Striving for a clean clear sharp result. Any tips?

kitschenalia

kitschenalia

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I have ongoing demons with my camera and focussing. I've posted a kerzillion threads about it and had lots of help. As I do mainly photograph children and adults, I prefer to use AI Servo (opinion is mixed on whether this is better). I seem to have even more problems with other approaches.

Anyway....... I just shot my second FREE wedding, and it was my best friend. Don't get me wrong, I have some lovely shots, overall I am very pleased. But I've been plagued with noise on the indoor shots despite ISO no higher than 400 (I had a flashgun for this, used on TTL and upped the SS to 1/80). Also they are somewhat soft (but because they are either distance or group shots, they look ok on screen - problem is when blown up more). Even with some outdoor shots I have unexplained noise. I was horrified when I was told the formal posed shots would be indoors (not as planned), lucky I'd bought the flash but I'm not sure it was enough. Outdoor shots were much better but I am STILL having some focusing demons (although never totally OOF, soft to my more trained eye).

I'd love to know how to create much more professional finishes in terms of sharpness, cleanness, colour. HOW much of it is down to my not having a pro level camera/lens? Seriously? As I am beginning to think that upgrading is the only way forward. Having said that a) I don't have the money for it and b) I've also read that you must master what you have before upgrading. I have a Canon EOS 500. I've had it/been obsessed for about a year now.

I mean come ON man, I'm trying SO hard here. I want to take this professional! What does a person have to do here? :( I really, really need some training at an intermediate level, but there's nothing whatsoever like that here in Aberdeen.
 
If you are using a flash then no need to have your shutter speed slower than the fastest sync speed possible as the shutter speed won't affect the flash at all, your aperture will control the amount of flash effect so what you are maybe seeing in some of your shots is possible camera shake with such a low shutter speed letting in some ambient light.

Not sure offhand what the highest sync speed is for your camera but I believe it's around 1/200th or 1/250th of a sec, set your shutter to that and have a play to see if your shots improve.
 
oh just wanted to add... not sure which lenses you are using but in a low light situation some lenses will have more trouble hitting focus than others so this may also have been a problem. Could you pop up a couple of pics to show us the problem you are having, it may help. :thumbs:
 
Gonetae, thanks so much for your help. I've looked over the info and SS for indoor flash shots was either 1/60 or 1/80. I guess I was going with the advice that hand held no lower than 1/60. But my hands aren't so steady perhaps. ETA it was a Sigma 18-50.

How about the noise? I'll post some pics now, so you can see.
 
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I would definitely up the SS to around what your fastest sync speed is, prolly won't see your pics until Monday sorry :(... just heading out for a weekend away at Ballantrae.. so I can come back and flood the forum with birdy pics hehe
 
Hi Leanne, are the pictures you are referring to the ones posted on Facebook?
The cake shot looks good to me, not sure about the colour on some of them though :shrug: almost like you have tried to apply a sepia effect. It might help to post up a couple of 1024 images of the shots you are concerned about with noise and whatever else, leaving the exif in place would help as well.
 
Gonetae said:
I would definitely up the SS to around what your fastest sync speed is, prolly won't see your pics until Monday sorry :(... just heading out for a weekend away at Ballantrae.. so I can come back and flood the forum with birdy pics hehe
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The problem with upping your sync speed to the max is you're cutting out the ambient. If going from 1/60-1/250 then that's two stops (or a quarter of the light you started with). Your flash gun is going to have to make up the difference to maintain the same aperture (and it might not be practical to go wider open if you lose DOF), the only other alternative is to up the ISO which could be from 400-1600 and will probably make things worse.

Perhaps you can post a photo you're not happy with so that we're not offering advice blind.
 
Hi there, no, it's not those ones. I was really happy with those. Do you mean some of the black and white shots? It's a chocolatey b&w action in PS which I really love actually. Or are you referring to the vintage-style ones? I did some like that too, I like the vintage pale pastel kind of effect and it seems very popular with the wedding photography I've looked at. Can you be specific about what you didn't like? (although, I deliberately didn't post those here for CC because I was proud of them and wasn't wanting a confidence bashing on those iyswim). Thanks for looking at them though. Am now wondering if my screen needs to be calibrated and if I'm seeing things correctly.

I'm going to post some pictures now:

This is one of the group shots, you can see the grainyness I think (other than raising exposure a bit I've not done anything to this yet)

2d9rz1z.jpg


Here it is cropped harshly so that you can see the noise/softness better:

zwbzfr.jpg
 
looks to me like you've got to the limit of your kit. Mainly the lens.

In order to increase Image quality you need some better quality glass.
 
RE the grain on that group shot above - could you not have reduced the aperture to f/5.6 or f/3.5 and dropped your ISO a couple of stops lower?
 
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BertUK, one of my struggles has been OOF people in multi-portrait shots caused by too wide an aperture. I'd go to 4 lowest I think for a couple, but there's loads of people in this shot. Maybe it didn't need to be at 8 though? ISO 400 shouldn't be high enough to be causing that much noise, should it? Or does it cause more when combined with flash?
 
What did you use to convert the cr2? Adobe Camera Raw?
What were the settings you have used for the conversion?
The sample looks almost like out of camera jpegs tend to, which I think is somewhat odd.
Which 18-50 Sigma lens variant do you have?

I have scanned for the info but I have either missed it or it wasn't mentioned.

EDIT: Could you post a sample cr2 file if possible?

EDIT 2: I this thread of yours: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=260794
where you say you are a Lightroom 2.6 user.
 
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kitschenalia said:
Slapo, I would like to - how do I do that? I converted to Jpeg in Digital Photo Professional which came with my Canon - to Jpeg reducing to 800 on the longest edge. Lens - Sigma 18-50 2.8 EX.
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If you're asking about how or where to upload a cr2, box.net seems to be the nicest place at the moment. There are other file sharing services, but this one's served me well for this kind of stuff.
 
I think there's an element of softness caused by the noise. Unfortunately it really isn't unusual to see noise at ISO400 on base level cameras, even fairly recent ones. They're better than they were a couple of years ago but still not great and it makes things worse when you're inspired by people with kit which could handle these situations with a problem.

Perhaps try some gentle noise reduction and then a bit of sharpening to see if that improves things.
 
kitschenalia said:
You've no idea how much it helps my sanity to read that Joe. I am sort of hoping and not hoping that this is the case - hoping that my year of obsessive learning has not been fruitless, but yet not hoping for the need to spend £££££££££££s.

Did you base your reply on the images and info then?
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Have you ever used a prime lens? The first time I did I was gobsmacked how much sharper it was to the Sigma zoom I'd been using up to that point. I hadn't realised what i was missing until than!
 
kitschenalia said:
You've no idea how much it helps my sanity to read that Joe. I am sort of hoping and not hoping that this is the case - hoping that my year of obsessive learning has not been fruitless, but yet not hoping for the need to spend £££££££££££s.

Did you base your reply on the images and info then?
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Well the 500d at 400 ISO and f/8 producing an image that is soft at 1/80 at 18mm leads me to believe that the glass is limiting your quality. I don't think you need to spend that many pound signs to improve it but you should be able to get better iq from a 500d.

The noise is to do with the camera not the lens though. I am surprsed to see that much noise on a 500d at 400 ISO, but i'm wondering if this is t a processed image and you have pushed the exposure up which created this amount of noise.

BertUK said:
RE the grain on that group shot above - could you not have reduced the aperture to f/5.6 or f/3.5 and dropped your ISO a couple of stops lower?
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this many people at low f numbers like this would have rendered many of the faces out of focus, I think 8 is the right aperture to use.
 
I just realised you said you raised the exposure a bit too. Unfortunately raising the exposure afterwards just makes the noise worse.
 
kitschenalia said:
Kev, will try and paste the info:

15xlv9c.jpg
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You mention you had to "raise the exposure a bit" in PP. That is the very best way to increase noise - trust me, I use Olympus! :D It's important for this type of shot to get the exposusre right in camera. I see from the Exif that you set -2 stops flash compensation. That's OK outdoors when you want just a little fill in but why indoors when it is your main light source? Also, I'm not too sure how using spot metering affects Evaluative TTL flash, perhaps an experienced Canon user can explain, but to me it doesn't sound a good idea. What part of the scene was you spot metering?

I bet the histogram on the original is bunched to the left. You really need to expose to the right as far as you can without actually clipping the highlights, then you will find far less noise in the shadows. :)
 
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What John said, plus a little bit. You can actually afford to clip the highlights if you're shooting RAW as you can recover them in processing later on but before you do that I'd suggest a little experimenting to see how much can an overexpose and recover before affecting image quality (a little bit is fine but too much and it can have as nasty side effects as underexposing and raising the exposure later).
 
I personally dont think the images look that bad.

The noise can easily be cleaned up in software and is probably the result of increasing exposure on a dark image.

The sharpness could probably be improved in software too. Something like Lightroom would be able to sort it just fine.

I dont agree that f8 was right though. That should give a huuge depth of field, more akin to small landscapes. You could've easily used a slightly bigger aperture.

I've done group shots at f3.5 and sharpness was fine.
 
I think I would have been aiming for f5.6 and around 1/125.

As for recovering this photo, my advice would be to update your LR to 2.7 (unless you feel flush and want to buy 3).

Then play about with noise reduction etc.

Other than that, download noiseware or noise ninja.

You only have 10 folk in two rows in that pic so no need to worry about using f8 for DOF.
 
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kitschenalia said:
I mean come ON man, I'm trying SO hard here. I want to take this professional! What does a person have to do here? :( I really, really need some training at an intermediate level, but there's nothing whatsoever like that here in Aberdeen.
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http://SPAM/2bctp96

sorry..thats just a little joke, but seriously if you want training I'm sure you'll be able to find some to suit your level - it would give you a good foundation to go on
 
Kev M said:
What John said, plus a little bit. You can actually afford to clip the highlights if you're shooting RAW as you can recover them in processing later on but before you do that I'd suggest a little experimenting to see how much can an overexpose and recover before affecting image quality (a little bit is fine but too much and it can have as nasty side effects as underexposing and raising the exposure later).
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That's true, Kev, but you really have to know your camera to do that. For now it's probably best to play safe and almost, but not quite, clip the highlights. Depends what the brightest highlights are and how important they are to the image. The answer of course, if there is time, is to bracket exposures. For this type of shot, indoors and not in glaring sunlight, I would think the Canon has ample DR providing the exposure is right. :)
 
I'd tend to agree that you may have reached the limit of the optics of the lens.The kit 18-55 is not a particularly sharp lens, and is a bit soft. The suggestion of a prime is a good one. The 50mm 1.8 is a very good example of a good lens at a good price. If you can get to try one you may find that the quality increases dramatically.

What you have to then decide is what budget you have to upgrade the lens.

As far as noise is concerned, have a look at the histogram from the images. If you are underexposing, and having to compensate in DPP you are adding noise into the syatem. A small amount of underexposure is OK but if you are constantly adding a lot of positive exposure adjustment then this could be the problem. In my opinion Canon's tend to underexpose to protect the highlights. All of mine have at least 1/2 stop dialled in to get a good result.

There is an adage with RAW exposure and that is "Expose To The Right". In other words keep the histogram positioned well to the right. Don't overdo it, but if you get the occasional "Blinkey" don't worry. There is plenty of headroom in the RAW file, plus the histogram you see is only the cameras JPEG representation of the file not the actual RAW file itself. You've probably got a fair bit of highlight headroom.

As suggested if you could post a couple of RAW files that would help
 
I've just imported your crop into Photoshop to check the histogram. Even after you've increased the exposure in pp there's still a fair amount of slack to the right. It does sharpen up OK, but at the expense of increased noise. I don't think you need to upgrade the lens just yet, unless you really can afford it, of course, but you do need to work on your exposure technique. Get that right and your images will be far less noisey and stand a lot more sharpening. Both the Sigma you mention and the Canon kit lens are no Zuiko, but they should be adequate for this type of work. :)
 
Kev M said:
I think there's an element of softness caused by the noise. Unfortunately it really isn't unusual to see noise at ISO400 on base level cameras, even fairly recent ones. They're better than they were a couple of years ago but still not great and it makes things worse when you're inspired by people with kit which could handle these situations with a problem.

Perhaps try some gentle noise reduction and then a bit of sharpening to see if that improves things.
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Actually.. bull.. the 500D is capable of shooting pretty clear images at ISO400 in fact it only gets really messy ISO3200+ most can be tidied up in ACR, I regularly shoot 400-1600 without issue.

Back to the main issue, I think its a lens issue and the noise in the shots you posted isn't that bad, the softness is.

Is there any way you can borrow a similar lens from someone close to you to try?
I also don't think the AI servo is helping, as said before its predicting the focus point based on movement, your not choosing it, with static images like the ones above one shot will do a better job, also choose and AF point to use that's nearest the main persons eye's, lock onto their eyes and be careful with re composing, any movement backwards or forwards can throw things out (this is where a tripod is really handy).

Shooting with flash I tend to go for shutter speeds no lower than 125th second and if using a flash on camera will always bounce the flash of the ceiling or wall.

I would also suggest getting photoshop elements, PE8 can be picked up quite cheap now, even more so now PE9 is coming out, ACR is way better than the canon conversion software, in fact 99% of my PP is done in ACR alone and once your used to it and how it works its not only quick and easy but also a very powerful tool.

Finally if your near Essex your welcome to borrow my 17-50 to make sure the lens isnt the issue..
 
You're a bit touchy aren't you?
 
The 500D isn't the best at high ISO, but it's fine at ISO400 (if it's exposed correctly)

Sometimes throwing more money at a problem just complicates things.
 
Kev M said:
You're a bit touchy aren't you?
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No kev, just refuting what you said, the 500D isnt a base level camera, that would be the 1000D its just a consumer camera rather than pro sumer or pro.

it's noise handling is equal to or better than several of the pro sumer camera's some use such as the 40D and in my experience shooting raw and processing in ACR noise at ISO400 just isn't a real issue.

More to the point though I don't think noise is the real issue with the posters images, lack of sharpness is and this again in my experience could be due to an issue with the lens and body needing calibrating, the focus method used or the user rocking slightly forwards or backwards during recomposing, all known issues.

But I'm not going off on one or anything..honestly ;)
 
Leanne,

For indoor shooting at such occasions my go to starting point for an exposure would be a manual exposure between 1/60 to 1/100, f/2.8 and 1600 ISO, with bounced ETTL flash to finish things off. I might need to make adjustments from there but that is a pretty good starting point. Even with the very low tech (by today's standards) 30D I have no cause for complaint with such settings.

I won't fill the thread with examples but here's an old thread, which I hope will help if you read it through.....

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=242873
 
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tdodd said:
Leanne,

For indoor shooting at such occasions my go to starting point for an exposure would be between 1/60 to 1/100, f/2.8 and 1600 ISO, with bounced flash to finish things off. Even with the very low tech (by today's standards) 30D I have no cause for complaint.

I won't fill the thread with examples but here's an old thread, which I hope will help if you read it through.....

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=242873
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^^^
Good Answers on this thread, cheers Tim
 
Also you used spot metering, try and meter for the whole scene, this should help you get a better exposure balance.
 
Nutty667 said:
I personally dont think the images look that bad.

The noise can easily be cleaned up in software and is probably the result of increasing exposure on a dark image.

The sharpness could probably be improved in software too. Something like Lightroom would be able to sort it just fine.

I dont agree that f8 was right though. That should give a huuge depth of field, more akin to small landscapes. You could've easily used a slightly bigger aperture.

I've done group shots at f3.5 and sharpness was fine.
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I suppose at 18mm an aperture of 3.5 would have given enough depth of field for the group, used to shooting more zoomed in
 
joescrivens said:
I suppose at 18mm an aperture of 3.5 would have given enough depth of field for the group, used to shooting more zoomed in
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This is at 35mm and f/4.5 on a full frame body. On a cropper you would only need 22mm and f/2.8 for an equivalent composition and DOF.

20100808_125928_5615-1_LR.jpg


Sorry about the composition. I'm in the shot.
 
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Surely the she doesnt need f8 for that group, especially indoors, they are all in the same plane only 2 people deep? Drop it down a good few stops and raise your ISO. Noise is always a problem in dark underexsposed shots, as has been said better to overexpose than under as long as your not way out.
 
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