Need help.. Weekend MX shoot ruined

j-bo

Well... I dunno what happened. I set my camera at ISO 200 for the days shoot. Shot 20 or so and checked histogram, etc. etc...... and I suppose I did a major booboo by not checking later throughout the day.

Got home, downloaded 1500+ and 1420 of them are shot at ISO 800 and they are full of noise! How it got to 800 I have no idear.

This was THE event of the year, and I've just blown it. I've tried running them through noise ninja and it has helped somewhat but not to my satisfaction.

I wonder If I limit the print size, say no more than 8x10's, if that would be saleable or will the noise be very noticable at any size priint? Of course, they look okay in the medium size on smugmug.

If not... I suppose I just trash them all and count it as a lesson learned? Man oh man.. I've got 40 -50 people already asking when can they buy some without seeing them, as usually mine are pretty nice.

Here's a few noisey photo's, I'll link to the original size.

http://motoximages.smugmug.com/gallery/1578575/9/123543953/Original

http://motoximages.smugmug.com/gallery/1578575/9/123544006/Original

http://motoximages.smugmug.com/gallery/1578575/9/123544023/Original

Harryb

It looks like you had a lousy day to shoot. The backgrounds would have been less than ideal no matter what ISO you used. I would make a dup layer in PS apply NR to the layer and then mask it. I would then paint out the subject and flatten the layers. The noise on the background will be eliminated and your subjects will still retain their details.

I probably wouldn't attempt to sell anything more than a 8x10 and even then with some reluctance. I would rather keep to your high standards of the past, learn a valuable lesson, and do better the next time out.

Jeffro

That really sucks. One time I spent a day at the track, after being awake for 24 hours, shooting race after race. The day neared the end, and I was switching CF cards, got distracted, forgot what I was doing...maybe I fell a sleep on my feet for a second...put the same CF card back in the camera, and deleted the files!! :cry I couldn't finish the day. I was freaked out. I went home and found out just how good my rescue software was. Turns out it was/is very good...thankfully. All my pics were saved. I know this doesn't solve your problem, but it does let you know sh*t happens....to all of us from time to time.

What you do with these photos, is totally up to you. Don't let us talk you into doing something you don't think you should. If you are not pleased with them, and think they will cause someone not to come back to you don't post them. Post a message that do to equipment problems all the shots from that race were lost. Let them know when they can expect to see you at the track again. Or, post them with an explanation as to what happened, and/or offer them at a reduced rate.

With that being said, I wouldn't post them if I wasn't happy with them.

xtnomad

Disapointment is part of the game. Chalk it up and get back in.

2whlrcr

I'm new here. I'm no pro photographer, but I have raced dirt bikes my entire life and have taken plenty of amatuer moto photography. They don't look that bad too me, especially if the print size is kept to 8x10's or under.

I think we are the hardest on ourselves, especially if you know you can do better. I would just post a header, apologizing for the error. I have a feeling most of your customers won't care or even notice. I think people want a picture of themselves to remember the day and a slight reduction in quality probably won't matter to them.

Shane422

Noise Ninja is now a part of Bibble which has a 30day trial (http://www.bibblelabs.com). You could give them all a little free luvin' with that.

rich56k

I think we are the hardest on ourselves, especially if you know you can do better. I would just post a header, apologizing for the error. I have a feeling most of your customers won't care or even notice. I think people want a picture of themselves to remember the day and a slight reduction in quality probably won't matter to them.

I agree with this - We're always hardest on ourselves!

-can you print any at home?
-try some 8x10's just to see the result
-what are your usual most popular size(s)?
-once i added 4x6's (@$5/each) they became my biggest seller and with all new customers to boot!
-or even as an Event CD slideshow, with say medium size max and they'll look fine on monitors
-just some food for thought...
-you can still pull saleable product from your situation...
-necessity IS the mother of .......
let us know what you decide...
rich56k

Andy

How did you process these?
Do you have a raw file of the first one you linked?

j-bo

Well.. I did just that, being printed out some here at work. They looked fine, with amazement from me. I even printed a half sheet at 16x20 and it still looked okay. I think I got panicky as I hadn't seen so much noise before in any of my originals. As most folks, 4x6's are most popular and I rarely get anything larger than 11x14. I also went back and resized the problem photo's to 16x20 to see how they'd look. They looked okay to my wife and my friend that I had looking at them too, heck, he said.. "whats the problem?" HA.. Luckily so, as soon as I posted the galleries my very 1st order was for (2) 16x20's! and an 11x14.

I send out thank you emails to everyone that orders, and have in the 100% guarantee in them. So if ANDY gets a lot of complaints.... well.. those are probably mine.

MX'ers def. are not picky at all.

I only shoot in jpeg for now. It will be some time before I understand all about the RAW stuff.

Thanks for all the support and suggestions. I'm riding it out this time. I've learned a valuable lesson here too.

Jeffro

That's good to hear.

I don't usually shoot RAW at events, but there really isn't all that much to it. Try going out and shooting RAW+Large jpeg, then use the DPP software that came with your Canon...it was Canon right? It allows you to batch process the photos, or do it idividually, apply settings from one shot to another and so on. It gives you the ability to save some "lost" shots.

I don't like spending that kind of time on the pc after an event, so I tend not to use RAW.....at least not yet.

CookieS

I thought they looked not bad , I tend to find most consumers are not aware of noise or grain, unless its really bad, those shots looked so nice I dont think they would notice much. Glad you printed some out, you can also try a layer of soft light blended layer, for any that are bad noisy and blown outish.

ivar

xtnomad wrote:

Disapointment is part of the game. Chalk it up and get back in.

(I don't really have anything sensible to say here, but I've been so waiting for a chance to use this )

mercphoto

Jeffro wrote:

I don't like spending that kind of time on the pc after an event, so I tend not to use RAW.....at least not yet.

I started using RAW when I got the ability to post proofs for viewing and upload finished product later. RAW became a big, big help with the night motocross photography once you learn the magic of all the sliders in ACR, a bit of Noise Nija, and judicious sharpening.

Back to topic, I agree we are harder on ourselves than most customers are. I also beleive digital has made people way, way too concerned with details like noise and sharpness. Its more about the emtion than anything else. Crisp and clean with no emotion is worthless. Lots of emotion with too much noise is still a photo worth owning.