Lightroom at the ballet shoot
rutt
Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
So, I'm trying to get on board. I bought Lightroom to see what all the fuss is about.
First things first. I want to use it at the actual ballet dress rehearsal shoot. Here is the scenario:
Before LR, here is how I accomplished this:
From what I can tell, LR won't be fast enough at reading the CF card to work the way it most likes to work. I can retain the above workflow, but replace Photo Mechanic with LR. But this seems like I'm fighting against some basic LR concepts which I don't understand; in particular, once I actually download the raws that made it through the edit, how to get LR to reimport the new folder, forgetting what it thought it knew before?
Advice? Can I do this better? Am I a total dinosaur?
First things first. I want to use it at the actual ballet dress rehearsal shoot. Here is the scenario:
- There are some acts separated by intermissions (breaks in the case of dress rehearsals.)
- The breaks are about 10-15 minutes
- I shoot with 8gb CF cards and usually fill at least one between intermissions (about 400 shots?)
- I want to do a preliminary edit of at least one card during a break, mostly to get a sanity check on my settings and generally how I'm doing.
Before LR, here is how I accomplished this:
- Have MacBook Pro with firewire CF card reader
- Shoot in Raw + Small crappy jpeg mode
- During the break, I download the small crappy jpegs to the hard drive (fast).
- Use Photo Mechanic to scan the downloaded jpegs and delete the bad ones.
- Use a homebrewed python script to download only the raw files corresponding to the jpegs not deleted.
From what I can tell, LR won't be fast enough at reading the CF card to work the way it most likes to work. I can retain the above workflow, but replace Photo Mechanic with LR. But this seems like I'm fighting against some basic LR concepts which I don't understand; in particular, once I actually download the raws that made it through the edit, how to get LR to reimport the new folder, forgetting what it thought it knew before?
Advice? Can I do this better? Am I a total dinosaur?
If not now, when?
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Assuming you've got plenty of batteries, I'd do a quick check on the camera LCD and move on. You're not giving yourself a lot of time here, I tend to like to check things when possible but separate shooting from editing which for reasons of safety should be done in the calm of another type of environment. I suppose you could try importing into LR but it seems like a lot of work at shoot time (unless you shot tethered) just to check something like focus and rough exposure (which as you should know, the later based on the Raw data anyway but rather the JPEG you don't really need to be shooting).
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
It's a bonus to be able to resuse the card.
Let me be clear, I already have a way of doing this which works for me. (See my initial post.) But I'm always eager to learn new things, especially if they make everything work better. Right now, for this particular application, LR is just a bit more awkward than Photo Mechanic (and maybe too slow). But I do love the single keystroke for reject/pick in LR. PM makes me mark and then move on to the next.
I know this is like the absolute most prosaic possible application for LR, but there you have it; first things first.
It sounds to me like you ought to be able to just do it the way you have done it before. When you are done, then you can import the folder of RAWs into Lightroom. Or am I missing something?
Cheers,
Understood. For that reason, LR is somewhat overkill and maybe inappropriate for what you're trying to do on location under a deadline.
Dangerous! Frankly I'd never format a card until I have the Raws converted to DNG (which checks integrity of the data) and maybe another back up.
Cards are cheap, images are not.
Because I think you're tying to use it in a way its not designed to be used, or at least using it under circumstances which are not ideal.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
I was wondering if LR would help automate more of the process or let me discard my python script. This technique does work for me, but seems unlikely to work for people who are less comfortable with complex software workflows. And even I would like more automation.
I think that's the answer to my question. This isn't part of the problem LR is trying to solve. Fine. PM still has a niche.
Don't fix what isn't broken
Lightroom has many advantages, but in my book, speed is not one of them. I currently am using a quad core MacPro tower, and I still have to wait for Lightroom to let me see all the images on a large card. A laptop will be even slower than my quadcore tower.......
If you are wanting to re-use the cards - spend a few bucks and buy a couple extra 8 Gb cards, They're cheap and getting cheaper.
Close your eyes and relax during the breaks, like the dancers. Or have a cup a java.
Delete your OOF shots later when importing at your big screen, not your laptop. Just slap a new card in your camera and be ready to rock and roll again after the break!
JMHO, John.
DO you shoot in manual mode or Av? Is the lighting consistent enough over a performance to shoot in Manual? Or is Av needed due to variation in lighting levels? White balance in RAW with AWB or Tungsten? Have you tried any of the custom white balance techniques? Some work pretty good.
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Great. Just trying to see if it was broken. I don't think my way of handling sharpening is broken, either, but I'm trying to make sure by experimenting with LR and ACR. It's sort of the same.
As you might imagine, I do have enough cards for a whole ballet rehearsal. But the midcourse corrections of looking through the shots on the 17" screen does seem to help me and I usually get better shots after the break. As you said, if it ain't broke...
I agree chimping on the back of a camera does not compare with seeing the image large on a real monitor. Sometimes my images that look sharp enough on a camera's LCD,are not really acceptable when viewed large and just end up deleted.
You need to begin shooting tethered - with a large 24 or 30 in monitor. That will solve all your problems then. Isn't there a WiFI device for Canon that allows this - seems to me there is one for the 1DsMklll.
Addendum. There is a WiFi transmitter, but only for the 1DsMklll and the 1DMklll. The WFT-E2A. You just need to get a 1DsMklll, John. You know you really want one anyway. Higher ISOs, lower noise, faster frame rate, DigicIII, brighter viewfinder, etc and accepts the WiFi transmitter.
That's what you really want and need, John. You deserve a real professional camera anyway! Or a Nikon D3 - ISO 25600 will help those shots in the dark.
The older WiFi transmitter, the WFT-E1a works with a 1DMkll, a 1DsMkll or a 20D, 30D or a 5D. B&H has them here Cheap too $999.95
Then your lighting assistant can check focus and exposure for you real time!
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Bridge would be more appropriate and far closer to Photo Mechanic (both being browsers) while LR is a database. You could view the Raws hosted by Camera Raw, add metadata, rank etc, then all that would transfer AFTER importing those images into LR back at home base.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
True but this is an uncontrolled situation so what can you do? The toothpaste is out of the tube by now.
Tethered shooting would be appropriate in a studio, controlled situation where in this case, going directly into LR would probably be fine as you're not under the same time crunch.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
I've had a similar need when shooting theatre events too and done something similar with DownloaderPro and Adobe Bridge at intermission. It is calming to me to know that I've seen actual images on the laptop screen and know that all equipment is working. I sometimes even download a few test images from before the show starts just as a pre-check too.
One small idea is to take the card you've been shooting the first part of the performance with and half way to the first intermission, pop a new card into the camera and that first one into a card reader and set it to doing a full download with Lightroom. If you're talking about something like 200 photos and you have a decent card reader/laptop, Lightroom should be able to download and preview most (if not all of the 200 images) by intermission. You won't have the whole set from the intermission, but you should have enough to know everything is working and potentially learn from them and you would have a simpler workflow. Then, later you just continue on with the rest of the card downloads right into Lightroom. Lightroom will generate previews faster if you use the middle setting for preview size, not the 1:1 preview.
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Several possible things to do. Fix/change your focus settings/modes. Raise your shutter speed (at a sacrifice in ISO). Go for more depth of field. Concentrate more on acquiring and tracking accurate focus.
In challenging situations, when I get feedback that focus isn't as good as it needs to be, there are often tradeoffs I can make to prioritize it more. It obviously won't fix the previous photos, but his whole point here is to decide what, if anything, needs to be done differently on the rest of the photos.
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Jonathan
Jonathan Kilgore
Lighting Designer / Photographer
J-N Design Web Site
The older WiFi transmitter, the WFT-E1a works with a 1DMkll, a 1DsMkll or a 20D, 30D or a 5D. B&H has them here Cheap too $999.95 ( I am joking here ) Works well with a Mac also!!
Then your lighting assistant can check focus and exposure for you real time as you continue to work. Without wires!
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These days, I seem to be fighting with dynamic range more than low light per se. There is a dimly lit scene and a dancer in a spot, perhaps wearing something white.
I've totally stopped trusting any kind of automatic metering (at last) and I do seem to be getting more good shots by just doing it manually. I suppose Canon didn't have any ballet shots in the pile when it trained the neural nets for its exposure systems. They work great in most common settings, but not for dramatic theater lighting.
But even when properly exposed and developed from raw, I want much more dynamic range. I suppose this is the real holy grail for the camera manufacturers.
But I digress...
I know I will see several Mkllls in Scotland next week - I know Andy and Marc both shoot with them. I am certain the AF aquisition speed and accuracy of the Mklll will be head and shoulders above the 5D's and this will be a great help in low light shooting. I suspect the noise in the images of either of the 1DsMklll or the 1DMklll are lower than the 5D also. But the noise of the Nikon D3 at ISO 3200 will be even better, and it costs no more than the 1DMklll ( well not an order of magnitude different anyway.)
You can compare noise at high ISO between the D3, the 1 Series and the 5D cameras here
At ISO 3200 and 6400, the D3 wins hands down. If will focus much faster than the 5D also.
It pains me to say this, John, but if I didn't own a full Canon system and were entering the market now, I would probably buy a D3. I still might yet. For a lot of shooters, the differences in images will not be visible, but you are working at the very edges of photography ( high speed sport shooting in the dark so to speak ) where the D3's lower noise and higher ISO performance might really pay off.
You only use a handful of lenses too, so....
I was ready to buy a 1DMklll before all the focusing issues came up - (for me I don't think they really make any difference except in potential resale value) but I put that plan in abeyance.
Since then, I have seen the D3 shot in the dark at ISO 12,000, and ISO 25,600 and printed at 16x 24 inches and they looked very good. Great tungsten color balance also right out of the camera. The D3 is a great handling camera also. Nikon has really uped the ante for Canon, which really needs to respond to Nikon's challenge. The new ( hopefully ) 5D MK II may address some of these issues. I keep my fingers crossed.
As for more dynamic range, Nikon is addressing this also ( as is Canon ) - There is more about dynamic range here
Dpreview suggests that the D3 has about 8 stops of dynamic range that it captures at ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 and ISO 6400. Think what an extra 2 stops of exposure would do for your work.....
A direct comparison of the D3 and the 5D images can be seen here
Hopefully, before the year is out, we will begin to see Canon's response to this new challenge. I will keep my fingers crossed.
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Bridge. If you want to process, it's straightforward to get stuff into LR but
I'd be inclined to use Bridge to do what you want. Andrew's suggesting is
on the money for this.
As for noise. Hmm. I think the D3 is an attractive option for high ISO images
and I agree it is better than the 1ds. BUT, is it that much better? The images
I've seen would lead me to believe it is.
Years and years ago, I had a perl script which did exactly what I wanted, but the window focus rules for X11 changted and I moved to apple anyway, and up to now PM was the closest thing I could find short of writing it myself. Now that I am playing with LR, I have discovered that it does have the right single keystroke model for Pick/Reject. So I was wondering if I could overcome the rest of its problems in this situation.
Maybe Bridge has some compatible mode for Pick/Reject with single keystrokes?
Yup. Command/Control Delete moves the image to the trash. Of you can make your own set of labels (call one Reject) and just use that if you only want to tag them as such but not actually delete them.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
I was reluctant to try it. I'm glad I did. It's actually useful.
Not quite what I'm looking for. I want a single keystroke to both mark and advance to the next image (full screen). I want to be able to go back easily if I find one I like better. Really LR is good this way.
Bridge isn't quite as elegant as Lightroom in this regard, but you can simulate it. You can set up keystrokes for labels and make one of the labels be pick and one be reject. Then, in the filter panel in Bridge, just show the image with no label (just click on the "No Label" item) as soon as you have any labels. Then, whenever you assign a label, either the pick or reject label, that images will disappear from view and you will advance to the next image. Want to go back? You can either hit Undo to go back just one or you can just click on the pick label or the reject label and unclick the no label to see just the sets of images you want. You can configure Bridge so that a label is assigned with only a single number (like pressing the "6" key). I'm not arguing that Bridge is as good at this as LR, but it can be made to work pretty much as efficientlyfor this, the configuration just isn't quite as elegant.
Though I've committed all my RAW images to LR, I still use Bridge (often for directories of exported JPEGs) because it's single directory filtering is quicker than LR and sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to just click on the directory in Bridge rather than import into LR for a quick job that doesn't need to be in my DAM.
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Thanks, John. What's amazing is how hard it is to get back to what my simple old perl script on linux used to do for this simple task.
I hated Bridge in CS2, but the CS3 version is vastly improved.
My method is the same as jfriend's above:
1) Move all pics to a cull folder
2) Give a rating to the first pic. (ctl-1, 2...5) I use 1 for reject, 2 for maybe and 3 for keeper
3) Set the filter to No Rating (At least one pic needs a rating before rating appears in the filter options)
4) Now you can just go through the thumbs and assign a rating to each pic. As soon as you give a rating, the thumb disappears and the selection moves to the next thumb. So it's essentially a one-click process, though you do need to keep Ctl pressed the whole time.
When I have completed the initial cut, I set the filter to 1, select all and delete all the losers. Then I set the filter to 2 and sort out the maybes, giving the keepers a 3.
There are probably other ways as well, but that one is good enough for me.
HTH.
You can do this in Bridge. Again, you can make your own labels such as "Reject" and pin that to the images with a single key command and I think you can also advance with another just like LR.
But I'm no Bridge fan or expert, I don't use it and agree, earlier versions were pretty piss-poor. What's coming is a vast improvement! That said, I still prefer a database for the work I do (but unlike a browser, there is a speed hit).
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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Right but at least on this end, it trashes the images (unless I'm missing some modifier key). I think the OP wants to just tag the images as rejects but not toss them (yet). A custom label obviously doesn't delete the images.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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Can you please give a bullet list of the advantages of a database for photo libraries? As usual, I'm kind of thick, and haven't really discovered these advantages. Thank you.
Well finding images for one! Or having the ability to build virtual copies for multiple renderings. Or the ability to build collections of images that don't reside anywhere near each other. Its called DAM (Digital Assist Management).
Some folks are fine shoving pictures into a shoe box (same with their papers and other documents). Others file the stuff for ease of retrieval. A database does things like allow you to find all images shot with a certain lens or ISO across folders or even volumes. All this is stored in a database (what in terms of Lightroom calls a Library).
I'd suggest you get "The DAM book" by Peter Krogh. http://www.thedambook.com/
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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