What is wrong with these pictures?
Discussion
Afternoon all,
I'm not sure how to explain what has happened in these pictures so passing it over to the PH pro's
These were taken on a 600d with a 50mm f1.8 at 1/25 sec and ISO3200. My guess is that using auto ISO meant the camera put it up really high (3200) and made it so sensitive that when the disco lights did land they were too bright. There are other pictures with disco lights in where they aren't this bad though.
Does that sound about right or is there another explanation?
If it is a high ISO problem, how to get around it? Presumably appropriate use of flash will allow a lower ISO, but is there anything else that could be done?
Thanks
I'm not sure how to explain what has happened in these pictures so passing it over to the PH pro's
These were taken on a 600d with a 50mm f1.8 at 1/25 sec and ISO3200. My guess is that using auto ISO meant the camera put it up really high (3200) and made it so sensitive that when the disco lights did land they were too bright. There are other pictures with disco lights in where they aren't this bad though.
Does that sound about right or is there another explanation?
If it is a high ISO problem, how to get around it? Presumably appropriate use of flash will allow a lower ISO, but is there anything else that could be done?
Thanks
Janesy B said:
50mm and 1/25th isn't doing you any favours, same with high ISO. Really need some sort of flash for light that low.
I disagree. Using a flash in such a situation will almost certainly leave the backgrounds of the shots dark, which is the classic failing of compact cameras and anything else set to 'auto'. (Firing a flash with power reduced to a minimum setting would perhaps be OK, but that risks losing some of the interesting disco light colours).The shots are overexposed a bit, and once those highlights are blown they're not coming back. (Though some *might* be recoverable if shooting RAW).
I'd suggest that dropping the ISO a step, and moving up to 1/60 or 1/100s shutter speed would improve things next time.
budfox said:
I disagree. Using a flash in such a situation will almost certainly leave the backgrounds of the shots dark, which is the classic failing of compact cameras and anything else set to 'auto'. (Firing a flash with power reduced to a minimum setting would perhaps be OK, but that risks losing some of the interesting disco light colours).
Not if you do it properly. I didn't suggest auto flash, because that will just expose for the person and not the scene. My friend does weddings and has a fairly cheap setup.
Dancefloor by Robbie Khan, on Flickr
Hannah - UK version by Robbie Khan, on Flickrbudfox said:
I'd suggest that dropping the ISO a step, and moving up to 1/60 or 1/100s shutter speed would improve things next time.
So two stops faster on the shutter speed and a stop less on the ISO when his lens is already wide open - how are you going to avoid them being significantly underexposed?The only option is to add more light and most of the time that means flash. Stick it on ETTL, second curtain sync and the camera on Tv set to 1/60th or 1/30th with a fairly high ISO. It'll sort itself out nicely, freeze any motion and you won't lose the background either.
Using flash with a fast ISO (say 800) and a wide aperture will give you a lit subject and still ambient light from the disco/room.
With cameras capable of high ISO and affordable fast lenses, it seems most people are very anti flash these days. Used right and the results can look great. Relying on ambient light isn't always the best way to go.
This was a christening I photographed recently, unofficially like, because I was invited and have a good camera... shot at 400iso, f5.6 at 1/80th. It was a very dim church with the ambient shots I took during the service requiring iso 3200 at 1/60th handheld. I just used the on camera flash and let the camera meter (centre weighted) for the flash itself whilst setting the camera setting manually. I did have to bring the background back a bit in post and admittedly, I should have used a faster aperture, but stopped down a touch to get more of the background in focus.
With cameras capable of high ISO and affordable fast lenses, it seems most people are very anti flash these days. Used right and the results can look great. Relying on ambient light isn't always the best way to go.
This was a christening I photographed recently, unofficially like, because I was invited and have a good camera... shot at 400iso, f5.6 at 1/80th. It was a very dim church with the ambient shots I took during the service requiring iso 3200 at 1/60th handheld. I just used the on camera flash and let the camera meter (centre weighted) for the flash itself whilst setting the camera setting manually. I did have to bring the background back a bit in post and admittedly, I should have used a faster aperture, but stopped down a touch to get more of the background in focus.
Because the background fills up more of the frame than the family so I prefered to have the whole scene sharp rather than just a small portion of it. This particular picture was to capture the background as much as the family. I also have plenty of close up portraits of the family too.
I just used this as an example to show that you can easily get background ambient light using flash in a dim situation.
I just used this as an example to show that you can easily get background ambient light using flash in a dim situation.
Berz said:
These were taken on a 600d with a 50mm f1.8 at 1/25 sec and ISO3200. My guess is that using auto ISO meant the camera put it up really high (3200) and made it so sensitive that when the disco lights did land they were too bright. There are other pictures with disco lights in where they aren't this bad though.
Does that sound about right or is there another explanation?
If it is a high ISO problem, how to get around it? Presumably appropriate use of flash will allow a lower ISO, but is there anything else that could be done?
Having a guestimate from the settings, I reckon it was pretty dark - I think it's astonishing what you can resolve without a flash nowadays. Does that sound about right or is there another explanation?
If it is a high ISO problem, how to get around it? Presumably appropriate use of flash will allow a lower ISO, but is there anything else that could be done?
As others have said, you've got parts that are pretty dark, along with parts that are directly lit. Settings to get details from the dark areas will easily see the lit parts looking blown out. Where the dark meets light on the picture, there's the digital grunge in between.
There's a couple of things - one more expensive than the others:
I've recently upgraded from a 60D to a full-frame 6D. How the latter resolves high-iso pictures is like night and day (no pun intended). The difference is, where as 3200 iso is a pretty extreme setting for a 600d, I can routinely shoot at 3200 iso without much degradation at all.
Other option is the 50mm f1.4. £200 on ebay. That's a reasonable amount more light, which would help drop the amount of digital 'help' you need.
Last option would be shooting in RAW and using something like Aperture. It's not a magic wand, but I've got very usable photos out of it with 60 seconds work that otherwise would have been totally unusable.
JustinP1 said:
Having a guestimate from the settings, I reckon it was pretty dark - I think it's astonishing what you can resolve without a flash nowadays.
As others have said, you've got parts that are pretty dark, along with parts that are directly lit. Settings to get details from the dark areas will easily see the lit parts looking blown out. Where the dark meets light on the picture, there's the digital grunge in between.
There's a couple of things - one more expensive than the others:
I've recently upgraded from a 60D to a full-frame 6D. How the latter resolves high-iso pictures is like night and day (no pun intended). The difference is, where as 3200 iso is a pretty extreme setting for a 600d, I can routinely shoot at 3200 iso without much degradation at all.
Other option is the 50mm f1.4. £200 on ebay. That's a reasonable amount more light, which would help drop the amount of digital 'help' you need.
Last option would be shooting in RAW and using something like Aperture. It's not a magic wand, but I've got very usable photos out of it with 60 seconds work that otherwise would have been totally unusable.
Beat me to it. I was always frustrated with my 7D in low light. Whereas 5D3 has clean output at ISO3200 that betters shots at ISO800 from the 7D.As others have said, you've got parts that are pretty dark, along with parts that are directly lit. Settings to get details from the dark areas will easily see the lit parts looking blown out. Where the dark meets light on the picture, there's the digital grunge in between.
There's a couple of things - one more expensive than the others:
I've recently upgraded from a 60D to a full-frame 6D. How the latter resolves high-iso pictures is like night and day (no pun intended). The difference is, where as 3200 iso is a pretty extreme setting for a 600d, I can routinely shoot at 3200 iso without much degradation at all.
Other option is the 50mm f1.4. £200 on ebay. That's a reasonable amount more light, which would help drop the amount of digital 'help' you need.
Last option would be shooting in RAW and using something like Aperture. It's not a magic wand, but I've got very usable photos out of it with 60 seconds work that otherwise would have been totally unusable.
StuH said:
Beat me to it. I was always frustrated with my 7D in low light. Whereas 5D3 has clean output at ISO3200 that betters shots at ISO800 from the 7D.
I'd agree, that's probably a good metric for the difference.With the 400D and 60D to shoot without a flash indoors I was stuck with using primes exclusively do avoid nasty looking high ISO shots.
The downside is of course, doing portraits at f1.4 or even up to f2.0 to get enough light though means the amount of 'keepers' reduce as firstly with a prime in a limited area you can't frame as you'd like and secondly, that depth of field on a moving subject cuts down on the number of shots in focus.
The difference has been is on the 6D I can shoot with the Tamron 24-70 at f2.8 and get three times as many 'keepers' whilst also getting less noise than using a prime on the 60D/400D.
Thanks all for your suggestions. As much as we would like to buy our way out by upgrading the camera our funds are currently being saved for a new lens (torn between the tamron 24-70 2.8 for flexibility and the canon 24mm 2.8 for cheapness)
We have a Speedlite and a Neewer (without ETTL) already, just need to find some useful step-by-step guides. neilvn.com looks like a good starting point.
We have a Speedlite and a Neewer (without ETTL) already, just need to find some useful step-by-step guides. neilvn.com looks like a good starting point.
Berz said:
Thanks all for your suggestions. As much as we would like to buy our way out by upgrading the camera our funds are currently being saved for a new lens (torn between the tamron 24-70 2.8 for flexibility and the canon 24mm 2.8 for cheapness)
We have a Speedlite and a Neewer (without ETTL) already, just need to find some useful step-by-step guides. neilvn.com looks like a good starting point.
If your speedlite has ETTL then this will hopefully be useful:We have a Speedlite and a Neewer (without ETTL) already, just need to find some useful step-by-step guides. neilvn.com looks like a good starting point.
Beginners Guide to ETTL
ETTL can seem confusing at first because it behaves differently according to the mode your camera is in. As you change mode your shots will change drastically which can make it hard to figure out what the flash is trying to do in each case. Hopefully the following should shed some light on what the camera does in each scenario:
P - The camera will adjust the aperture, shutter and flash power to illuminate the subject. No regard is paid to the background.
Av - The camera will use the selected aperture and vary the shutter speed to expose for the background. It will then add the correct amount of flash to illuminate the subject. If your selected aperture/iso is insufficient then long exposures can result.
Tv - The camera will use the selected shutter speed and vary the aperture to expose for the background. It will then add the correct amount of flash to illuminate the subject. If the selected shutter speed is too high then the background will become dark. Beware using this with fast lenses, you can end up wide-open with razor thin DoF when you don't want it.
M - The camera uses the aperture and shutter speed that you select then varies the flash power to illuminate the subject correctly. The varying flash power makes this a kind of semi-auto, even though you are in M mode the camera is still determining the exposure unless you also switch the flash to M. Beware of bright backgrounds that might overexpose.
Personally I recommend Tv for beginners (as above). Set the shutter speed to the slowest you can hand-hold, the flash will freeze any motion and the camera will vary the aperture to include some ambient background. If the backgrounds are dark then just increase your ISO until you are happy. The exception to this would be if using a fast lens (faster than f2.8) in which case I'd switch over to manual to maintain a reasonable depth of field.
Berz said:
Thanks all for your suggestions. As much as we would like to buy our way out by upgrading the camera our funds are currently being saved for a new lens (torn between the tamron 24-70 2.8 for flexibility and the canon 24mm 2.8 for cheapness)
We have a Speedlite and a Neewer (without ETTL) already, just need to find some useful step-by-step guides. neilvn.com looks like a good starting point.
Can I ask the thoughts behind the 24mm f2.8?We have a Speedlite and a Neewer (without ETTL) already, just need to find some useful step-by-step guides. neilvn.com looks like a good starting point.
Being in a similar position a few years back I went for the Sigma 30mm f1.4. The price comparison is about £350 for the Canon to £200 for the Sigma used. OK, the Canon has IS, but unless your subject is going to be totally still, you won't get much benefit. However, the speed of the Sigma will be extremely useful.
The Sigma 30mm would sit on my camera for months at a time without being removed...
I've also got the Tamron 24-70 as well now, which I took a punt on as not many actually own it, and it's brilliant. It's an almost match for primes at f2.8, and stopped down to f4 the results are only distinguishable from my primes as the Tamron seems to have more contrast.
Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff