Post processing on a shoot

fret_wimp2

Ive just come back from doing some photography for a family event. Im not a pro so i made plenty of mistakes, learned lots and had a good time in the process.

Most of what i took were portraits of people in conversation, with interesting expressions, standard stuff you take at a party/event.

During post processing i noticed i was doing 2 things on pretty much all photos:

1. making a blurred background layer to make subjects look even sharper.
2. making a super sharp layer to "paint" in the sharper eyes.

I was mostly using a canon 50mm set to F1.4, and a canon 24-28 set at F2.8, two lenses with a super shallow DOF.

So im wondering

1. are my post processing steps are normal
or
2. should i be getting closer to my subjects (or doing something different) to get much more bokeh in the background to make the subjects really stand out? ( not always possible with 50mm)

Thanks!

Zillah

There are no normal post processing steps. You do whatever you need to to be happy with an image. At 50mm (even if it's full frame) and 1.4 I'd imagine you should be getting a strongly blurred background, assuming it is far enough away. Though generally 70mm+ is a "portrait lens" - longer focal length gives a more shallow depth of field. Technically bokeh refers to the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus areas, you wouldn't really say "more" bokeh, you'd say good/nice or bad/ugly bokeh. Just a nit-pick

Some examples would help the discussion. You could be over-cooking them but we wouldn't know without seeing.

ScumLord

Getting too close will distort the image as you'll start to get a mild fisheye effect. You also won't get your natural expressions if you have a camera stuck in their faces.

I wouldn't be too caught up in getting nice bokeh in every shot either, the story of the night and recording the happenings of the night won't always lend itself to nice close ups. Sometimes it's better to record what happened without making it look like an artistic shot.

fret_wimp2

Thanks folks.

Personally I dont think they are overbaked, as thats one thing that i really really hate when i look at other peoples images, but if you think they are, let me know as id like to sort that.

Ive uploaded most of the images i took to this set on flickr for critique. i could post them here but easier and less cluttered to just give a link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schmintan/sets/72157633159431162/show/

They look a little soft on flickr, but i find flickr does that, on my pc they look much sharper.

Zillah

I think they look fine

You're getting a nice shallow depth of field (whether enhanced or from the camera), but in most of those the background isn't very far away from your subject, there's only so much you can do. I'd be very happy with the contrast between subject and background at that distance.

fret_wimp2

Zillah wrote: »

I think they look fine

You're getting a nice shallow depth of field (whether enhanced or from the camera), but in most of those the background isn't very far away from your subject, there's only so much you can do. I'd be very happy with the contrast between subject and background at that distance.

Thanks Zillah. Yea, im happy with them myself. I did blur the background a little on most of them, just to make the subject really "pop" and give that almost 3d look. Was just wondering if was doing something wrong, if i should have been getting most of this in camera.

Zillah

One thing to consider is that the "pop" super-sharp effect requires a closed down aperture, as 1.4, or 1.8 and even 2.8 are going to be softer on any lens. Ideally get down to F8 for best sharpness, but then you start losing your depth of field, so you need a background that is further away and a longer lens to amplify the shallowness of the depth of field. Also to consider is that most of those shots look like they were in slightly dark locations, which means slower shutter, which reduces sharpness, and/or higher ISO which, you guessed it, reduces sharpness. There's no EXIF on your flickr shots so I can't be sure.

You'd really want a portrait lens and a flash/ample lighting for a proper pop effect. Take someone out to a big park on a lightly overcast day with distant greenery behind them and shoot them at F5.6 or so and you'll see a pop.

EDIT: Or shoot large format! The bigger the sensor/film, the more exaggerated the shallowness of the depth of field. If you're not on full frame, as opposed to the more common APS-C sensor size, you'll not get the same depth of field.

bobblehat

Hey man, photos look pretty good, I work weddings and social events alot and mostly use an external flash bounced off the ceiling, looks like your using direct flash from the camera, although they look really well bouncing the light give a nice balanced and diffused light in the sort of pictures you took.
Also a good way to add sharpness is to use the burn tool (only around 3 or 4 %) around the lines of the eyes ect and dodge at maybe 15/20 on the whites of eyes and teeth.

ScumLord

The photos look good if maybe not that sharp. As you're adding background blur in photoshop anyway is there any need to be so intent on getting the depth of field on the day? If you're losing sharpness because of the settings you could go for sharpness on the day and do your blur in post.

There's a great lens blur filter in photoshop where you can use a mask to generate a depth of field blur effect. I don't know if you've used it but it's a cool (if time consuming) way of adding dof.

ImagenEstilo

Photos seem pretty fine to me. I'm sure they look a lot sharper in their original form. In terms of out of focus areas, why would you alter the out of focus areas in post for the 50mm images? Is it a full frame camera you've got? I can understand mabe for the smaller focal length lens photos as you will not get the same shallow depth of field but you would have reasonable DOF with the 50 I would have thought. How OOF do you actually want your backgrounds.

In terms of increasing your aperture to 5.6 and above, I would tend not to do this for multiple reasons. Also, lens sharpness will increase with aperture up to your diffraction limit of your lens but that does not mean to say f/2.8 is far less sharp than f/8. The purists will say f/8 is sharper and it probably is but you should be able to take pin sharp photos of the subject that is on your focus plane at f/2 on your 50 and f/2.8 without a shadow of a doubt on the wider angle lens. This business of stopping down for max sharpness to me is just nonsense when photographing people. If photographing a non moving landscape fair enough, but not with people. With people you need quick shutter speeds and smaller apertures will not give you that.

I can take crisp plane of focus images with my 70-200 at 135 and f/2.8 without an issue. I can do the same with my 85 1.4 at about f/2 and these are crispy crisp sharp. You have a wide aperture lens so use it, just dont use the 50 at 1.4 (even 1.8) as it may come out a touch soft or be less reliable in capturing super crisp images every time. With the wide angle there is less risk there.

Fair play to you for going those extra lengths on the post processing. I would regard it as excessive but that is my own personal style. In your case it was a cramped enough area and getting nice out of focus subject separation with good bokeh is a lot tougher and with the wide angle lens, close to impossible in-camera. I think it was a job well done. I like your mirror photo (2nd one I think), I tend to go for images similar enough.

fret_wimp2

Thanks guys.

Yea, it's a canon 5dmk2.
It has a canon 430ex2 with a diffuser for most of the shots
I couldn't stop it down anymore as even with the flash I was still getting pretty slow shutter speeds causing a lot of motion blur. I'm going to expirement next time to see how far I can get away with without increasing iso too much.

I have a bit of an obsession with getting more and more of the final image correct in camera, it shows good control of the camera and good knowledge and application of that knowledge, instead of what I used to do which was take hundreds of "snaps" and hope to get lucky with a few.

And I have got to get out of the habit of using the 50mm at 1.4 all the time. It's just so addictive on that little lens! I'd be dangerous with the 1.2 version, but prob with much less sharp photos!

Interesting idea of using burn to get better perceived sharpness, never thought of that, very creative.


Some of you guys mention you do events, so your pro or at least not far off it. Generally at a wedding or event, what is your normal ratio of what you call good images to ones you probably wouldn't give to a customer?

ImagenEstilo

Hi Fret,

Flash exposure and shutter speed have no relation, they are completely independent of each other once you are operating under your max flash sync speed. If in TTL then only FEC will alter your flash exposure.

That 430 is a TTL flash so if you are setting your ISO to say 2000 for the 5DMkII then I would expect perfectly usable images even without noise reduction. Stopping down your aperture will just make your flash work harder and make your photos have less ambient light. Setting an upper limit on ISO and a lower limit for shutter speed gives you a range of apertures to work with and your flash will automatically respond in terms of output as you open/close your aperture.

I wouldn't use the 50 at less than 1.8. I'm speaking as a Nikon 1.4G user and it is certainly softer than my 85 1.4 Nikon at 1.4. Just aint as sharp and I would just not use it under 1.8. I believe the Canon version is a lot better though.

Dave