practice wedding photos

System · March 18, 2006

couple days ago went to my brother and sister-in-law's wedding chapel and took some practice shots-
this first one was indoors with available light and iso at 1600-
felt like I maybe got the teeth and eyes too white-
c&c most welcome-

george

System · March 18, 2006

this one was outside the chapel as the bride and dad were waiting to go in-

erich6 · March 18, 2006

George,

The eyes and teeth look OK to me. I think the pictures are pretty good as is although I would try to bump up the exposure around the face on both shots (you can do this with masking in Photoshop) particularly on the second one.

The first one could be improved if you stepped back or zoomed out a bit and framed a little lower.

Erich

System · March 19, 2006

erich-

thanks much-

george

photocat · March 19, 2006

Is there post processing? Probably...

I ask because I often get a LOT of noise the minute I crank up the ISO.
It is in fact so bad that I lately find the 1600 ISO function useless.
How come your pic does not have noise? (I know about noise ninja, but even that is not enough to counter the noise I have).
I do Raw...

System · March 19, 2006

photocat-

reckon a 5d helps?-

and good lens to boot-

I do neither justice-

thanks for responding-

here is the original raw (converted to jpeg)-

george

photocat · March 19, 2006

gefillmore wrote:

photocat-

reckon a 5d helps?-

Only partly... I suppose that the camera is only one of the means to get good shots. It is the photographer making the shots.
I must be doing something wrong in raw, for having that much noise...
Sigh, and there is no way I can afford a canon... They all cost double of the Nikons. (Besides I do like Nikon, it is a sturday camera, it is only the noise that bugs me)
I wonder though if I would shoot with a canon, if I would have less noise...
I wished one of the talented guru's we have here would give us some classes about noise and how you create or avoid it... Where is Shay when you need him...

Fred W · March 19, 2006

Hi George,

I like pic#1 the best. For pic#2, I would consider cropping out a little of the bottom edge to reduce the amount of the black jacket showing but still include the flowers. Nice shots.

Fred

System · March 19, 2006

photocat-

wish I could help-

maybe start a thread on noise in technique and maybe someone will mention something that will help-

fred-

thanks much for the comments-

george

wxwax · March 19, 2006

photocat wrote:

gefillmore wrote:

photocat-

reckon a 5d helps?-

Only partly... I suppose that the camera is only one of the means to get good shots. It is the photographer making the shots.
I must be doing something wrong in raw, for having that much noise...
Sigh, and there is no way I can afford a canon... They all cost double of the Nikons. (Besides I do like Nikon, it is a sturday camera, it is only the noise that bugs me)
I wonder though if I would shoot with a canon, if I would have less noise...
I wished one of the talented guru's we have here would give us some classes about noise and how you create or avoid it... Where is Shay when you need him...

Cat, your profile doesn't mention what camera you use.

The absolute best way to minimize noise at high ISO is to get the exposure right, in camera. As soon as you start messing with the exposure level in RAW, you start adding copious amounts of noise to a high ISO shot. BTDT.

wxwax · March 19, 2006

George, nice work. The first one's very muted, looks good if that's what you're going for. I agree with Erich, you could add some light to her face, most especially in the second one. Lots of ways to do that, if you want.

photocat · March 19, 2006

wxwax wrote:

photocat wrote:

Cat, your profile doesn't mention what camera you use.

The absolute best way to minimize noise at high ISO is to get the exposure right, in camera. As soon as you start messing with the exposure level in RAW, you start adding copious amounts of noise to a high ISO shot. BTDT.

sorry!!! I use a Nikon D70. I must add that I systematically underexposed a stop because I was afraid of blown out highlights. ( I am talking San Francisko... I forgot I had put the camera on 1600 to do some indoor shots, and left it there). Together with the under exposure, I take it that this is the big evil doer?
So if I expose correctly, I should not have that much noise?

wxwax · March 19, 2006

photocat wrote:

wxwax wrote:

sorry!!! I use a Nikon D70. I must add that I systematically underexposed a stop because I was afraid of blown out highlights. ( I am talking San Francisko... I forgot I had put the camera on 1600 to do some indoor shots, and left it there). Together with the under exposure, I take it that this is the big evil doer?
So if I expose correctly, I should not have that much noise?

Basically, yeah, especially at ISO 1600. Know what you mean about forgetting your ISO, BTDT. At 1600, even a slight adjustment of the expsoure in RAW will add noise. Going up a full stop will add tons of it.

Tough deal with protecting the highlights. I reckon that's a situation where you just have to make up your mind if they need to be protected or not.

System · March 19, 2006

Sid-

thanks for the comments-

george

System · March 19, 2006

cat-

re highlights and long exposures and high iso-

you might know this, but if you're doing long exposures with your tripod and you're concerned about highlights, measure exp time for the highlights, measure exp time for the shadows, take two with the same aperture at the two exp times, layer your shadows on top of the highlight shot and use the erasure tool to uncover the properly exposed highlights-

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=29727

george

photocat · March 19, 2006

gefillmore wrote:

cat-

re highlights and long exposures and high iso-

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=29727

george

Thanks George, my problem is that I mostly shoot on the run... When I travel, I don't take a tripod because I have to log it around on planes and in cars, and I have luggage enough as it is already. On top of that one, I like to shoot hand held, I tend to go more to the journalistic/documenting approach of photography than the art side. (It would also have been bad to hang on the outside of the trolley in SF, and holding a tripod...)
I like to document what I see, and it usually has to go fast. So it is bit of a bummer that noise ruins the pics, but I hear ya guys, I will stop (have stopped actually) underexposing frantically.
I am depressed sometimes because my pics come out wrong just because my technical knowledge is not good enough... sigh

david_h · March 19, 2006

gefillmore wrote:

couple days ago went to my brother and sister-in-law's wedding chapel and took some practice shots-
this first one was indoors with available light and iso at 1600-
felt like I maybe got the teeth and eyes too white-
c&c most welcome-

george

Nice job George. I especially like the first one, a very good bridal portrait.

I use Nikon equipment to shoot wedding as well - a couple of D2H and a D70 - so I've been battling the noise issue for a while.

Some of the other folk have already mentioned that the key to taming the noise is to get the exposure pretty close. I find that underexposing causes all kinds of problems in the darker areas of the shot. I also make a point of keeping the ISO as low as possible, but of course I forget sometimes, especially when using the D70 with no ISO setting display.

The software you use for your RAW conversions can make a difference as well. For example, I'd pretty much stopped using Bibble, but their latest version has Noise Ninja built in. From the limited testing I've done, applying the noise reduction at the RAW level can give very nice results.

colourbox · March 19, 2006

photocat wrote:

sorry!!! I use a Nikon D70. I must add that I systematically underexposed a stop because I was afraid of blown out highlights.

That could certainly contribute to the problem. From what I have been reading, underexposing digital is a no-no and leads to more noise. Because the sensor is linear but f/stops are not, if you underexpose by a stop, up to half of your tonal levels go unused, and in addition, you put more of the image in a noiser range of the bits.

The recommendation is to expose as high as possible without blowing highlights. Note that your camera histogram is probably conservative and what looks blown out on it may not be blown out in the actual raw file.

The concept is explained in this article (Expose Right), and also in Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw book.

practice wedding photos

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