It's been nice ... but I think we're through!

[FrankS]

HI Keith, perhaps learning to use "layers" effectively in Photoshop (I do not/can not) may be your answer to handle the dynamic range.

[HuubL]

Originally Posted by FrankS

HI Keith, perhaps learning to use "layers" effectively in Photoshop (I do not/can not) may be your answer to handle the dynamic range.

Good HDR (if there is such a thing ) requires multiple exposures of the same scene. I don't see how that could be achieved in an environment that Keith shoots in. There is the possibility to work with differently treated layers of the same image, but the results look very unrealistic and flat.

[JoeV]

I doubt that a new camera will solve Keith's problem with this particular shoot. He can always rent a camera to find out, though. I would suggest exposing for the monitors and use fill flash in this situation, to give enough extra light so as to see the people. At the slow shutter speeds you're using in this situation flash sync should not be a problem with the M8.

Sometimes it's not the camera that's at fault, it's just rubbing up against the laws of physics. You need more light on the subject.

~Joe

[P. Lynn Miller]

This badly represents what I think Keith is trying to achieve...



Now before everyone brings the house down, this strip of negatives is old Fuji Press 1600 pushed to 6400, shot meter-less(guesstimate) with my Nikon F with a Nikkor 50/1.2(I think) and very badly scanned on a flatbed scanner in low-resolution as contact sheet.

The artworks were back-light transparencies that were very bright and the rest of the room was very dark, like so dark that the official event photographers had to ask to have lights turned up just abit so they could shoot, and they were using D3's.

I did do decent scans of a few of these negatives and the details of the artwork is all there(could not find the scans at the moment). So there is no reason that with fresh color negative film, say unpushed ISO400 or even 800, with good metering and careful scanning cannot easily and comfortably deliver the goods.

[buzzardkid]

Originally Posted by HuubL

Good HDR (if there is such a thing ) requires multiple exposures of the same scene. I don't see how that could be achieved in an environment that Keith shoots in. There is the possibility to work with differently treated layers of the same image, but the results look very unrealistic and flat.

Not HDR is meant but creating layers from a single image. Here's how you proceed: clone the original layer and change it's blending to 'Overlay'. Your image instantly becomes a lot darker and colors get saturated. Now, use the 'opacity'slider to decide how much of the original layer you want to show through. This provides for an easy lighting correction. The slider can be found in the 'Layers' floating menu.

Before I get to this stage, I usually even out the curve to what I need in Lightroom. I find it works far easier there than it does in PS. Next, open the file in PS and perform the above mentioned.

Here's a short from PS showing it:


There's a number of blends you can choose from, and they all have their own advantages at certain raw shots. Remember, you can always reverse the action with Ctrl-Z or multiple actions with Ctrl-Alt-Z

Slightly OT, but important none the less: I have noticed more than once that we all agree film should be developed, but the digital sections on this forum are only for digital printing, scanner software, photo software, but no digi-developing it seems, maybe we should get into that more. Bartender?

[momus1]

I think you've answered your own question. Shoot film. I was at the local Cinco de Mayo festival over the weekend and thought, since I normally only shoot B&W film, I'll just bring the wife's digital for the Flamenco dancers. Boy I wish I hadn't! The pics I got are great, but they look less than ideal because they're digital files. If I had been smart enough to load the R-5 w/ some Fuji Pro color film I would be sitting pretty. And as you know, once the opportunity's gone, it's gone. When you want the very best, shoot film. Yeah, I know, I know. Yada yada digital voodoo humbug. Bull. Just try it. The quality is better.

[buzzardkid]

Originally Posted by P. Lynn Miller

This badly represents what I think Keith is trying to achieve...



Now before everyone brings the house down, this strip of negatives is old Fuji Press 1600 pushed to 6400, shot meter-less(guesstimate) with my Nikon F with a Nikkor 50/1.2(I think) and very badly scanned on a flatbed scanner in low-resolution as contact sheet.

The artworks were back-light transparencies that were very bright and the rest of the room was very dark, like so dark that the official event photographers had to ask to have lights turned up just abit so they could shoot, and they were using D3's.

I did do decent scans of a few of these negatives and the details of the artwork is all there(could not find the scans at the moment). So there is no reason that with fresh color negative film, say unpushed ISO400 or even 800, with good metering and careful scanning cannot easily and comfortably deliver the goods.

Using the technique listed earlier, I have come up with this:

Getting to the right colors is a bit tricky (near impossible) when starting out with an internet JPEG, but there certainly is more detail to be had with the Lightroom-Photoshop approach. Especially with the right hand picture, where there is even the portraits background recorded in the shot, using the appropriate technique brings it back out again.

Keith, you can send me a DNG if you like, I'll love to have a go at it!

[maddoc]

I would use (get) a CV Nokton 35/1.2 and Fuji Neopan Superpresto 1600PR and / or Fuji Natura N1600 for this kind of shooting. Since I don't have that lens I either use my 35/1.4 or 50/1.0 instead. From my experience, film can handle high contrast situations with large dark areas quite well.

[P. Lynn Miller]

Johan,

You are going to force me to break out the scanner tonight... aren't you?

[NathanJD]

The beauty of RAW files is that you can change the exposure after shooting.

Landscape photographers often expose twice in difficult light situations - once for the foreground and once for the sky. RAW allows you to do this with one image by exposing for each and layering the 2 exposures and then using the erase tool to remove the sky/land from the top image revealing the properly exposed section behind it in place.

Such a method should achieve what you're after Keith if you create one image dedicated to the highlights and another to the low light sections of those images - after all - all of these advancements in RAW/digi cams/photoshop are to aid such difficult lighting situations.

also, have you ever used a noise reduction program called noise ninja?

[pphuang]

Perhaps better (marginally) dynamic range, but not full-frame!

You've obviously never shot with an S5Pro

[gavinlg]

Keith,

These were taken in extreme darkness with my 5d and my old 50mm f1.2L. (I sold that lens to an rff member in the US due to money problems, not because I wanted to get rid of it - best 50mm lens I've ever used.)



ISO 3200, f1.2, 1/80th


ISO 1600, f1.2, 1/30th


ISO 3200, f1.2


I've found the 5d to cope extremely well in badly lit areas, especially where there are extremes of lighting. I personally thought the camera handled pictures above pretty amazingly considering they're shot in near darkness with stage lights going off left right and center. I love the look of fuji 1600 films, but for commercial/client commissioned work the 5d spanks film. I would normally let you borrow the 5d to have a play with for a week or so, but I've been using it quite heavily recently and can't really be without it for more than a day.

Keep in mind the d700 is as good or better than the original 5d, just a lot more expensive, and lacking many decent fast AF-s (needed for fast and accurate low light AF) primes

[gavinlg]

Originally Posted by pphuang

You've obviously never shot with an S5Pro

The s5 Pro is pretty amazing with DR at low ISOs, but its lead trails off as the ISOs go up... Also noise characteristics don't match the 5d.

[novum]

[quote=P. Lynn Miller;1047253]This badly represents what I think Keith is trying to achieve...



Forgive me, but I would have focused on those legs, too!

[tom.w.bn]

Originally Posted by fdigital

The s5 Pro is pretty amazing with DR at low ISOs, but its lead trails off as the ISOs go up... Also noise characteristics don't match the 5d.

That's right. The S5 is still a crop camera and can't compete with a 5D regarding high ISO capabilities.

[bobbyrab]

The 5d is much more capable in low light than the M8 without a doubt, but if I'm doing corporate work and someone is making a presentation with a projected screen image, invariably you won't be able to bridge both light levels in one exposure, 5d, M8, or d700, if I expose for the speaker I can recover some of the blown highlights from the projection in lightroom shooting raw, but if the gulf is greater than 3 stops which it generally is, I'll take few key shots exposing for the display and cut and paste onto the other images, it's the simplest most straight forward way to do it and you get the clarity and saturation you need. I usually only need a few of these establishing shots, so it doesn't require a great deal of ps. That said I sold my M8 after a month as the iso capability is just too important to me.

[bobbyrab]

like this.

[jaapv]

I would suggest that the Nokton 35/1.2 is not the optimum lens for this work either. I really like it and am happy to use it, but blown highlights and blocked shadows seem to occur much more easily than on other fast lenses. I would suggest that one of the short Summiluxes would do quite a lot better.

[P. Lynn Miller]

OK... I hate to be the smart-ass in bunch... and say I told you so...





Scanned on a Epson V500 scanner at 6400dpi in 48bitRGB as a raw file, opened in Photoshop CS3, converted to positive with Color-Neg, resized to 4500px on the long side, dust-spotted, apply some curves, color-correction and saturation, brightness and contrast, then resized to 1000px on the long side, ran high pass filter and unsharp mask, converted to 8bit and saved as .jpeg with a quality of 10.

The scans and post-processing is still pretty quick and dirty. And do not forget, this film was sitting my Nikon F for almost six months between the first and last frames. I shot these without a meter, just took a guess and then had the film push-processed 2 stops for an effective ISO6400. So this is far from when can really be done with this film.

So I reckon that Keith's problem is as easily fixed as a trip to his local purveyor of film and picking a few rolls of $8 film... Can a D700/D3/5D deliver better results... I would hope so!

As for the point of focus, well, I got slightly distracted there for abit...

[italy74]

Another vote for D700 if you can:
iso 3200 -1 EV ( = 6400 iso) - 1/180s - F/4.8




Another one, same iso (3200 - 1 EV) - F/2.8 - 1/90s



here's the whole gallery, most of it shot at 3200 -1 EV

http://italy74.smugmug.com/gallery/7545913_5Nvst

To reply to another earlier question from Keith:
when I can I use matrix metering, but in this case, due to the few light and the extreme contrast between light and dark and to get the most favourable times to shoot, I used also spot (ex. aiming at the "priest" face in the second shot or center weighted metering elsewhere, when it was large at least as the central metering area of D700)

[HenningW]

I shoot mostly digital now, with M8's and 5D MkI and II. Each excels in certain areas, and not always where you'd expect but for this type of shooting I'd go with film. Preferably 800 colour negative as that has a longer tonal range than 1600, but in any case not pushed. The problem here is dynamic range, everything else can easily be dealt with. Then do multiple scans and use HDR for negatives with something like Photomatix or DIY in Photoshop. You won't get the detail and colour balance benefits of digital, but you will get better dynamic range.

Henning

[mackigator]

Film can't touch the full frame digi's at high ISO. Just in case anyone was afraid to say it.

I still push film and love to play with low light, funky colors, and all that. But just for fun.

With a D700 or 5D you won't even really need expensive glass - a simple 50mm AF prime will give you more usable shots than it sounds like you are getting from the M8.

[samoksner]

Let me say that i haven't used an m8 but that a Canon 5D at ISO 1600 is pretty damn clean. And with a 28mm f1.8 and a 50mm f1.4, you're set, either that or you can go all out or get a 24mm f1.4 or a 35mm f1.4. I know someone has posted images from a 5D at 3200 and as you can see, it's quite clean. More then that though, the 5D is known to take post processing particularly well, I'm sure you can rent one and a 35mm f1.4 for a night for not too much and get an idea of what you can expect.

What you're trying to shoot is a real pain, and without spending way too much for a 5D MkII or a D700, this is your best option.

[pphuang]

Originally Posted by fdigital

The s5 Pro is pretty amazing with DR at low ISOs, but its lead trails off as the ISOs go up... Also noise characteristics don't match the 5d.

Yes, that's true, although its DR still remains a few stops better than the 5D at higher ISOs. But definitely more noise...

[italy74]

mine was a D700 and a 3200 working AS 6400