Photography dillema

[Jeronleow]

Recently went to my bro's POP ceremony. It was at night and only flood light were used. There are alot of movements from the parade. All the pictures came out shitty, though I was using a Canon 40D with EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM lens. It was really a poor knowledge with good camera issue.

Having said that, I tried using higher shutter speed, picture came out under exposed. Tried super high ISO, turned out quite grainy. My biggest aperture was only F5.6 at max 85mm focal length. Tripod was useless as the still background is clear and human turns out like ghost.

Please teach me what I should do. Thanks!

 

[eow]

did u used any external flash?

 

[Jeronleow]

Hi eow, I did not have any external flash on. Even if I have external flash, it would be useless because the performance is at a distance which requires me to max zoom. My pictures are either sharp but underexposed, or correctly exposed but lots of motion blur. Lighting during parade is not so good as the flood light shining straight into my lens caused the soldiers to look slightly silhouette and stray light from other flood light caused glare on the pictures.

So what should I do in this case? Many thanks!

 

[J-Chan]

sit back and enjoy the parade..

unless you can somehow change the lighting or ask them to stop moving..

 

[emerald]

Also troubled with the 17-85mm's small apture with low light conditions.

For what I do is to boost the ISO to the highest level as u can accept, use the fastest shutter speed possible as the picture exposure level is acceptable (which will be quite underexposed of course). Shoot in RAW and go home to boost the under exposed pics brightness. Normally the results are quite OK for me.

The better option is to buy a lens with bigger apture.

Hope it helps and correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[adiknaim]

its low light wat.. so its either u hv high shutter speed (underexposed), or expose it well but blur (slow shutter speed). i tink in this case a big aperture lens shud do the trick...

 

[Jeronleow]

Hi all. Thanks for the tips. I will definitely change a lens if financially permits. Which lens should I go for after my kit lens?

I have never thought of taking in RAW then edit with software. Really useful advise and I shall try it

PS. After taking 5 photos I retreated my camera into it's case and watch the show instead hehe.

 

[hobby]

Hi good advice, on shooting in Raw. This will allow a couple of stops exposure correction. It will also allow for some alteration to the white balance. If you use PS, Elements, Gimp or other such image manipulation sw, you can also try combining different exposures of the same RAW.

In the camera, shooting wide open at high ISO will allow for faster shutter speeds, after all a grainy shot in focus is better than smooth o.o.f shot.

You may also want to try using spot metering, often artists will have spot lights illuminating them, or a range of background lights which they could be sillougheted against for a good 'effect' shot.

Good luck, why not post a few of the shots for additional comment.

 

[adiknaim]

yeah.. recently started shooting in RAW, and it is such a gem during PP. the flexibility in exposure adjustment really helps when u don get good shots. but its of coz better to get it right the 1st time (when u snapped the pic).. =)

 

[LancerCK]

Recently went to my bro's POP ceremony. It was at night and only flood light were used. There are alot of movements from the parade. All the pictures came out shitty, though I was using a Canon 40D with EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM lens. It was really a poor knowledge with good camera issue.

Having said that, I tried using higher shutter speed, picture came out under exposed. Tried super high ISO, turned out quite grainy. My biggest aperture was only F5.6 at max 85mm focal length. Tripod was useless as the still background is clear and human turns out like ghost.

Please teach me what I should do. Thanks!

Bro, you can try rent a 70-200 f2.8 lens. Will be able to give you a 2 stops advantage. Might still have motion blur, but definitely not as much.

 

[attap seed]

i'd say your 17 - 85 is a very competent piece of equipment.

do think very carefully before replacing. unless u take photos frequently in low light, a hi speed lens can be a very expensive piece of "white elephant".

moreover, the results taken under such conditions, low light w complicated artificial lighting, even w a good fast lens can be very disappointing.

remember, a little blur is sloppy technique. a lot of blur is deliberate. even more blur is art.

happy experimenting.

 

[Jeronleow]

Where can I rent a lens? It would be very good for my pocket as I can try out different lens and get hands on experiment.

I will try to post some of my lousy photos soon when I got them transferred to my com. And oh I forgot to add that I had my UV filter on w/o realizing. Will that make a difference in such shooting environment?

I recently went to Genting and try to pan the roller coaster and the whole picture came out very blur but someone actually said that the picture looks very fast!

 

[Jeronleow]

Blurry group photo:

Blurry and glare close up

Blurry and glare action photo

I don't understand why this picture turns out like this. She did not move nor did I move. The rest of the photos looks ok. Anyone knows why?

 

[LancerCK]

Where can I rent a lens? It would be very good for my pocket as I can try out different lens and get hands on experiment.

I will try to post some of my lousy photos soon when I got them transferred to my com. And oh I forgot to add that I had my UV filter on w/o realizing. Will that make a difference in such shooting environment?

I recently went to Genting and try to pan the roller coaster and the whole picture came out very blur but someone actually said that the picture looks very fast!

You can find it here :
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213617
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345928
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=356462

 

[munkey]

Haha what on earth, i nearly fell off my chair after seeing your shots.

Ok as far as im concerned, the pictures you took at your bro's commando POP were expected of a lens of that standard, why? at 85mm your fastests is only a f5.6, while im not saying you can expect a miracle if you do upgrade lenses, things can only improve. Try a prime. for the same 85mm, if u were using the f/1.8 prime, you could save yourself 2 plus stops and compensate on the lower ISO for less grain or faster shutter speed to freeze your norepinephrine-charged soldiers. Oh and obviously youre going to get that 'glare' if you keep shooting directly into the strong floodlights. Whats the effect when you stare straight into the sun? Your eyes get damaged and an expensive bill to the ophthalmologist.

As for the ghost picture so you say, there wasnt any light shining on your foreground subject, as such it turned out dark (ghastly even!) Best case scenario - pop out your 40d's internal flash, its quite a good one actually, with compensation factor, meter on the subject's head for appropriate distance, and fire off to capture with teh scenery behind.

Happy shooting! Feel free to ask questions and make mistakes, we're only noobs once!

 

[munkey]

Haha what on earth, i nearly fell off my chair after seeing your shots.

Ok as far as im concerned, the pictures you took at your bro's commando POP were expected of a lens of that standard, why? at 85mm your fastests is only a f5.6, while im not saying you can expect a miracle if you do upgrade lenses, things can only improve. Try a prime. for the same 85mm, if u were using the f/1.8 prime, you could save yourself 2 plus stops and compensate on the lower ISO for less grain or faster shutter speed to freeze your norepinephrine-charged soldiers. Oh and obviously youre going to get that 'glare' if you keep shooting directly into the strong floodlights. Whats the effect when you stare straight into the sun? Your eyes get damaged and an expensive bill to the ophthalmologist.

As for the ghost picture so you say, there wasnt any light shining on your foreground subject, as such it turned out dark (ghastly even!) Best case scenario - pop out your 40d's internal flash, its quite a good one actually, with compensation factor, meter on the subject's head for appropriate distance, and fire off to capture with teh scenery behind.

Happy shooting! Feel free to ask questions and make mistakes, we're only noobs once!

 

[attap seed]

i dun understand how u got into trouble.

cus, really, those are pretty straight forward record shots, which even if u set to FULL AUTO mode, shouldnt go wrong at all, regardless of lens speed. cus, your pop up flash will fire to compensate.

as for the group photo, the lighting direction, temperature, contrast are pretty messy, and i believe getting good result was not easy. the solution is more than just using a fast lens. asthetic wise, the flood lights are an eyesore. also, strong light source often fools camera's metering and focus. essentially, its a difficult situation (as a direct shot), cus the soldiers are "backlit", therefore turning out dull.

solution : if possible, get them to shift and post away from those floodlights!!! dun jus shoot everything as it is. take control of the situation.

next time, can play around w "slow sync". both blur and sharp in one pic can be v nice.

tried shooting some family members at home, ve them stand in the corridor, under street lamps... ...see the result u got.

also, your composition needs brushing up.

work on your techniques. focus on the fundamentals.

u screwed up his POP. never mind. jus dun screw up his ORD parade .

 

[alternatve]

I think you might be focusing on the wrong area as the foreground is blur while the background is sharp. You should have easily have taken all the shots above with your normal equipment. Use the flash on yoru camera plus the 2nd curtain function. Might be a bit ugly due to the spotlights and flash, but still usable.

A word of advise, practice before bringing your camera along for another important shoot. Even if you have prior experience, it is a new camera? and thus some stuff will be different.

Samuel

 

[Jeronleow]

Hi all I was prepared for this. It was shitty as mentioned. I bought the camera the day before his POP and I only have the night to play around with it. I can take a much better pic with my consumer camera.

There are flood lights all around and I tried turning all angle and the flood light will still glare up the photo. So if it was you guys how would you position yourself and also how would you set your camera for this shot? I set it to P mode because I am still new to it.

I don't care how people laughed and mocked at me but I will continue to post my pictures for critique and I know I will get it right one day!

Anyway thanks for the feedback I will learn along the way :thumbsup:

 

[Jeronleow]

Hi all! Please review the 1st 7 pictures I took at Vivocity. All critiques will be taken note but please try not to jeer at my pictures ok? All pictures are handheld so a little blurry. How about compostition and exposure and etc?? Thanks!!

Jeron Leow's test pictures