I'd say you did a rather good job on the technical side of things
considering the conditions. You might pull up the midrange brightness
on some of them. You can do that in PhotoShop curves with the rgb
curve. Just push the middle up. You might also improve some of them
slightly with an adjustment to the shadow brightness level with the PS
tool "Shadows/Highlights." I know you didn't focus on composition, but
next time remember that for most group shots you should frame down.
Don't leave as much empty space above the heads. But I think these are
excellent for your purpose, and your friends should be very pleased.
Paul
On Apr 11, 2006, at 1:01 AM, Fernando Terrazzino wrote:
Last friday I had the chance to do my first indoor available light
shooting. The small event was not really a happy one, as this was a
farewell lunch for a couple of co-workers that joined the 500
employees that were laid-off last week by the Co. I work for.
Anyway I tried to capture some shots as a way for them to remember
some of us.
I tried half of the shots without flash. The light was really dim with
light comming from some spotlights. I expected to use ISO 800 but end
up using mostly 1600 (even some 3200). Just want to tell you guys what
I did and collect some valuable tips if possible (all shots with my
*istDS):
1) I used an FA35/2 wide open, which turn to be acceptable sharp in
the centre (I mean, given the fact I used it wide open)
2) Manual mode, spot "metered" the subject, adjusted ISO, autofocus,
switch to manual focus and then burst-shot sets of 3 frames in a row
hoping to use the one in the middle (I don't trust my eyes, the
autofocus didn't hunt that much, I switched to manual focus so the
camera wouldn't try to autofocus between shots)
3) I shot raw to have more "latitude" in the postprocessing and set
white balance to "tungsten" just to have a reference when processing
the raw files
4) End-up using mostly ISO 1600
5) Processed in Capture One usually "pushing" with the exposure
compensation dial between +0.65 to +1.15
6) Adjusted contrast, brightness
7) Saved as TIFF 16 bits
8) Used Neat Image (default parametes) to clean up the noise and save
as .jpg
9) Added some sharpening in PSP
This is an example shot:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4322083
large size:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4322083&size=lg
Any ideas on how could I improve this next time (hopefully a birthday
lunch not a farewell one...)?
I liked shooting this way as ppl didn't get disturbed and I could
capture some interesting face expressions that otherwise would've been
impossible to capture.
At the end, just in case, I got the obligatory posed shots (forgot the
AF360 so didn't turn good) but I'm amazed with the outcome of the
cleaned High ISO.
Don't mind the composition as I was focused in the technicalities,
hopefully next time I'll be more relaxed ;-)
The rest of the shots (extra sharpened for the web) are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/sets/72057594091422991/
