B&w C&c

torags

This is not a PJ shot moderator. It is an attempt to get some judgements on the quality of the B&W treatment of the images. Where else do people use B&W as much as here. The B&W discipline does not translate well in the sports forums.

Background: the subjects are engaged in "dirt track TT", motorcycle racing. The sport is enthusiast driven; there is no real (prize) money there and it mostly is a family affair. This track located in Lodi CA runs Friday night races, because the paricipants work in other fields. The track has lights, some are white, some green and some pink. The coverage is inadequate.

After sunset, you have to shoot with iso 6400. The track has less than three sweet spots and a couple of them have the colored lights. so shooting is very constrained. I haven't had acceptable images after 1600 on my D700 and last night was no different.

These images are at 6400 and noisy as hell. I tried converting them to see if I could save a few. Cropped with the noise sharpened (some contrast) I wondered how they compare to film grain. What do you think.

Darren Troy C

I feel like the 2nd one definately has some potential.....but I will state the obvious, as you already have. These have FAR too much noise in them, even if going for the B&W film-grain look. Only a personal opinion, however.

Jacobovs

I agree , the second one has potential. What noise reduction software did you try? What lens did you use?

torags

No noise reduction, I shot raw & I don't use photoshop.

Looks like too much trouble, I'll just delete 'em.

I thought maybe noise could look like film grain, doesn't look like it does. Just an experiment that didn't work

Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them

gavin

hmm...

Are you sure these were taken with your d700 at 6400 ISO? I just recently acquired mine and haven't really had the need to soot at 6400 ISO yet. However I have experimented and mine look nothing like yours.

Here is one I just took on my D700 at 6400 ISO, Lens was a Nikkor 24mm 2.8 @2.8

torags

You're kidding right? Am I sure it was a D700 at iso6400????


... Yes I'm sure

gavin

torags wrote:

You're kidding right? Am I sure it was a D700 at iso6400????


... Yes I'm sure

Well, as you can see our two images don't even come close to comparing. What did you do to them in post processing? To me it looks like you really bumped the exposure, or brightness or gama in post processing which made the noise really evident.

Thats the only explanation I can think of.

torags

Well shooting conditions were as follows:

Insufficient lighting, light tones are cool white, pink and green.

These are scattered around the track in hot spots and they are phased (engineered to turn on/off - invisable to human eye) at different intervals.

A challenge is to get some racers in a white hotspot where reflective light fills overhead shadows. Flash doesn't work since you need a relatively high fps & they're out & in the flash range, coming at you at 65mph +/-. You are 10' away from them when they pass you.

Then you have to crop for comp

The pro shooter at the track shoots at 6400, but he does "handstands" in PS with procedures using NR, to get some keepers.

It's a little more complicated than sitting in front of your computer and taking a snap.

The original question pertained to whether the B&W images were aesthetically pleasing.

They weren't. They're gone.

Mr. Quiet

Please don't tell me that you deleted them?!?!?!?!?!? I will tell you what I think about them if you have not deleted them, if you have, I will not.















What ever.....keep the second one(if you have not deleted it already). It is a very good shot. I also love the way it looks. It gives me the sense of speed and tension. I encourage you to post it in the PJ and Street forum....I know that it does not quite fall in that category, but I think you should give it a try. Besides all of that, it tells a great story too!!!!! Great shot!

ladytx

Running Noise Ninja on your photos helps them out.

thoth

torags wrote:

Well shooting conditions were as follows:

Insufficient lighting, light tones are cool white, pink and green.

These are scattered around the track in hot spots and they are phased (engineered to turn on/off - invisable to human eye) at different intervals.

A challenge is to get some racers in a white hotspot where reflective light fills overhead shadows. Flash doesn't work since you need a relatively high fps & they're out & in the flash range, coming at you at 65mph +/-. You are 10' away from them when they pass you.

Then you have to crop for comp

The pro shooter at the track shoots at 6400, but he does "handstands" in PS with procedures using NR, to get some keepers.

It's a little more complicated than sitting in front of your computer and taking a snap.

The original question pertained to whether the B&W images were aesthetically pleasing.

They weren't. They're gone.

I can't imagine that it's necessary to be this condescending to someone who, regardless of their knowledge of your technical expertise, was trying to help.

Jacobovs

torags wrote:

No noise reduction, I shot raw & I don't use photoshop.

Looks like too much trouble, I'll just delete 'em.

I thought maybe noise could look like film grain, doesn't look like it does. Just an experiment that didn't work

Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them

I don't use ps either. Try Noise Ninja, it's VERY easy and you can download a trial version. It frequently saves my pics.

adbsgicom

I think the originals have an edgy artsy look, so it depends on if that is what you wanted. As a sports shot, the denoised shot seems to work pretty well.

torags

Thanks for the comments folks. I did delete them but they may float on the web (forever?).

I thought I did post on PJ - but mistakenly, didn't.

I will post a different shot on PJ, thanks Mr. Quiet for the suggestion.

Thanks Lady TX for taking the time, I appreciate it.

Hey thoth, didn't mean to be condescending, that's why I took the time to state the conditions, I thought it would help you understand the shooting site.

Jacob I don't do PS, too much time & effort. Jeeze, take a 1,000 raw images at an event & you can eat a weekend on PP. I do some pp on Picassa3 (and rarely on Elements7), which is fast & has a low learning threshold; just right for my intellectual capacity. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'll try a lower contrast, less coarse treatment of a different image on the PJ forum.

I'm doing a convergent slide show video of movee & stills and I would really like to throw some B&W's in (for retro slant).

thanks again all