Digital or film in a church

I am shooting in a church next week, where they don't allow flash.

Does anyone know if it might be better to use my Canon 10D, set to

ambient light (which I think is 3200 color temp) or just use film and

put a 80A filter on the lens? Which would be easier or more

effective?

The 10D but your images are going to be "noisy" so do a test first.

 

An 80A filter will cost you two stops of light.

1. I never shoot an 80A filter in a church. Overexposing color negative film I have always been able to do decent color correction in printing.

 

2. That having been said, I'd much rather shoot a 10D in a church for more precise color correction. Particularly if you have mixed lighting, shoot RAW so that you will be able to recolor-balance at your leisure later.

Forget the filter and do it in Photoshop as you will have to make corrections later anyway.

I have found that tungsten lighting in many churchs is often a lot warmer than 3200. I

would suggest using your 10D with custom white balance. Just take along a sheet of 96

bright paper with you and shoot it full frame at the alter, select Custom WB from your

menu and choose the paper shot. This will be far more accurate than the tungsten setting

or a 80A filter.<div></div>

Actually, most ambient tungsten lighting is around 2,700 to 2,800 degrees Kelvin, professional studio lighting is 3,200 K and "photoflood", like they used to use for home movies years ago is 3,400. Clear flashbulbs are designed to be 3,800 K. The 80A and 80B filters require two stops extra exposure. The 80C designed for clear flash only eats up one stop. Even with unforgiving daylight slide film you'll get warm but "believeable" colors, not orange pictures. With negative films you'll get a negative that is easily correctable in printing.

I would not "leave it up to Photoshop" as was suggested above. You could "run out of

color" and fail to achieve neutral tones in your darker areas. This statement needs

qualification.

 

I think that digital, however, is a good choice. Whereas the color temperature in the

church may be alittle warmer than the settings on your camera can stretch to, this tiny

difference can be compensated for in Photoshop. What is not a good idea is using

Photoshop as a replacement for a 3200 degree setting on the camera or using 5500

degree daylight

film, scanning it, and then expecting photoshop to tune you into a neutral position of skin

tones. A 300-500 degree change is small. A 2,300 degree change is too much of a

stretch.

 

If you wound up with alittle warmth of 300-500 degrees, it would not be objectionable,

especially if their were candles shown in the picture.

 

Go with the digital camera.

I would undoubtably shoot with the 10D. The noise levels inside, even at 1600ISO (which is what i use the most regardless) is quite remarkable; i'm a firm believer in sucking in all ambient light as possible.....even at the sacrifice of absolute quality. Depth is more important than the sensitivty level IMO.

 

Regarding color temp - Canon has made this a very simple process and the answer IMHO is simple as well. Shoot Raw and batch process your desired color temp. This allows you to exercise your creativity.....i can't imagine the shotsi would have missed if i would have continually of been reading the light and creating custom WB. There are places where it would be worth creating custom WB but given the time constraints of a wedding it simply isn't worth the risk. Once you learn how to set the parameters of an "Action" it's a simple click for your desired batch of photos. Kindest Regards, Jammey Church

Before I sold it to get the 1DMKII, I used the 10D for all the NO FLASH church shots.

 

Melissa, set the camera to RAW. With RAW you can set the color temp on the camera to the

tungsten symbol if it makes you more comfortable when viewing the LCD. But in the RAW

processing stage you can set the color to a wide range of temps.

 

With the Canon File Viewer Utility you can go down to 2800K. In photoshop CS RAW

developer, you can use the slider go to 2000K which is more than enough to turn warm

candle light into icy blue. In 99% of the cases you can just use the eyedropper on the

Bride's white dress and the whole frame color balances out in an instant.

 

In both processing programs you can save that setting and apply it to any number of

shots... and then still tweak it even more afterwards.

 

The reason I used the 10D for no flash church shots is that that camera exhibited less

noise in higher ISOs than the 1Ds did (which has since been corrected in Adobe and

Canon's Pro RAW processors).

 

However, I rarely used anything over ISO 100 or 160 for any shot inside the church. I used

a Tri-pod instead, and just timed my shots.<div></div>

Sometimes you want to retain a little of the warm glow from tungsten lighting, like this

shot:

 

(sorry for posting 2 shots in a thread ; -0<div></div>

Thanks all. I think I will probably go with the Canon 10D, however, I am not experienced enough in PhotoShop to make adjustments afterwards and my lab, Pictage, does not like me to do any ajustments anyway. As far as setting the white balance, I know I take a photo of a bright white piece of paper, but a quick question--do I also set the color balance to a certain temp? And when I take the photo of the paper, how do I get it to look white in the ambient light? Sorry for all the questions, but I've only used my digital on auto white balance, outside!

Melissa; Here is<b> E.J. Sadlers's right tungsten image; "hopefully" corrected to "look" better. </b>Here I used PS 5.5; and used curves to adjust each R,G,B layer; to boost the low end; and get the little girl's dress closer to white. The image is enlarged 50%. Since I was NOT at the wedding; I dont know if the girls dress is true white; off white; peachy white; etc etc. Having a true white card in a scene for a few shots allows a printer to adjust the colors abit better. E.J. Sadlers was there; so he has a better feel than an outsider like me; messing with his image. One can use the white balance dropper in curves to force what one wants to be white in Photoshop; or adjust each curve; like I did here. The dropper may blow away highlights that are brighter; thus you want a white object in the brighter area. As a photographer that was really there; one has a much better knowledge of what the scene really looked like' than a total outsider; who is guessing; like I did here below:<BR><BR><IMG SRC=http://www.ezshots.com/members/tripods/images/tripods-477.jpg>

<b>left</b> tungsten image

Sorry to use this forum but i have to ask Mark.....using ambient light how would you capture the Bouquet/garter toss, walking down the isle and "action" moments inside confidently with sensitivity 100 or 160. Even with flash i would fear a black wall or tail blurr in AV. Just curious.....that statement really suprised me. Thanks and kindest regards, Jammey Church

Fair enough question Jammey...

 

Well, first off I don't care if there are motion trails in action shots, especially dancing

images. But I still shoot some action sequences without the motion trails like the one I

posted here.

 

It's accomplished with fast glass wide open (usually a 35/1.4 on a full frame digital, or 24/

1.4 on a smaller sensor digital) AND slower shutter speeds. With a 35mm you can shoot at

1/20th pretty safely by letting the flash duration freeze the main subject. Also, to fill a

frame with a 35 or 24 you are a lot closer than with a 50 or 80mm. That means the light

fall off from the flash isn't as critical as when you're farther away with a longer lens.

 

In this image I wanted the DJs light show to be seen in the image. It was part of what it felt

like. Powerful flash would have overwhelmed the light show playing on the subjects dress,

and darkened the background to a wall of black.

 

So I shot on Manual Mode setting the shutter speed to 1/20th and opening the WA lens to

1.4. The flash did the freezing of action, but ambient light from the slow shutter speed

and fast aperture let the light show be seen as well as the background.<div></div>

Also, when shooting smaller sensor digital, isn't the depth of field, as compared to film 35mm, greater? This is considering that on your 1.6 factor digital, you use a 24mm lens as a 35mm (approximately) yet the 24mm lens retains the depth of field of a 24mm lens, which is to say, more depth of field than a 35mm lens. I believe I read somewhere that the difference is about 2 stops worth of depth of field? Have you found that to be true, Marc?

Not to butt in, but no one answered Melissa's question concerning white balance. I've only used pro digital cameras a few times, but I have set custom white balance those few times. Follow the instructions in your manual for setting a custom white balance. While doing so (taking an image of the white paper), you need not set any white balance. You need not make the white paper look bright--you only need to make sure the white paper is in the light you wish to set the white balance for. After setting the custom white balance, use that setting when photographing the scenes for which you took the custom balance. If I got any these things wrong, those of you who know, please feel free to correct.

"Not to butt in, but no one answered Melissa's question concerning white balance..."

 

EJ didn't answer it with this? :

 

"I have found that tungsten lighting in many churchs is often a lot warmer than 3200. I

would suggest using your 10D with custom white balance. Just take along a sheet of 96

bright paper with you and shoot it full frame at the alter, select Custom WB from your

menu and choose the paper shot. This will be far more accurate than the tungsten setting

or a 80A filter."

 

That is exactly how you do it as far as I know.

 

Melissa, you mentioned that the lab doesn't want you to mess with the images in PS. Does

that mean you are shooting your 10D in J-Peg large format?

No my lab only wants me to convert from Raw to JPEG, but not to fool with the color balance because they do that themselves.

As far as the custom white balance, I'm still not sure I understand. I take a photo of the white paper in the lighting I plan to shoot in and set that as the white balance....but a white piece of paper shot in a church is not going to look white at all. Do I shoot it at different brackets until I get a "white" looking frame and save that one as the custom white balance? The person that said no one answered my question was right--somehow the chain went off to how to shoot a bouquet in the air....

Mellisa,

 

I dont have a 10D but I know that it will have a function to set the white balance. You will have to refer to the manual to find this out. Essentially it means putting the camera in custom white balance mode, filling the frame with white paper in the light you will be shooting and pressing a button to save that as the custome white balance. Then you can shoot away.

 

Alternatively fire off a shot of a peice of white paper in the required light, setting the auto white balance to tungsten and give the lab that file with the rest of them. Tell them they can colour balance the shots from that file. But, as was pointed out earlier, it is better to get it right in camera as best you can before taking the shot.

 

Moiz

Melissa, I have a 10d. What you do is take a picture of the piece of paper (and yes, bracket it). I bracket the exposure and the white balance (you can find them in the menu) and then you pick the one that looks the most white. You save it (I protect it so it won't get erased) and then when you want to use that picture for white balance you choose 'custom white balance' and set that picture for the white balance. If you have a manual it tells you how to do it in there.

As Colleen, said except that you only need one image of the paper in any light situation. When you select Custom WB you simply select that shot. DONE.

 

The camera will sort out the correct temperature, try it. Repeat the test in diferrent lights, it works and is simple.

 

Regards.<div></div>

BTW, the 10D is fine with 400 iso and enough light, and mostly usable with 800 iso. Fast prime glass, as Marc said, seems key in this endeavor.

Melissa, EJ DID answer it. That's all you do. There is no other thing to do to complete the

process.

 

Set the WB on the small lower back LCD to custom (the little symbol that looks like a 2

triangles with a square in the middle), Now shoot the white paper C/U in the lighting you

want balanced out to neutral white , Now go to your menu and select the camera menu at

the top (represented at the top by a camera shape). Scroll to and Select > Custom White

Balance. When the widow of images appears, select the shot of the white paper.

 

Done.

 

Go back to shooting. All the images shot after that will automatically default to that WB

setting until you change it again to something else.

 

Ha, and they say men are the ones who don't read manuals.

 

Oh yeah, you have to remember to change it again if you move outdoors, or into other

lighting conditions.

You do not have to bracket anything, and the photo of the paper doesn't even have to be

in focus or exposed exactly correct, just as long as there is some tone and it is filling the

frame.

 

The custom WB function is automatic, it's the same function as used for video cameras.