Shots of my choir

dakid

dakid

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Am going to be doing a website for my choir, Renaissance Voices in Maidenhead, and I took along my camera on Wednesday evening to our rehearsal to get a few shots.

I did take a group portrait, with flash, which turned out averagely (nothing special), but afterwards I whacked up the ISO (1600 all the time I think?) and took a few shots during the second half of the rehearsal.

These are probably the best ones. I've done cropping and tweaking in Photoshop, but would appreciate any criticism or comments you may have to try and get better ones next time :)

#1


#2


#3


#4
 
Awww, come on ... I've seen your photos. Some of them are stunning ... ya gotsta have some kind of thoughts?

Very happy for people to be hypercritical ... I don't care about my feelings, but I do care about getting better!

Ooooh, think I'll put that as my signature too :)
 
Okay....here goes, don't want you to think you're being ignored.

None of the images say very much to me....well, nothing at all really.

There's nothing in there that makes me want to buy a 40D and 24-105L. The images lack any sparkle...probably due to too high an ISO number coupled with maybe the wrong WB temperature. Flash may have given it a little bit of life but I understand why you may not have wanted to use it. In three of the images it looks like the focus point is on the wrong subject as f/4 doesn't really have a shallow enough DOF with what is quite a low magnification factored lens.

A bit of photoshopping and selective sharpening could rescue it though.

Sorry Dakid....hope you forgive me !

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
Okay....here goes, don't want you to think you're being ignored.
Click to expand...

LOL ... I guess it did come across a bit that way. Sorry!

Canon Bob said:
None of the images say very much to me....well, nothing at all really.

There's nothing in there that makes me want to buy a 40D and 24-105L. The images lack any sparkle...probably due to too high an ISO number coupled with maybe the wrong WB temperature. Flash may have given it a little bit of life but I understand why you may not have wanted to use it.
Click to expand...

I can see that they don't really have that zing that some images do ... so I agree 100% with you on that! Yeah, using flash was a bit inappropriate ... apart from having less natural poses, people were trying to sing at the time as well!

Canon Bob said:
In three of the images it looks like the focus point is on the wrong subject as f/4 doesn't really have a shallow enough DOF with what is quite a low magnification factored lens. A bit of photoshopping and selective sharpening could rescue it though.
Click to expand...

Only had the camera a week or so, so dodgy focus points is very likely. Could you be more specific about what you would have focused on? I can kinda see what you mean, but not sure what I would do next time round instead. I did try and sort out white-balance using the RAW, and contrast/sharpening in Photoshop. What sort of photoshopping did you mean exactly? Also, I've always found selective sharpening a very inexact thing ... my attempts have always looked like selective sharpening!!

Canon Bob said:
Sorry Dakid....hope you forgive me !
Click to expand...

God no ... no need to apologise. I really do want people to criticise as much as they can; especially if they can suggest how I could improve either the photos or my technique! :)
 
Dakid I think the first thing you need to do for these kind of shots is to switch your AF to centre point only. That way you can focus on the important part of the image and then recompose to take the shot. From looking at what you have here I am thinking you knew what you wanted to focus on but the camera had other ideas :) A flash as a fill (bounced behind you - not direct) would certainly help but I appreciate that would have been distracting in this case.
 
dakid said:
Only had the camera a week or so, so dodgy focus points is very likely. Could you be more specific about what you would have focused on? I can kinda see what you mean, but not sure what I would do next time round instead. I did try and sort out white-balance using the RAW, and contrast/sharpening in Photoshop. What sort of photoshopping did you mean exactly? Also, I've always found selective sharpening a very inexact thing ... my attempts have always looked like selective sharpening!!
Click to expand...
My personal feelings....you understand

Take #3....two ladies.
Clearly you've focussed on the subject on the right but the central figure is not far enough OOF to become anything other than slightly blurred. If the lens had been faster or the right hand subject closer then the central figure would have melted away more. Therefore you could have moved in a little on the lady on the right, focussed on her and then the central character would have been much more out of focus and look less like a failed "over all" scene....unless it was intended to be over all in focus...then you really screwed up.

#4......
The focus is clearly on the subjects face but his OOF hand is obscuring part of it....bad timing I guess, but bad timing is why we have a delete button on the camera and laptop.

#1.....
I'd have been tempted to focus on the legs spectacularly clad in fishnet stockings...but that's just personal preference :naughty:
(I couldn't remain serious for too long....sorry)

Bob
 
Here's a quick thought as you're looking for some shots for the web. StewartR's lens hire is in Maindenhead....see if you can do a 1 day pick up and drop off deal on an 85/1.2L

Probably just what you need for what you're trying to achieve.

Bob
 
Andy, yes I can see what you mean. I guess it's difficult sometimes to quite see that sort of thing in your own photos ... at least that's my excuse!

I'm going to try something a friend of many years' of Canon DSLR experience has suggested, specifically using the AF-ON button to do all my focussing, and leave the shutter to just do metering. Maybe that will help. Have also set the joystick to do af-point selection as well, so might help too. I think the thing to do is to get used to all these new things, so they'll become automatic while shooting. Hell, if I can kill 10 counter-terrorists in a few seconds in a computer game, how difficult can focussing a camera be? ;)

Only have onboard flash currently (flashgun's on the long shopping list), so wouldn't be able to do that yet. Nice idea though, that I'd never thought of before.

Canon Bob, I think I might have used auto-AF for the shot of the ladies, but you're right about it failing either way. I do hope to get a 1.4 nifty-fifty soonish, which would probably give the necessary blur, but I'm not sure I could have got the shutter speed low enough while hand-holding to increase the aperture and get them both in. Probably just a badly designed shot, if I'm honest.

Yeah ... can you believe that 6.5fps for several seconds still can't achieve a decent photo of a guy conducting? That was the least-blurred hand of any of them, and it ends up over his face. Grumble grumble.

LOL ... yes, she is a lovely girl, but I think I might have been in trouble if I'd done that!

Thank you very much for your comments, both of you. I most definitely appreciate them :)

EDIT: Just saw your last post about the lens. I don't think I'll be doing any more of these in the short-term, but might try so again after picking up the nifty fifty. Although you reckon the 85 would be more useful?
 
IMHO its nothing to do with your camera control skills, they are fine.Its your framing and lack of grasp of composition that is missing in these shots.
You need to concentrate more on what makes a good shot and not what the twiddly wotnot on the camera can/cant do. Watch the backgrounds, concentrate on the main subject and make sure that it is well placed and lit.

What I mean is:

A different angle on the 1st would greatly help as it could chop out all of the background people and separate the subject from the cutter. Over the shoulder a bit more.

The 2nd shot would be reasonably good if the doorways didnt intrude so much, and if the guys head was in focus and not the tip of the pen.

Keep trying
 
If these are pictures for the choir's web site, think about what you would want to see on the web site as an outside. How would you like the choir to be seen be others. A few shots have potential,such as the conductor, but there needs to be a story told in each picture. Sure anyone can press the button, but ask yourself WHY you are pressing the button. Don't just take the picture, make it.
 
Thank you .... I think that there's definitely an element of mechanical lack of familiarity, but the lack of experience and thought about the framing is definitely the thing I need to most work on. I don't think I was in the ideal situation ... I'm not really very confident about standing around snapping photos yet, so didn't really feel at ease enough to make the shots count.

God, all this advice is so going to help more next time. Thank you very much for being so honest and helpful, guys. Very useful stuff indeed :)
 
There's some useful comments here.

IMHO the pictures lack focus, by that I mean the people don't interact with the camera or each other or their surroundings, and this leaves them a bit isolated.
(No story told)

I sort of get the feeling you are trying to be so unobtrusive it might be effecting the results. Maybe you need a session just for photographs and if you manage to get some practise in at the same time all well and good, but the session should be all about the photographs first.:whistle:

Should test your organisational skills !!:LOL:

Otherwise comments as above re focusing.
 
Yes, I was very much trying to be unobtrusive! It would be nice to just have a session for photos, but unfortunately that won't be possible. The choir director barely tolerated these as a disruption to our rehearsals! I think the best I can do would be to spend an entire rehearsal snapping away as everyone else sings :)

I think all the comments are basically pointing towards my simply having to learn how to get a story into a photograph; something that's not quite there yet. It doesn't seem particularly easy to learn either :LOL:
 
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