Well and Truly AWFUL

Seamaiden

Yeah, here we go. The well and truly awful shots. I am having a HELL of a time sorting out how to take nice indoor family pics without the flash! (As noted in another thread, I now know that using the "finger-over-the-flash" trick does NOT work. Lesson learned.)

Right, here we go, then. Same scene, one with and one without flash. I honestly can't remember what I did with the sans flash shot, I believe I had the ISO set to 100 or 200, was playing with f/stop vs. shutter speed, and was having a devil time trying to get stuff to "go green".

In any event, it was NOT this dark in the room!

Seamaiden

Slightly closer, with flash. UGH! I have more that seem to demonstrate other problems, but I'll save them for a bit later in the thread.

pathfinder

Seamaiden wrote:

Yeah, here we go. The well and truly awful shots. I am having a HELL of a time sorting out how to take nice indoor family pics without the flash! (As noted in another thread, I now know that using the "finger-over-the-flash" trick does NOT work. Lesson learned.)

Right, here we go, then. Same scene, one with and one without flash. I honestly can't remember what I did with the sans flash shot, I believe I had the ISO set to 100 or 200, was playing with f/stop vs. shutter speed, and was having a devil time trying to get stuff to "go green".

In any event, it was NOT this dark in the room!

Seamaiden - Does your camera hava a hot shoe for a flash unit or is it simply a built in unit - I am sorry but I do not remember the specifics about your camera - but a hot shoe offers a lot of options besides available light which is many homes really means No light photography with the poor results you describe. I remember you dreaming or hallucinating about a DSLR or something - anyway if you have a hot shoe - ON YOUR CAMERA I mean of course - then look into a Stofen adapter - look at my post here
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=6680#post6680 Photographs are only as good as the light used to make them - and in many homes - my own too - the light is very poor for available light shots, - dim,non-directional, orangish tunsten, etc.....

Seamaiden

Just saw that post, path. The C-740 comes SANS hotshoe <groan>, I know, I know, but I really got the best I could afford at the time.

gus

I kinda like those dark inside shots like your 1st, its comfortable to look into the photo. I hate using a flash....

Just take your time...its free to take as many photos as time will allow. A photographer with 20 years experience & a cheap camera will out do a novice with an expensive camera any day once it is off auto. Its all about time & experimentation.

Seamaiden

Indeed, and thank you for the encouragement, Humun, but I sure would like to sharpen the learning curve there, ya know? I'd like to figure out what I did wrong, but I suppose to do that I need to actually keep notes on what I did. (That would kinda make sense, wouldn't it? )

pathfinder

Seamaiden wrote:

Just saw that post, path. The C-740 comes SANS hotshoe <groan>, I know, I know, but I really got the best I could afford at the time.

Then if you do not have a hot shoe - try taping a little piece of hankerchief cloth over the front of the flash to diffuse and dim it down - or take a piece of paper about 1 inch by 2 or 3 inches and tape the two short ends of the paper so the paper makes a loop in front of the flash and see how that works.

I do agree with Humungus that experimentation is a great thing and costs nothing but time with a digital camera. But I do not agree that very dark underexposed images are by definition better than nicely lighted ones..... Dark images can be quite interesting if a good center of interest is accentuated - but dark images may also be just dreary and hard to see.

gus

What i would do is put it on continuous drive...your camera will take 12 shots. Often one of those shots will have movement frozen or some effect which you like. Also maybe try some type of other light source in there maybe bounced off a wall or something.

In this shot there is a light coloured wooden chair bouncing a bright downlight back at the moggy (as well as the downlight itself).....sort of lightens it all with out any direct light.

Richard Cabesa

Humungus wrote:

Nice shot H, I like it, but what the heck is that thing? You got the weirdest animals down there

gus

"Ivan the Cruel " He's a new species we found out the back in the Piliga scrub. Sort of a cross between a kangaroo & a snake ie.. fast & painfull

He has mentioned he'd like a word with you...................alone

Seamaiden

Great idea, I hadn't even thought to play with the sequential drive!

Finder of the Path, do you mean essentially creating a little "c" of paper over the flash? I can do this! (Though.. my urge is to use duct tape.. probably shouldn't use duct tape, huh?)

Between this, and maybe even The GIMP I just might get some of this sorted. I was very tempted to toss the whole batch, but I'm learning that by playing with my histograms I might be able to play with saturation values a bit.

Seamaiden

ALRIGHT! I'm hardly becoming adept, but take a look at the changes I've been able to accomplish in just a few hours.

Seamaiden

From this (just for easy comparison)..

gus

I hit the auto adjust in P/S to get this

Hmmm...didnt work out as good as yours

Seamaiden

Well.. it made the plate white. Doesn't quite recreate the ambient lighting.. (that's what I was going for). C'MON, mate, give us a little encouragement here!

gus

Your doing fine..


There is some really specific help in the yahoo groups....these blokes know the camera backwards. I use these groups for my c-5050 for the tough questions. There is a group for nearly every camera i think.

This link may well not work but you are up on puters so im sure you can find it.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Olympus-C730-c740-c750/

jimf

Seamaiden wrote:

Slightly closer, with flash. UGH! I have more that seem to demonstrate other problems, but I'll save them for a bit later in the thread.

There are a few ways I might try to deal with this, seeing as you don't have a hotshoe option.

The complicated way would be to install a reflector to bounce the flash upward to the ceiling. Get a 3x5 card and tape it onto the flash to bounce it up, for instance. (A benefit of this approach is you'll get leakage through the card, acting as a diffuse direct light too.) You'll probably have to experiment with different reflectors and whatnot, and of course it's ugly and ungainly, but most likely you could pull that off and get significantly better shots.

The easy way would be to look for flash exposure compensation (on many cameras it's the same as exposure compensation) and drop it down a stop or maybe even two. That should fix the overexposure, although you'll still have harsh highlights from the direct flash.

Another way to dim the flash would be simply to back off and use the zoom feature of the camera.

gotta

I'm telling you Sea, it's all about the finger, it's all about the finger.:D I'm way too lazy for paper and tape. (secretly knows he'll try it, cause it's a good idea)

Regards, Eric

Seamaiden

LOULE!! Eric, you did the finger??? :roll

Jim, others have suggested the card trick (is that anything like a hat trick?), could I get away with something a bit smaller than a 3x5? (That's practically as big as the camera itself, may be a bit ungainly for me.) I had been considering the following options (don't laugh.. ok, laugh):
- A piece of Kleenex held over the flash. (Experiment with folding.)
- A piece of fabric over the flash. (See above.)
- Taking the lens of an old pair of sunglasses out, cutting a piece to fit, and taping IT over the flash.
- Taking an old eyeglass lens, cutting a piece down, buffing it with steel wool or sandpaper to make it 'foggy', and duct taping that over the flash.

jimf

Seamaiden wrote:

Jim, others have suggested the card trick (is that anything like a hat trick?), could I get away with something a bit smaller than a 3x5?

Oh sure, I'd cut it down to fit. It needs to be at least as big as the flash itself, and preferably a little larger. It doesn't need to be much larger, after all it's going to be sitting right on the flash itself.

Seamaiden wrote:

I had been considering the following options (don't laugh.. ok, laugh):
- A piece of Kleenex held over the flash. (Experiment with folding.)
- A piece of fabric over the flash. (See above.)
- Taking the lens of an old pair of sunglasses out, cutting a piece to fit, and taping IT over the flash.
- Taking an old eyeglass lens, cutting a piece down, buffing it with steel wool or sandpaper to make it 'foggy', and duct taping that over the flash.

The kleenex and fabric would work pretty well as diffusers, although I'd just use a normal white piece of paper. The sunglass thing would cut the light, but it'd also shift the color a lot. The eyegless lens approach seems like it wouldn't do much except perhaps alter the flash focus, after all the flash lens is already pretty much that kind of thing.

jim

Seamaiden

Oh Christ, you're kidding! The Kleenex isn't so whacked after all?? :roll (Me and my bright ideas.. good lord.)

So, didja catch my GIMP thread? I am currently "Grokking the GIMP".. or trying to anyways. As for the star filter, I wonder if it's just a matter of code, or do new algorithms need to be created? I may know someone who has such a talent.

GREAPER

Seamaiden wrote:

Yeah, here we go. The well and truly awful shots. I am having a HELL of a time sorting out how to take nice indoor family pics without the flash! (As noted in another thread, I now know that using the "finger-over-the-flash" trick does NOT work. Lesson learned.)

Right, here we go, then. Same scene, one with and one without flash. I honestly can't remember what I did with the sans flash shot, I believe I had the ISO set to 100 or 200, was playing with f/stop vs. shutter speed, and was having a devil time trying to get stuff to "go green".

In any event, it was NOT this dark in the room!

How bout this?

Seamaiden

Hmm.. (Maybe your monitor's been properly tweaked and all.. )

Seamaiden wrote:

ALRIGHT! I'm hardly becoming adept, but take a look at the changes I've been able to accomplish in just a few hours.

Seamaiden

Heh.. my plates are pink.

GREAPER

Other than adjustments to levels in the midrange (a Lot) and highlights (small ), The major thing i did was adjust the color balance. I increased the yellow a bit and mostly reduced the red as the image seemed to have a strong red cast.

Then I selected just the plates and brightened them a bit more.

I have never messed with my monitor settings so if they are right, its just luck.

Seamaiden

Do my plates look pink(ish) to you? I haven't gotten far enough with my tools to pick specific areas to play about with the levels and curves yet.

What I did was take the tablecloth and match it, (I had it with me) under the same lighting, to the shot I was working with. When I had that matched, I figured I was pretty close. The plates aren't "pure" white, but white nonetheless. I did indeed make MAJOR adjustments to the midrange, values as well as red/green/blue. After that I bumped my saturation up just a tiny bit. Highlights were brought up a little, but too much just looked very unnatural. Then I despeckled (which came out FAR better than I expected!).

I KNOW! Would whoever has a calibrated monitor please give an opinion as to what appears natural, or needs adjustment? My goal is this: get it right within the shot itself so it needs as little manipulation as possible. I hope to achieve this goal.. someday, but don't want to toss all these pics I have as they're from the last day my grandparents were out from Puerto Rico.

jimf

Seamaiden wrote:

So, didja catch my GIMP thread? I am currently "Grokking the GIMP".. or trying to anyways. As for the star filter, I wonder if it's just a matter of code, or do new algorithms need to be created? I may know someone who has such a talent.

I did catch the thread, but while I have used GIMP for awhile to do basic things it was all pretty basic: Adjusting levels, contrast, brightness, rotating and cropping basically.

I'm sure if I got sufficiently motivated I could build a star filter myself. The code should be easy to write, the hard part would be learning the GIMP API. But these days I'm lazy and would prefer to make sure nobody else did it before I go off and spend the time :-).

Besides, after I posted that I found that Photoshop Elements came with my camera. That's a lot easier to use than GIMP (if only because it doesn't need X11 on my Mac).

wxwax

Seamaiden, you were looking for ways to soften yer in camera flash.

Check this out. If they make a version for your camera, it might help you.

rutt

You can probably save this image if it is worth it to you. I took a quick stab at it using LAB curves. Probably what I did was just the first step along a road of curves and plate blending. But unlike an overexposed image, all the information is there and it just takes a series of unintuitive steps to get the colors right.

Seamaiden

Thank you again, wax! (Can you hear the gears turning in my head?) I'm going to email them about a flashclip for my Oly in about 2 minutes.

rutt, I discovered in playing with the piccies taken with and without flash that there seems to be a serious dearth of "information" there to play with when the shot's overexposed. However, they look much better as b&w's, so I may convert those.

I've recently emerged a new version of GIMP, and it appears that it does allow some messing about with LAB values. The people who put this programming together are really amazing, as I'd gone (just for chits and giggles) and priced the Photochop proggies. It's like buying a whole new camera, and I darn near lost my cookies (or cleared my cache). I do have the whole series of pics saved, and though I am wont to do housecleaning on a regular basis, there are those sentimental items that I tend to hold onto.

It really seems that these indoor shots are my biggest problem, and I'm determined to figure out how to get it right in the first place so I don't need to spend so much time messing about with the shots in any programs.

wxwax

Seamaiden wrote:

rutt, I discovered in playing with the piccies taken with and without flash that there seems to be a serious dearth of "information" there to play with when the shot's overexposed. However, they look much better as b&w's, so I may convert those.

As I understand it, it's far better to underexpose a shot than to overexpose it. If you blow out highlights, the information is lost forever, nothing can be done about it. But if an area's too dark, there's a good chance the info is still there, and someone with skill can make something out of it.