noisy + odd colouration

[mintae]

whenever taken indoors, my picture has this orange overcast. =( is it the who flouresence/tungsten/what lighting thing? but im just using kodak 400. =S

ohhhhh. and how do you cure photo graininess? what you call noise. using 200 or 100 or?

plus, what can i do to lower the spots from intense light (skylights, brightlights) in an otherwise nightshot? eg. taking the fullerton and merlion and waterfront from esplanade bay.

thankyou!

[sammy888]

Quote: whenever taken indoors, my picture has this orange overcast. =( is it the who flouresence/tungsten/what lighting thing? but im just using kodak 400. =S

Those kind of discoloration is usually the case when you shoot scene where artificial ligthing are your main illumination. With some 35mm film like Fuji Superior, they have a more tolerant colour dye to resist Florecent lighting but some greenish will still come out of it if it is too powerful. So if you see abit of green tint in your picture, it is due to florecent lighting. There are correctional filters you can use over your lens to minimise this effect. For the orange like tint that is due to shooting in place where they use tungsten bulb, you need a cooler filter to bring that temperature down or a slide that is called tungsten film( film with a blue bias). They are some tungsten filters you can use (blue colour) over your lens to cool down the warmth of the bulb. Problem is at times you might be shooting in a room which has bulb and florecent lighting. In those cases you just have to take the shot as best as you can or mask it with some other colour cast. You just have to think abit more creative at time to over come them.

A way to minimise this colour cast would be to use a flash. Instead of a direct flash, try bouncing it against a ceiling to soften the lighting and also keep the other colour tints low so as not to effect your shot. Colour cast problem can happen with iso 100 or 400 although maybe it gets abit more intense with more sensitive film. Sometime, it also depends on what type or brand of film/slides you use. Some are more tolerant then others in suppressing unwated tint colors. To know which is better at it, you will need to read up on it or buy a book on films. I have one but it is rather dated by now. But you should be able to find this book in some photo shop or book store even.

Quote: ohhhhh. and how do you cure photo graininess? what you call noise. using 200 or 100 or?

Film grains will get more and more coarse as you use faster and faster film. The best grain would be the ASA 64 and as you go up to 400 it starts to really get more obvious. Again this depend on what brand you buy. By the time you get to 1000 or more, even at 3R size those grain would be very obvious. Again not all grains are bad. It depends on how you creatively use it to your advantage in the picture you shoot. Want to cure it? Simple use as slow a film as you can and trying to shot in as bright a place as you can so you dont have to rely too much on long exposure. In any case even if you did use say ASA 100 for night shot, those "bad" grain will not be as bad as those from faster film. That should help you alot to keep the grain low. Grains are part and parcel of film. When you under expose it too much and the photolab try to lighten it up abit for you, those grains will start to appear also. Now that does not mean you give up night shoot too lah! heheh. Sometime it is about balance...using a slow film in a dim lit room. Somethings have to be compromise in such situation. Either you use more flash for your shots or you use a faster but grainer film ..etc.

Quote: plus, what can i do to lower the spots from intense light (skylights, brightlights) in an otherwise nightshot? eg. taking the fullerton and merlion and waterfront from esplanade bay.

I believe you are talking about long exposure photography. I hope you are not using ASA 400 for night shooting heheh. You dont need that fast a film for night photography if it was up to me. That will really give you more grains for sure apart from over burnt light spots. The burned out white spots of street lights..etc are because you use long exposure time or have gone on buld mode to take very long exposure shots. So those bright light spots burn out the negative/slide alot faster and more intensely then those darken areas of a builiding for example. So how do you avoid that? Expose the shot for a shorter period of time. The longer the timing, the worst the burn will be on your film. And also there is a need to use the right type of film for shooting too. Some film has a wider latitude of exposure then some films meaning they have more tolerant for capturing as much of the darker areas as well as still be able to withstand the intense bright road lamps, building spotlights..etc. But that is still not always possible to solving the problem. So you need to compromise on how much details you want to capture of that night scene. You can try next time to take a few shots at difference shutter setting while using say a constant f-stop setting of f8. This is good to learn what kind of result you get for the type of film you normally use for shooting. Bracketing your shots like this is good for 35mm shooters since you can not get to see the result on the spot like a digital camera. you need to go to the lab to wash your film in order to view them so that is like a few days later. And because you shot on film, use a pen and paper to take note of your shooting exposure and other data to refer to later one when looking at the pictures.

This was how I learn to improve my "guess-timation" ability to aid my night photography after I have gotten a better understanding of how film works for night shooting. Just remember this, the more longer the exposure you set to shoot so you can get as much details out of all those very dark areas of the pictures, the worst burn you will get with areas that are well lit or are very bright. You have to find out where that balance should be. Sometimes, you just have to settle for abit less details in order to keep the bright lit areas from over exposing. The other way is to go shoot the scene abit earlier in the evening where the sun has just set with just a bit of after glow..that way, you still have abit of the sky lighting up the shot of the scene you are capturing. Also to some extend better quality lens also help to control over burn shoots too as light dispersion is minimum.

Hope that helps...been along time since I touch "film" heheheh.....

[mintae]

how to fix the burns? not possible to photoshop away either maybe?

[sammy888]

You can't "fix" all the burns. A burn or what I call a white-out area in a picture like yours (illumination under the tree line) does not contain any detail information. The more over exposured a picture is shot the less detail it will contain so there is less chance of saving the image that is over exposured.

Having said that...but sometime, if you are good with a graphic editing software like Photoshop, you can sometime "repair" it. That would usually mean cloning the surround scene over the glow or aura of the lamps if the white area is just a plain colour background or you can easily draw freehand to mimic the background scene ove the burnout. Looking at your picture, I think you left the overall exposure a bit too long. I guess you were trying to bring out more details of the building at the back but doing so you also allow the bright lights from the lampposts in the foreground to burn out. And I think the picture is alittle blur so that made the burn worst. Shooting alittle earlier in the evening would have helped you balance out the exposure abit more.

Sometimes, when you have a more "uniform" roll of lightings that separates itself from another portion that is alot darker and you want to use a long exposure. You can also use a GRADUAL Neutral Density filter to restrict the bright roll of lighting from over power the darker portion. For example your picture where you have a roll of lamp post at the bottom of the tree line. You could have save yourself some work by using a gradual neutral density filter in reverse ( meaning the darking part at the bottom part of the whole scene.) That way, you can in a way restrict the intense light from the lamp post from over burning in to the shot while still allowing enough light from those building at the top part of the scene to hit your film and register a brighter image and bring out more details. That is another trick you can use.

Before shot:



After Edit shot:


As I mentioned earlier, to save that skyline shot firther, you can try using photoshop and hand touch up the shot abit. It is quite possible to save some parts of it since the background of those burnout lamp are trees. So some cloning should take care of it. But as this picture is so small the touch up I did to it is minimum. The larger the picture size the more complicated it gets to touch up by hand via Photoshop. So easier to get it right first time when you are shooting is preferred. If you shot this scene with a shorter exposure, the burn out will be alot smaller. I darken your overall picture alittle which as you see is fine. You don't need to "soak" as much light from the building to get as much details from them by using a longer exposure. Sometime, a little less is better then alittle too much.

The lamp post lights are all warm so you get a bit of an orange glow or aura. You can use a cooler (blue tint) filter to cut down the orange tint but then you will also change the light temperature of the buildings near by too. So it is as I mentioned about "balance". I would personally just leave it lah. Some variation in ambient lights adds "flavour" to the scene.

To edit your picture, I clone and touch up the lamp post lights to get rid of the aura. I could have totally erase all the lamp light away but then it will look "funny" as to how the trees are iluminated without any sign of some bright lamp lights. So I just erase and blend away the orange glow aura. It is a quick touch up but I hope you get what I mean by it.

[pRoLoS3r]

for Sammy888

I learnt much from ur explaination too.
Your explainations are always detailed and understandable.... THanks alot