I love my nifty fifty! (also some C&C)

Spent the evening meeting a band who want some promotional stuff done. Ended up staying on to watch them practice and since I had brought the camera, I took some shots. I used my 50mm for the first time and my god! its amazing!! none of the shots from the sigma came out at all. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bayesian/sets/72157621278655859/ is the set, I've put up a couple of images. The aim of the shoot was just to get some filler for their website, facebook etc. All C&C welcome, and any advice would be appreciated as well. I found the whole thing quite tricky as in no way was I directing anything that was going on around me.

Tallon

I think they're a bit too grainy, maybe mess around with different ISO's

Anything under 1600 was coming out black, there was a fluorescent bulb recessed in the back of the room and two small spots at the front.
The way the room was set up they had to stand in the middle.

Tallon

Maybe a flash in that case. Are you shooting RAW?

No flash allowed - they were practicing.

Nope, jpegs only. I still haven't come to grips with how to process raw

Tallon

They need to practice being shot with flashes

I don't use RAW often but in that case I would have, its worth your while even watching a couple of youtube videos or getting someone to show you the things the LightRoom can do
(You won't regret it)

I know, its on my to-do list, but I only have gimp and I haven't yet gotten the hang of the UFR plugin.

Room was very cramped, flash would have been only a foot or so from their faces and they weren't that comfortable with me there.

Was good experience (for me!) though, first time I've done that kind of thing.

Tallon

Small rooms can be a bit overwhelming for sonone on the other end of the camera, but at the same time don't be afraid to get in somones face.
Emotion, close up, especially from gigs, can make for amazing shots

Tallon

Tallon wrote: »

Small rooms can be a bit overwhelming for sonone on the other end of the camera, but at the same time don't be afraid to get in somones face.
Emotion, close up, especially from gigs, can make for amazing shots

Yeah, I'm meeting them again in a week or so to do some group shots. That should be more manageable as it will be in a nicer setting although again, it will be a first time.

Apart from the graininess, any major errors / mistakes in those pictures?

32finn

i think if they are looking for pics for there site they need 2 get over the whole flash thing if they want good pics. use a diffuser on the flash or bounce it off the ceiling with the bounce card out, mite help a bit with the likes of the shadows in pic 4 above.
i like pics 1 and four tho, catching the lads in the moment

I only have built in flash! I can pull up the levels on the images, they look fine on full screen, but seem to have gotten darker when either scaled down or loaded to flickr.

Any recommendations for a flash? I know nothing about how they work or what brands are good etc.

daycent

Why are so many people so terrified of shooting RAW I don't get it. There is no comparison between RAW and jpeg, it's like day and night.

Anyway, rant aside I kike the shots, although seem a bit underexposed and maybe need a bit more contrast.

daycent

daycent wrote: »

Why are so many people so terrified of shooting RAW I don't get it. There is no comparison between RAW and jpeg, it's like day and night.

Anyway, rant aside I kike the shots, although seem a bit underexposed and maybe need a bit more contrast.

I can't get the RAW to look anyway decent after I shoot it. It usually ends up purple or green or something.

Tallon

Deleted User wrote: »

Apart from the graininess, any major errors / mistakes in those pictures?

Keep an eye on your DOF

Deleted User wrote: »

Any recommendations for a flash? I know nothing about how they work or what brands are good etc.

What cemera do you use? Plenty of flashes out there and a few on adverts too

32finn

well thats that idea out the window so, doh!

when saving your images are you sizing them for the web also? what rez are you saving them at?

500d,

yep, those are very low res images. Scaled down from 4500 to 800

32finn

im sure someone here will have the ans for ye, some tech wizards on here and they can ans anything

daycent

Deleted User wrote: »

I can't get the RAW to look anyway decent after I shoot it. It usually ends up purple or green or something.

Strange one. Sounds like GIMP isn't properly recognising raw for some reason. Have you tried using Picassa 3? A free one that works with raw without the need for fiddling with plugins etc.

Seriously though, Lightroom 2 is the way to go. Can't say enough good things about it. Takes a while to get used to but it's worth it. And works perfectly with raw. There's a free 30 day trial available from Adobe.

Lightroom doesn't work for Ubuntu.

SaturnV

I have to say, I do quite like the "grain"; although I did like shooting delta 3200 pushed a few stops, so I'm not neutral when it comes to grain (although digital noise =/= grain, but I'll save you the exposure to that rant).

Someone suggested that more contrast was needed, and I'd second that, although it can be hard in low light. The only other suggestion I have is about composition. Take your second last image for example. It's not the best pose, but you have limited control of that. However, two things work well about it. The light is good (if he was turned in more it would be better, but you have limited control over this), and the background is simple and not distracting. Looking in the photo above that, by contrast, the background has more contrast than the foreground; there a solid blocks of tone in the background that, because of their graphic quality, compete with the subject.

If you want a photo with punch and impact and immediacy, a clear simple background leaves the viewer in no doubt as to what to look at. Obviouslt this falls into the category of "something to try" rather than "this is a rule for these photos". And it's not always the "best" photo, but it might be the most effective for a certain purpose.

My preference would be to stay without a flash, but you need to hunt around more for the available light; my all time favorite "band photo" is the cover of London Calling, and you don't do that with a flash! The light is clearly there; you can see it in some of your photos. Try get more light around the eyes; it has a dramatic effect with this relatively close up telephoto framing. Move around as much as you can and make sure you understand how the light is interacting with your subjects. Ideally, you want to know the light so well that you don't really have to think about it, and you can spend the time trying to capture exactly the right fleeting moment of your subjects.

Good luck!

gary82

OP could you send me an original of your choice and let me play with the levels, see if I could bring it up a bit? Brought up one of those shots there, but as they're only small preview shots there's a lot of detail lost already!

Morrisseeee

I recently tried to work with GIMP in Ubuntu (8.04) and the plugin I used was : gimp-dcraw_1.29-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb (note: amd64 because I have an AMD dual-core PC). I found it hard to work with compared to the RAW plugins for either Lightroom or CS3. Have you tried the WINE emulator in Ubuntu, it lets you run Windose programs in Linux.
Also what aperture were you using?

I can't get the RAW to look anyway decent after I shoot it. It usually ends up purple or green or something

I'd say you are messing with the wrong sliders/options. Main ones I'd use are highlights,shadows,contrast, fill light etc. Make sure your white balance is OK too.

Crispin

Morrisseeee wrote: »

Make sure your white balance is OK too.

+ 1, you need to set white balance in PP with raw shots. I'd say thats why your getting purple/green tinge to the images

Morrisseeee

Morrisseeee wrote: »

I recently tried to work with GIMP in Ubuntu (8.04) and the plugin I used was : gimp-dcraw_1.29-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb (note: amd64 because I have an AMD dual-core PC). I found it hard to work with compared to the RAW plugins for either Lightroom or CS3. Have you tried the WINE emulator in Ubuntu, it lets you run Windose programs in Linux.
Also what aperture were you using?

I'd say you are messing with the wrong sliders/options. Main ones I'd use are highlights,shadows,contrast, fill light etc. Make sure your white balance is OK too.

UFR (Unidentified Flying RAW) seems to be the interwebs choice.
Its worked well on some of the shots I took in Singapore, however its also totally messed up other shots. I'll spend a bit more time on it I guess.

Morrisseeee

however its also totally messed up other shots

It shouldn't MESS up your shots, unless A) you are doing something wierd with the settings/options, or there's something majorily wrong with the image in the 1st place. RAW editor should be your friend not your enemy !

AnCatDubh

I actually love the Gimp (sounds soooo wrong I know ) - UFRAW is a bit more tricky so I tend to do raw conversions in silkypix and work on the JPEG whengoing to the GIMP but I must spend more time at UFRAW to be honest.

I like these photos generally and will later give them another look and post more.

One thing perhaps you could answer in advance - how did you do your black and white conversion and what style were your trying to go for?

Thanks.

AnCatDubh

AnCatDubh wrote: »

One thing perhaps you could answer in advance - how did you do your black and white conversion and what style were your trying to go for?

I did the B&W as monochrome on the camera, as the desaturate in GIMP never turns out that well.

No real style tbh, just trying to get filler shots. I like the grain, but I think the lads lacked the emotion needed to pull that kind of image off.

Trev M

I agree, ya gotta have some real emotion to work with heheh...:D

Anouilh

Deleted User wrote: »

I did the B&W as monochrome on the camera, as the desaturate in GIMP never turns out that well.

I once tried the GIMP. It nearly killed me and is aptly named after Tarantino's monster.

Thanks for sharing your tip about in-camera mono.
It is so smooth.

Also, I seem to have no problems with RAW, but that's because I'm using the Canon software.

This might help.

http://www.dpmag.com/how-to/image-processing/how-to-process-a-raw-file.html

AnCatDubh

Excellent focus in #1 and #2

#1 interesting angle. I'm not altogether gone on it (the angle), but its ok. Appears rather dark on my screen and little in terms of contrast. I like the way you caught the light on the guys forehead actually. nice sharpness, nice bokeh and dof.

#2 low in contrast - personally I prefer higher contrasts but accept that you may have been looking for this style (why I asked earlier). The crop is too tight in this instance (and only IMHO). A more classic approach would have seen the crop a little lower - not particularly much but a little.

#3 I think is weaker than the previous but is is obviously a bit softer than the others. The background and foreground are similar in 'greyness'. Again just a personal preference but I think it would work better with a more distinct contrast.

#4 IMO this is the weakest of the set - due to the top and tail job done with the cropping of the chaps head. Microphone's are the bane of the photographers life and it just looks odd here - if it must be there then caught a little away from the mouth would work better.

I asked earlier about the b/w conversion. The Gimp does a wonderful deconstruction of an image into channels of a particular colour model (RGB) to give layers or individual images to select the most appropriate b/w. In the Gimp (v2.6.4), go to Colours->Components->Decompose. I tend to uncheck the "Decompose to layers" and it will give you 3 new images called red, green, and blue, and representing the decomposition of the image to b/w along those channels. My personal experience and preference (but that's all it is) usually for people shots, is to select the componet->decompose with the resulting red channel. Other types of scenes you will find will work better with different channels. The Blue channel in particular tends to give a dark and overly harsh rendition of such images so I tend to avoid it for portraits or candids.

You reminded me of something that happened recently. I did a nights shooting - setting the camera to a wonderful (I thought) b/w high contrast channel decomposition to b/w. I was very pleased with myself. I uploaded the images and opened them in silkypix which duly converted them all back to colour default settings for me I swore loudly.

I like that you went without flash and bumped the ISO. In your set I like the grain. I find the set overall lacking in contrast - too grey, but this may have been something you were after so don't mind me on it

Cheers for that.

We are meeting again and getting group shots near a castle, a bus stop and a poker match. Should be an interesting day anyway..

I will prob need extra battery for this? Given I will be shooting for an afternooon / evening I guess..