Operation Christmas Child

dawssvt

Our church has en event called Operation Christmas Child where we stuff boxes full of gifts and send them overseas to people who are less fortunate than us. I brought along my camera just for fun. Here are some of the better shots. These are straight out of the camera.

Tell me how I can improve! C&C welcome.

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Scott_Quier

I think you did well capturing the fun atmosphere.

Watch for color casts and eye-socket shadows from lights.

For some of the smaller folks, maybe getting down on their level. It may be just me, but I really don't like shots from a perspective of looking down on younger/smaller people.

dawssvt

Scott_Quier wrote:

I think you did well capturing the fun atmosphere.

Watch for color casts and eye-socket shadows from lights.

For some of the smaller folks, maybe getting down on their level. It may be just me, but I really don't like shots from a perspective of looking down on younger/smaller people.

Can you explain to me what color casts means? Thanks for the tip on shooting the smaller students. I'll remember that

Scott_Quier

dawssvt wrote:

Can you explain to me what color casts means? Thanks for the tip on shooting the smaller students. I'll remember that

It appears these were shot with a mixture of ambient florescent and flash lighting. These two light sources produce light of different colors. Take a look a your first posted image. In the background, everything has a greenish cast to it while the kids in the foreground (your primary subjects) appear to have a better color to them. From this, I would have to assume that you were shooting with either AWB or with Flash WB. The fix, of course, is to afix a green gel to your flash. This will cause your the light from your flash to match that of the ambient - or at least more closely match it. Now, everything will be green. So, you either shoot a gray target to set a CWB in camera or you apply appropriate WB corrections in post. The net result is that everything has a more natural color to it.

Richard

dawssvt wrote:

Can you explain to me what color casts means?

A photo has a color cast when what should be neutral tones (all shades of gray) have a detectable color. All the other colors are affected as well, of course, which means that they are inaccurate. It's like putting a colored gel over your glasses. Casts typically come from artificial lighting, though any strong source of reflected color can also create a cast.

HTH.

dawssvt

Scott_Quier wrote:

It appears these were shot with a mixture of ambient florescent and flash lighting. These two light sources produce light of different colors. Take a look a your first posted image. In the background, everything has a greenish cast to it while the kids in the foreground (your primary subjects) appear to have a better color to them. From this, I would have to assume that you were shooting with either AWB or with Flash WB. The fix, of course, is to afix a green gel to your flash. This will cause your the light from your flash to match that of the ambient - or at least more closely match it. Now, everything will be green. So, you either shoot a gray target to set a CWB in camera or you apply appropriate WB corrections in post. The net result is that everything has a more natural color to it.

Alright, I understand what you are saying. I believe I was using the Flash WB at the time. So, with the green gel, it would make everything green in the picture and then set the WB to correct that. How do you know what color gel you are going to need without seeing the picture on a computer? Is there a way to know, like with florescent you will always use green, ect...?

TonyL

I have some uploading as we speak....local group rode motorcycles in 24 degree weather!. I think you captured the event well from a photojournalist view.

ivar

I think you did very well, considering the circumstances

When I say 'the circumstances', I'm thinking tight space, lots of clutter in the background, etc.

On #1, I may crop the left side a bit, to get rid of the table/cloth (?). It does bring him pretty close to the edge, but I think I still prefer it that way.
On #4, I would also crop a tiny bit from the left, to get rid of the person/elbow

Scott_Quier

dawssvt wrote:

Alright, I understand what you are saying. I believe I was using the Flash WB at the time. So, with the green gel, it would make everything green in the picture and then set the WB to correct that. How do you know what color gel you are going to need without seeing the picture on a computer? Is there a way to know, like with florescent you will always use green, ect...?

Here's the best resource to get you started. Window Green (or plus green) gels come in various densities. Take a look at the color of your ambient light and then take a guess on which density you need. The older and/or green the ambient the darker the gel you will need.

It's not rocket science and don't worry about getting an exact match. First, an exact match is not possible so, second, close is good enough!

Oh, and I don't know if you've seen/read about this before but when shooting under fluorescent lighting, you have to pay attention to your shutter speed. In the US, where the nominal frequency of AC power is 60Hz, you need to use shutter speeds of (1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/120). Anything else and you risk getting inconsistant color from the ambient lights. If you do a search of DGrin topics related to flourescent lighting and shutter speed, you should find a couple of threads discussing this.