What settings do you use for parties?

[tdodd]

That's a lovely photo of your subjects, but illustrates perfectly my point about the rest of the room looking like a cave. If that's the look you are going for then you have succeeded. Personally, while I like a little emphasis on my subject, I also prefer (usually) for the rest of the room to look more "normal", as though it would look to the naked eye, not nearly black.

 

[dubcat]

I think my calibration is out on my monitor (i have another thread going on this) because on my screen the background is just a bit darker... enough to isolate my subjects.. not certainly not black (especially the second pic). Also, if i had time to chimp I would have left my shutter open longer or increased my ISO to bring out more background perhaps.

Anyway - I would definitely recommend the OP listen to Tim on this one. I'm a novice thats for sure

 

[tdodd]

I think my calibration is out on my monitor (i have another thread going on this) because on my screen the background is just a bit darker... enough to isolate my subjects.. not certainly not black (especially the second pic).

Anyway - I would definitely recommend the OP listen to Tim on this one. I'm a novice thats for sure

I didn't mean literally "black". I just meant very much darker. I was emphasising for effect - it's a little hard to get the light hearted element across in a written internet post.

Here's another example. Note the difference between the way the room looks in my photo compared to yours. I have the light balanced across the room and the people are evenly lit whether close to the camera (I was using on camera flash) or further away. This was at my default 1/60, f/2.8, 1600. Apart from a tweak to the tint this is unedited.

By the way, this was taken with a 50D. Even at 1600 ISO it hardly suffers badly from noise.

Apart from brightening the room, the more ambient light you pull in the less work your flash needs to do. You see less in the way of flash shadow and less obvious falloff in the light from the flash as it spread further away. Of course, bouncing the flash helps even things out, but with low ceilings or large rooms (or no ceiling at all!) you may struggle to get the flash to cope on its own.

 

[dubcat]

I didn't mean literally "black". I just meant very much darker. I was emphasising for effect - it's a little hard to get the light hearted element across in a written internet post.

Stop picking on me! I'm going to tell my mum...

Seriously though - I think I need to stop advising. I've got the feeling I would have lead the OP astray had it not been for your timely intervention

 

[unclened]

dubcat, dont want to go off topic, but I am sure that guy in the middle of your last photo is a very high profile and wanted man in Pakistan! Just thought i'd point that out in case you didn't know.

 

[dubcat]

dubcat, dont want to go off topic, but I am sure that guy in the middle of your last photo is a very high profile and wanted man in Pakistan! Just thought i'd point that out in case you didn't know.

Haha I know who he is He's not wanted at all! He's just exiled himself here due to the threat on his life.

I have no affiliation with any of them though mate. I think none of them is great - I just think the dynastic ones are the worst of all though.

 

[dubcat]

I didn't mean literally "black". I just meant very much darker. I was emphasising for effect - it's a little hard to get the light hearted element across in a written internet post.

Here's another example. Note the difference between the way the room looks in my photo compared to yours. I have the light balanced across the room and the people are evenly lit whether close to the camera (I was using on camera flash) or further away. This was at my default 1/60, f/2.8, 1600. Apart from a tweak to the tint this is unedited.

By the way, this was taken with a 50D. Even at 1600 ISO it hardly suffers badly from noise.

Apart from brightening the room, the more ambient light you pull in the less work your flash needs to do. You see less in the way of flash shadow and less obvious falloff in the light from the flash as it spread further away. Of course, bouncing the flash helps even things out, but with low ceilings or large rooms (or no ceiling at all!) you may struggle to get the flash to cope on its own.

tim I dont want to hijack this thread.. but I do see what you mean.. however as I keep saying, 8 6 4 is just a starting point. If able to chimp i would have started to adjust The shots I posted were both ones where I couldn't chimp. The first because we were getting ready to leave and the second because the dudes security were getting him out of the room.

 

[HoppyUK]

Tim always talks sense, but I will say that on a subjective level I think it sometimes looks better when the flash/ambient balance is technically less correct and the background is allowed to go a little bit darker, though dubcat's examples go way too far (and look a bit underexposed overall on my monitor).

It just looks a bit more natural to my eye and it also reduces the yellowish/orange wash from the ambient that you often get on faces, which are showing a little in Tim's pic in post #43.

Unless you gel the flash of course, but on that subject I also think that 'incorrect' flash/ambient colour balance looks better, with a liitle bit of warmth left in the background. I use a half CTO gel for that reason.

BTW I think Nads is a she

 

[norahbattie]

BTW I think Nads is a she

I am indeed a she Sorry folks been on holiday for a week on safari (watch out for photos for criticism on here soon) so not had a chance to pop on this forum Thanks for the tips and examples. I will post up some photos from the wedding I did before I went..I hardly had any room to move at the event and the lighting was awful. It was in a basement and it was completely lit by fluorescent lighting.

 

[dubcat]

Tim

I cant believe that the black jackets in your photo are so noise free... That never happens for me.

Dub

 

[tdodd]

Tim

I cant believe that the black jackets in your photo are so noise free... That never happens for me.

Dub

If you pixel peep you will see the noise. If you produce pictures at "normal" size then a lot of the noise "problem" miraculously vanishes. Shooting with "correct" or better yet, ETTR exposures will help further. The final icing on the cake - good raw software.mOh, and cropping, if you choose to do so, is not going to improve the noise performance of any camera, or IQ as a whole..

If you like you could make one of your raw files available, with which you are unhappy, or expected better, I'll take a look and see if I can make any suggestions or diagnosis.

Oh, and here's a 100% crop from that file, showing no adjustments other than tint.....

The 50D really is not as bad as some would have you believe.

 

[dubcat]

Ahhh thats more like it.. ok fine.. out of interest what size would you print that particular photo up to while still having what you deem to have an acceptable level of PERCEIVABLE noise.

 

[tdodd]

I don't print, so I really couldn't say how far you can go, but viewing a 50D file at 100% on my monitor is like displaying the whole image as a 36x24 picture, at only 132 ppi. If you want high quality print you'd be looking at roughly doubling that ppi (to get somewhere near 300 ppi) and you'd still end up with an 18x12 image, which should be viewed from not less than 21" away. On a different monitor, with a lower pixel density, a 50D file viewed at 100% might well appear as an image 4' wide. I think to judge final print quality from such a monitor you ought to be reviewing the file at 50% at most, if not 33%. Viewing at 100% from 12-18" away does not make any sense if you want to judge what a "normal" sized print might look like.

The process of printing also, so I understand, reduces the appearance of noise in any case, because you get a bit of ink bleed which adds a form of noise reduction. Bearing in mind my image has had no PP - certainly no NR, or optimisation of sharpening, including masking off the smooth areas, I think there is a very real prospect to print that at 18x12 without much problem. But that is just a guess.

 

[dubcat]

Sweet!