Spectators at the little league game - 24 May 04

rutt

The game started at 6pm and it was very overcast. It soon got too dark for shooting action (and the league is very strict about keeping me behind the fences.) But the light was great for candids. Please critique.

wxwax

The baby with the sucker is excellent! Great moment, nice saturated colors, good framing. IMHO, the others suffer from the light - they end up rather flat and without highlights, shadows or good color, presumably because it's so dim. I quite like the expression on the face of the Red Sox cap man.

rutt

wxwax wrote:

The baby with the sucker is excellent! Great moment, nice saturated colors, good framing. IMHO, the others suffer from the light - they end up rather flat and without highlights, shadows or good color, presumably because it's so dim. I quite like the expression on the face of the Red Sox cap man.

It's a good point. None of these shots has been enhanced/corrected yet, so perhaps there is hope. I shoot with the lowest possible in-camera sharpening, so that card also hasn't been played. Some were shot at high ISO and some were shot at slow shutter speeds. (What-you-gonna-do?)

Perhaps "post" can recover some detail. As the light really started to fail, a cyan cast crept in which I imagine I could fix. I haven't really found the right trick for overcoming the high ISO noise. My usual approach to USM and the high noise don't play well together.

lynnma

I love the baby Rutt, I agree with Sid that the others are a bit flat. The guy with the baseball cap has a nice look in his eyes.. I think the light was letting you down.

Lynn

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

It's a good point. None of these shots has been enhanced/corrected yet, so perhaps there is hope. I shoot with the lowest possible in-camera sharpening, so that card also hasn't been played. Some were shot at high ISO and some were shot at slow shutter speeds. (What-you-gonna-do?)

Perhaps "post" can recover some detail. As the light really started to fail, a cyan cast crept in which I imagine I could fix. I haven't really found the right trick for overcoming the high ISO noise. My usual approach to USM and the high noise don't play well together.

I wonder if you lower the color temperature a little with conversion they won't perk up some. I think it is not flat light, but slightly cool color temperature that is troubling the viewers perhaps. ( At least on my monitor at work it looks like that to me ) The first image has warmer light, but the rest definitely seeem cool to my eye. Unless your ISO was greater than 400, noise should not be a real problem, unless these are significantly cropped images.
They are not real crystal sharp, but for "found portraits" who cares if they are that sharp anyway. They may be better without real sharpness to me.
Were these shot RAW or as jpegs? I find that when shooting jpgs with the 10D, I like using the shade or cloudy settings on cloudy days much better than the AWB setting also. Because it gives a slightly warmer image than the AWB setting.

I think you have some real nice images here, John. Just warm them slightly.

lynnma

Looking at the shots again Rutt I think Pathfinder has hit it on the head. I stole a couple and warmed them and had a different emotion. What do you think.

Lynn

rutt

You say tomato...

pathfinder wrote:

I wonder if you lower the color temperature a little with conversion they won't perk up some. I think it is not flat light, but slightly cool color temperature that is troubling the viewers perhaps. ( At least on my monitor at work it looks like that to me ) The first image has warmer light, but the rest definitely seeem cool to my eye. Unless your ISO was greater than 400, noise should not be a real problem, unless these are significantly cropped images.
They are not real crystal sharp, but for "found portraits" who cares if they are that sharp anyway. They may be better without real sharpness to me.
Were these shot RAW or as jpegs? I find that when shooting jpgs with the 10D, I like using the shade or cloudy settings on cloudy days much better than the AWB setting also. Because it gives a slightly warmer image than the AWB setting.

I think you have some real nice images here, John. Just warm them slightly.

We speak different languages, but mean the same thing. You said they were too cool and I said they had a cyan cast. I used CMYK curves to achieve what you would probably have done with RAW conversion. These were shot as jpegs, because of the pretense of shooting the ball game. I find it pretty hopeless to shoot sports in RAW with the 10D. I did have WB set to cloudy, but as you know I think it's easy to correct for any setting later on.

I think they are soft for a combination of reasons. They were all shot at f2.8 and the tele has a very narrow DOF at that aperture. The man in the Red Sox hat really shows that. His eye are in focus, but the tip of his nose is not. The shutter was also very slow and I was hand holding a long lens.

The color sampler said they really did have a cyan cast (or were cool). I wonder why this happens as the light fades?

I used CMYK curves to "warm" up 3 of them and then used the CK sharpening trick. Better?

lynnma

rutt wrote:

We speak different languages, but mean the same thing. You said they were too cool and I said they had a cyan cast. I used CMYK curves to achieve what you would probably have done with RAW conversion. These were shot as jpegs, because of the pretense of shooting the ball game. I find it pretty hopeless to shoot sports in RAW with the 10D. I did have WB set to cloudy, but as you know I think it's easy to correct for any setting later on.

I think they are soft for a combination of reasons. They were all shot at f2.8 and the tele has a very narrow DOF at that aperture. The man in the Red Sox hat really shows that. His eye are in focus, but the tip of his nose is not. The shutter was also very slow and I was hand holding a long lens.

The color sampler said they really did have a cyan cast (or were cool). I wonder why this happens as the light fades?

I used CMYK curves to "warm" up 3 of them and then used the CK sharpening trick. Better?

yes much better Rutt, I'm amazed at the difference warmth and coolness make! Id like to see the others too. They are great candid shots.

rutt

lynnma wrote:

yes much better Rutt, I'm amazed at the difference warmth and coolness make! Id like to see the others too. They are great candid shots.

Well, actually the first and last shots were taken much later after it really started to get dark and they had a distinct cyan cast and also were a little low in yellow. This seems to be what the 10D does when it gets dark and the ISO goes up. The man in the cap, was just a little dark, shadows were too deep. I just changed the K curve for him to open up the shadows. If I'd thought of it, I might have tried PS/CS's shadow/highlight image adjustment. Sometimes I get great results with it and sometimes not. I can't say I really understand it.

I'll post the rest when I correct them.

rutt

Some more enhancements:

tmlphoto

Noise Ninja

rutt wrote:

I haven't really found the right trick for overcoming the high ISO noise. My usual approach to USM and the high noise don't play well together.

John, Have you tried any of the programs designed to remove noise such as "Noise Ninja". I played around a little with a trial version on some images that were very noisy, ISO 3200. There was a definite improvement, but I haven't really figured out how to really use the program effectively. There are alot of manual inputs available to correct an image. A google search will reveal the website for Noise Ninja.

wxwax

Much mo better, Rutt.

Noise Ninja has profiles for a bunch of cameras. If your camera is included, it will have a noise removal profile for each ISO setting. For example, for the 10D, it has a noise profile from ISO 100 all the way through ISO 3200. And it's a doddle to use.

lynnma

wxwax wrote:

Much mo better, Rutt.

Noise Ninja has profiles for a bunch of cameras. If your camera is included, it will have a noise removal profile for each ISO setting. For example, for the 10D, it has a noise profile from ISO 100 all the way through ISO 3200. And it's a doddle to use.

Do you use it Sid?