics turned out like ! lol
Lilchilichoco
07-09-2007, 01:35 AM
Hi Viky,
I guess I would know first hand what puja smoke is like :). I think you did a pretty good job for a smoke filled room. I am technically a novice, but my experience with shooting more people is, you need to have a larger depth of field, particularly in a setting like this, where you'd want more people in focus who are spread out across the room, and for that you'd need a higher f stop. So I do not think a faster lens is what you'd need. I think you'd need good high ISO performance and good ambient light. Then you might even do away with flash. But if the light is low and the camera refuses to lock focus, obviously the on camera flash must be employed. Perhaps increasing the exposure by a stop or two might also help. I have no experience with the bouncing of flash, portrait experts like Rooz and adam75south will be able to guide you much better.
I like the puja pictures. You've captured the solemn mood very well. I love the portrait of your neice, pretty baby:). I love the light in this. Your brother-in-law's is good as well. The only thing with your wife's portrait is the flash, slightly harsh lighting but no shadows and that's great! I can see her all dressed up:)....good you got all the jewellery as well.....reminds me of home.
A 'puja' in India is a religious ceremony which is performed at all special occasions. It includes 'yagya' or 'havan', wherein in a pit of fire, the priest pours 'ghee', which is clarified butter, incense among other things,as an offering to the Gods and prays for the family. This produces a lot of smoke and hence the difficulty in shooting. Given your impromptu performance in a setting like that, it was a neat job.
It is also an occasion to take out your finest jewels and silks and chiffons.;):)
And the food is wonderful.:)
Viky, is this somewhere in UP?
Best regards
kardinal
07-09-2007, 02:01 AM
Yes, Viky. You did a good job indeed.
And 'Lilchilichoco' good explanation abt Indian tradition.
coldrain
07-09-2007, 02:21 AM
Hmm, the photos do not look soft at all...
If you look at the patterns in the fabric, you can see they look sharp.
The only thing that is introducing this apparent softness is the downsizing...
Some do look a bit soft, like the portrait of the man, but most do not.
Of course, if you would look at the photos at 100% pixel size on your screen, you would see that the photos would not be tack sharp, but the "softness" Rooz mentions just is caused by the downsizing of the photos (in most photos anyway).
If you apply a slight unsharp mask after downsizing, you will get rid of that downsize induced softness. I usually apply USM 80/0.5/0.
I think it is good that you did not use flash. If you use flash, you will get rid of the real atmosphere. And during festivities like this, that is a shame, according to me. So no, I am not a flash fan.
While the 18-55 kitlens actually is surprisingly good for its kind, it is not the most contrasty lens on the planet. And since the 400D does not put extra saturation and contrast in photos like other entry level DSLRs may do at standard settings, you should not be afraid to apply a few little tweaks in post processing (or put the saturation and/or contrast up a notch in camera, if you are afraid of PP).
lets look for instance again at the portrait of the man. The smoke, light and lens all attribute a bit or more than a bit to the "veil" that seems to lay over the photo. One very quick trick to get rid of that veil is to apply a special combination of values in UnSharp Mask, for instance in Photoshop:
USM 20/60/0.
Then apply a bit of USM 80/0.5/0 to get rid of the apparent softness.
USM 80/0.3/0 may already do the trick.
If you have photoshop, then first put the photo in "lab color" mode, and select the "lightness" layer, before you apply the sharpening. This prevents colour noise to get "sharpened".
These two very simple steps take away the veil over the contrast, and sharpen the photo slightly. You can of course also apply USM to full size photos, to increase the sharpness of the photo you want to have printed. But the reason here is because scaling down just does not give the sharpness one expects.
On the left the portrait as you posted it (scaled down more), on the right the de-hazed (USM 20/60/0) and sharpened (USM 80/0.5/0) version.
It is a matter of taste of course.
drama
07-09-2007, 02:29 AM
Just saw your PM, you have done well
Working with the kitlens, you have done very well :)
Playing around with PS to brighten up things a bit might be a good idea, as Cold Rain suggested
i agree with special k here, the f2.8 lens wouldn;t have been that much better and the shallow dof wouldn;t have suited the occasion. however most 2.8 lens' are much superior optically than the canon kit lens so you would have turned out sharper pics at f3.5 than you did here. it also would have been more relaible from an AF point of view.
Yes, thats what i felt, a better lens like the sigma 18-50 stopped down to f/ 3.5 would have rendered sharper images and better autofocus because of better optics and also because at f/3.5 it would'nt be "wide open"
imo you were lucky you didn;t shoot with the 50mm at f1.8 cos you would have lost alot of people to out of focus blur so that was a blessing in disguise !
absolutely! another problem with the 50mm (effectively 80mm) was that I was getting a very "narrow" field of view
good decision not to use the onboard flash, they are a dispicable piece of equipment only to be used in absolute desperation or as fill flash. given the atmosphere you needed to capture here i think you have used the perfect settings scenario and the bounced flash would have robbed some of that intimacy and ambience, especially the smokey background which i love. somoene in the canon forum recently did a wedding and was loathe to use high iso's and used flash for the lot. they should look at these photos to see how well the cam can handle high iso's and how much nicer ambient light is VS flash.
So, it seems it was a good idea not to use the flash:p
the only problem i guess is that they are a little soft, not sure if thats any NR applied in-cam or PP or just the softness of the lens. i can;t see your shutter speed here but i assume if they were all wide open at f3.5 you must have been shooting them all at 18-20mm?
you only need roughly a 1/20s shutter speed to avoid camera shake...so, i wonder if you tweaked it one or two stops higher to say f5.6 how much improved sharpness that would have given you compared to the lighting you would have lost and potential for more subject motion blur. your balance was probably spot on but you can always try a few different settings during the night to see for yourself what effect they all have as a bit of an experiment. it's only your in-laws...not like they matter that much is the photos got screwed ! lol :D
Most of the images were shot between 18-35mm, and 'wide open' between f3.5 t0 f4.5. This combined with ISO 1600 was giving me shutter speeds of around 1/40 to 1/60. Which i felt was bare minimum to freeze 'subject motion blur' as none of the shots were posed. Camera shake was not my real concern here:) But yes, i'm definitely gonna try f5.6.. and i guess the sharpness would increase a little.
As for lack of sharpness, i guess its a combination of the 'wide open' aparture and NR in PP. Btw, i lost the exif data when i ran the images through Neat Image for mild noise removal.:(
great job viky. :) i can only guess what the T9 pics turned out like ! lol
Thanks Rooz:) That was my brother-in-laws cam and he was like "how the hell did this happen to my SONY!!"
coldrain
07-09-2007, 02:38 AM
And again about flash, when you look at the photos you can see why flash would have ruined the atmosphere. The flame for instance now softly lights the people holding the dish, and towards the back you see the smoke haze making people less contrasty the further back you go. With flash, you will lose all or most of the lighting subtility we now see.
And with flash you will be a LOT more intrusive as photographer...
Great example is the one photo where they posed, and you used flash. Of course, with an external flash and bouncing that photo can be improved, but you can see just how much less attractive that photo is.
About the colours of the photos, I can not tell if they are "accurate" or not, they seem quite good to me... not over saturated and the white balance seems to have captured the mood.
So.. all in all I think you did a good job. With a few tweaks in composition and/or viewpoint things might have been even better or just different, but you did show well the atmosphere.
Hmm, the photos do not look soft at all...
On the left the portrait as you posted it (scaled down more), on the right the de-hazed (USM 20/60/0) and sharpened (USM 80/0.5/0) version.
It is a matter of taste of course.
lol GOD forbid that anyone say anything about a canon lens. lmao man you crack me up. http://emoticons4u.com/fingers/fing20.gif. the comment was not a criticism of viky or the shoot at all...just a simple fact that the canon kit lens is soft, especially wide open shot at 1600 so i suggested a way to possbly counteract that. thats all i intend to say about it so don;t bother coming back with any hoo-ha graphs trying to prove otherwise.
btw: that shot i believe was with the 50mm f1.8.
Lilchilichoco
07-09-2007, 02:44 AM
A little pp should make them pop. I tried this...
26426 26427
curves+contrast+sharpening.
Best Regards
I like the puja pictures. You've captured the solemn mood very well. I love the portrait of your neice, pretty baby:). I love the light in this. Your brother-in-law's is good as well. The only thing with your wife's portrait is the flash, slightly harsh lighting but no shadows and that's great! I can see her all dressed up:)....good you got all the jewellery as well.....reminds me of home.
A 'puja' in India is a religious ceremony which is performed at all special occassions. It includes 'yagya' or 'havan', wherein in a pit of fire, the priest pours 'ghee', which is clarified butter, incence among other things,as an offering to the Gods and prays for the family. This produces a lot of smoke and hence the difficulty in shooting. Given your impromptu performance in a setting like that, it was a neat job.
It is also an occassion to take out your finest jewels and silks and chiffons.;):)
And the food is wonderful.:)
Viky, is this somewhere in UP?
Best regards
Thanks Bella!
I felt exactly the same way with my wife's pic... it would have been much better w/o the flash, as in this case, the ambient light was a lot better too. A shame, i did'nt take a second pic w/o the flash:(
Wow, you explained the rituals very very well!
Tis was in Kolkata, West Bengal.
rgds,
Lilchilichoco
07-09-2007, 02:59 AM
And to think I am a Christian from Rajasthan...lol.....!!:) I've seen these ceremonies up close with all my Marwaari friends.
Best Regards
Some do look a bit soft, like the portrait of the man, but most do not.
Of course, if you would look at the photos at 100% pixel size on your screen, you would see that the photos would not be tack sharp, but the "softness" Rooz mentions just is caused by the downsizing of the photos (in most photos anyway).
If you apply a slight unsharp mask after downsizing, you will get rid of that downsize induced softness. I usually apply USM 80/0.5/0.
I think it is good that you did not use flash. If you use flash, you will get rid of the real atmosphere. And during festivities like this, that is a shame, according to me. So no, I am not a flash fan.
While the 18-55 kitlens actually is surprisingly good for its kind, it is not the most contrasty lens on the planet. And since the 400D does not put extra saturation and contrast in photos like other entry level DSLRs may do at standard settings, you should not be afraid to apply a few little tweaks in post processing (or put the saturation and/or contrast up a notch in camera, if you are afraid of PP).
lets look for instance again at the portrait of the man. The smoke, light and lens all attribute a bit or more than a bit to the "veil" that seems to lay over the photo. One very quick trick to get rid of that veil is to apply a special combination of values in UnSharp Mask, for instance in Photoshop:
USM 20/60/0.
Then apply a bit of USM 80/0.5/0 to get rid of the apparent softness.
USM 80/0.3/0 may already do the trick.
If you have photoshop, then first put the photo in "lab color" mode, and select the "lightness" layer, before you apply the sharpening. This prevents colour noise to get "sharpened".
These two very simple steps take away the veil over the contrast, and sharpen the photo slightly. You can of course also apply USM to full size photos, to increase the sharpness of the photo you want to have printed. But the reason here is because scaling down just does not give the sharpness one expects.
On the left the portrait as you posted it (scaled down more), on the right the de-hazed (USM 20/60/0) and sharpened (USM 80/0.5/0) version.
It is a matter of taste of course.
Wow! what a difference your Post Processing had made to the photo! I guess you are referring to Adobe Photoshop for the Post Processing, but i'm completely backward in this area.... coz this is the software i use for viewing / cropping / resizing / sharpening my pics...:o
Downloaded it for free on a friend's recomendation last year.... but i guess its now time to move on to a more powerful and 'paid' software:rolleyes:
A little pp should make them pop. I tried this...
curves+contrast+sharpening.
Best Regards
Wow what a wonderful job! The original seems so dull and soft alongside the PP'd one.
I guess Post Processing is one of the major pluses of Digital ... and you guys are
so good in it:-)
I've got to learn fast.
coldrain
07-09-2007, 03:27 AM
lol GOD forbid that anyone say anything about a canon lens. lmao man you crack me up. http://emoticons4u.com/fingers/fing20.gif. the comment was not a criticism of viky or the shoot at all...just a simple fact that the canon kit lens is soft, especially wide open shot at 1600 so i suggested a way to possbly counteract that. thats all i intend to say about it so don;t bother coming back with any hoo-ha graphs trying to prove otherwise.
btw: that shot i believe was with the 50mm f1.8.
Can you stop this crap?
For once be objective about my posts and let your Nikon/Canon crap be.
You CAN see that a Canon kit lens is not super sharp when you see a photo full size. These are scaled down to under 0.5 mega pixels.
You can NOT judge softness from a lens with a scaled down photo. it is als simple as that.
And if you bother to actually LOOK at the posted versions of the photos, you will see that they actually are not soft at all. Look at the fabric of the woman's clothes, you see the detail.
You see what you want to see.
So, what makes the photos look soft, regardless of what lens that is used, is scaling down. If you want to see the softness as a result of that it is a Canon kit lens, fine. But I am just pointing out that that is not the cause for the apparent softness. For the simple fact that they are heavily scaled down, and contast is low.
Now, if you want to actually discuss THAT, that is fine. It is ridiculous though that I am not allowed to post anything about either Nikon or Canon withoyt getting these ridiculous attacks.
And about the portrait of that man, why do you point out that you think it is made with the 50mm f1.8? Why is that at all interesting? I was talking about how post processing can get rid of the haze and of some softness.
AdamW
07-09-2007, 08:54 AM
I don't think I can add anything that Coldy hasn't already said. Nice job under difficult conditions with a less-than-optimal lens.:cool:
adam75south
07-09-2007, 09:10 AM
as far as camera settings, i think you did about as good as possible. i would have maybe tried shooting in manual and using pop up flash with -2 FEC, but the shadows aren't harsh at all using ambient only so i think you pretty much nailed it given the circumstances and limitations.
i'm with coldrain on the unsharp mask settings. lightroom 1.1 also has a clarity tool that does a similar(but limited) effect. but for a beginner to PP(Post Processing) i'd say you could easily get away with using only lightroom...for now.
as far as the flash vs lens question. it's a really tough call. i wanna say flash because they come in handy so much(i hardly ever shoot without mine), but in this circumstance i think the lens might have had a better benefit.
I don't think I can add anything that Coldy hasn't already said. Nice job under difficult conditions with a less-than-optimal lens.:cool:
Thanks adam!
as far as camera settings, i think you did about as good as possible. i would have maybe tried shooting in manual and using pop up flash with -2 FEC, but the shadows aren't harsh at all using ambient only so i think you pretty much nailed it given the circumstances and limitations.
i'm with coldrain on the unsharp mask settings. lightroom 1.1 also has a clarity tool that does a similar(but limited) effect. but for a beginner to PP(Post Processing) i'd say you could easily get away with using only lightroom...for now.
as far as the flash vs lens question. it's a really tough call. i wanna say flash because they come in handy so much(i hardly ever shoot without mine), but in this circumstance i think the lens might have had a better benefit.
This exactly is the reason why i seek opinion / suggestions from pros - they give opinion backed by explanation and accompanied with lots of useful information:)
I'd love to try lightroom... is at a paid software? and is there a free download available for trial?
Also, i guess i should put a faster walk around lens in my 'next purchase' list followed by the 430ex:rolleyes:
Some post processing from RAW with DPP would have helped a lot. A 430 EX would also help as it would make the focussing a lot easier as it has built-in focus-assist and has more power than the built-in flash.
I shot a wedding in almost total darkness using my 420EX and 30D. It came out very well. Some say that the photos had a "deer in the headlamps" look but honestly, under the same conditions I doubt anybody could have done any better.
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