Nosie and shutter

[ohok1973]

Dear seniors,

I always need to take photos for event with ppl walking around.

i need to use quick shutter, the pics are dark so i up the iso to 1600 and realized that KX is not forgetting for such high ISO.

anyone can enlighten how to take ppl walking about, with good brightness without using flash?

or is there any good free software for good noise reduction.

tia

 

[Zeroplus1]

Dear seniors,

I always need to take photos for event with ppl walking around.

i need to use quick shutter, the pics are dark so i up the iso to 1600 and realized that KX is not forgetting for such high ISO.

anyone can enlighten how to take ppl walking about, with good brightness without using flash?

or is there any good free software for good noise reduction.

tia

i find iso 1600 quite usable on kx, even at 3200... unless u are doing pixel peeping.

 

[reign226]

I also find 1600 to be quite acceptable, going to 3200 if I need extra. For very dark scenes even 6400 is acceptable with Lightroom's noise removal. I guess each have their own tolerances.

In your case not much you can do but get a bigger aperture. You can also push underexposed pictures in Lightroom. Im frequently surprised at the amount of additional exposure I can get from K-x RAW files post processed with Lightroom.

 

[ohok1973]

i find iso 1600 quite usable on kx, even at 3200... unless u are doing pixel peeping.

there are many patches when i use 1600. may i know yr settings?

i am using jpeg file saving, maybe raw be better for high iso?

 

[ohok1973]

I also find 1600 to be quite acceptable, going to 3200 if I need extra. For very dark scenes even 6400 is acceptable with Lightroom's noise removal. I guess each have their own tolerances.

In your case not much you can do but get a bigger aperture. You can also push underexposed pictures in Lightroom. Im frequently surprised at the amount of additional exposure I can get from K-x RAW files post processed with Lightroom.

thanks for the advice, i am using the freeware paint net for touching up. too bad they have cannot edit raw.

 

[evolutioner]

try to shoot raw and process with PS..
if still not satisfied, get a lens suitable for low light such as a 50mm 1.4
if still not satisfied, then u'll have to get something like nikon D700 or D3

 

[creampuff]

In order to obtain the best possible image quality you should shoot using RAW and use a good software to process your images (eg. Lightroom or Photoshop CS5). Dump those freeware. Most do destructive editing when you tweak your images.

 

[Moonlightsg]

at first i also think that ISO 800 is not usable... but for recent event eg wedding dinner, i always set ISO at 3200 for my k-x... the reason is i don't really need the detail like marco... i need the speed to take down the moment that I want to shot. too detail will have all the pimple and etc show and i have in smoothen them in the end... after all the editing it will look good on full screen or even develop a 8R photo without notice any noise... so no point to limit myself to iso 100-400...

for taking walking PPL is not easy with kit lens in my exp... i will need faster lens to allow my shultter speed faster 1/80-1/160 to freeze the motion... and i am using 16-50mm f2.8 for walk about and 100mm f2.8 for stage action.

 

[pinholecam]

Do you have samples of what you are taking?

Firstly, you'd need to look for the light. Even indoors, lighting may not always be even. People standing near light sources will be more easily exposed for than those standing in a dark corner.

Next, you probably need 1/125 to 1/180 to freeze motion for people walking about.

Expose for the lit areas only, trying to see how that gives a setting that balances detail captured in the exposure to shutter speed and acceptable ISO. I'd say that 3200 should still be fine for Kx. Very often if the rest of the ambient is dark, the camera is fooled to exposure for these areas, resulting in a slower shutter speed. These ambient areas don't hold any interest anyway.

Shoot in RAW to get the maximum headroom to do highlight/shadow recovery.
Paint.net is fine if you know how to use if with the correct plugins.
Here are 2 suggested recovery processes :

Straightforward
============
1. Go get the Tanel Plug-in pack ( http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=11619 )
2. Use the shadow and highlight recovery


Complicated
=========
1. Go get Pyrochild's plug-in "curves+" ( http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Plugins/CurvesPlus.shtml )
2. Do 2 exposures from your 1 image. One exposing for shadows, one exposed normally.
3. Use Curves+ : Advanced "Luminosity > Alpha" and for the pict with shadow detail
4. Adjust the curve so that only the shadow detail remains.
5. Merge down to the normal exposed pict.


You may be able to find a good tutorial for the 2nd method online.

 

[ohok1973]

thank you all for valuable contributions, appreciated.

yes i use 1/125 to 1/180 for indoor activities.

due to the fast shutter speed, pics are dark so i up the iso to 1600 and even 3200 for some shoots. noise is very obvious.

maybe i should try shooting in raw and experiment more.

yes paint.net is quite a good software, too bad they cant handle raw.