How do I avoid this saturation which is ruining my picture?

[gabriel_afana]

I have thousands of photos that look like this:<BR><BR>

 

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/3.jpg"><BR><BR>

 

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/4.jpg"><BR><BR>

 

I use flash to help overpower the saturated colors, but that doesn't always work...many times it just messes up

the entire photo. Also, many times I am far away or taking large crowd shots and there is no way I can use my

flash for that

 

<BR><BR>

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/5.jpg"><BR><BR>

 

Now thats a picture that shows the problem, and I might be able to get away with using the flash to help with

that, but many times the crowd is not that small. That was from a small-outdoors stage. Typically there is 50x

more people (no exaggeration!!!)

<BR><BR>

This photo below is an example of a type of picture (my distance from the crowd and the size of the crowd) that

many times over-saturates. This one came out ok, but many dont and they come out completely saturated like

the one above<BR><BR>

 

<img src="http://www.plurlife.com/gallery/5/54/542/5429/54294/3/9/1/0/2/8/391028.jpg">

<BR><BR>

 

I typically shoot in Aperture priority at f/2.8 and let the camera handle the shutter. Any ideas on how to

address this issue?

[johnw63]

I think the first thing people are going to need to know is what your in camera settings are. White balance, vivid settings, etc.

[gabriel_afana]

Here is a full rundown of details:

Camera: D300

Lens: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

Shooting mode: Aperture priority

White balance: Auto

Picture control: Standard (Never vivid)

Active-D lighting: off

ISO: 3200

Aperture: 99% of the time at f/2.8

Shutter: variable

Focal range: variable

Metering: 3D matrix

[lex_jenkins]

Recently I read on photo.net a very good explanation of why this happens, but darned if I can remember which thread or forum it was on. Anyway, it helped explain why digital presents a particular challenge that wasn't a problem with fast color film (Fuji's fourth color layer emulsion was very good at handling this type of scenario, altho' shooting it above 1600 was impractical to impossible).

 

Does the D300 offer a way to individually adjust the hue? (My D2H does, but I haven't spent much time reviewing the tech features for the D300). This has been useful to me in theater and performance photography, altho' only to lower the saturation within specific limits. When the gelled lights vary radically it's impossible to keep up with.

 

While Auto WB can be handy in some cases, it can slow down editing. If you have lots of shots to edit after each session, there are too many variables. I'd rather choose one WB setting to minimize the variables. This has helped with my theater photography when I encountered similar problems - some gelled lights seeming to oversaturate, making it difficult to wring out details (reds are particularly troublesome).

 

In some cases I've used a custom white balance, a guesstimate based on average conditions. In other cases I'll use daylight as the default. Basically, the camera will "see" everything the same way. It won't correct the WB balance problems, but at least it minimizes the variables.

[ronald_moravec1]

It is in the picture control menu. Lower the saturation and contrast. Turn on Active D-Lighting and it will fill in the deep shadows. D-lighting is in the retouch menu.

 

All Nikons are basically set up the same way, so consult the instruction book or look thru the menu.

[eis]

It is definitely the White Balance. For Most Nikons, Auto WB does not work for light below 3500 K.

It is stated in the manual and is frequently get unnoticed (by me too !). Just select a manual

WB setting that is most appropriate (run a few test shots and check on the LCD).

Also you may try RAW format.

 

Tell us when you solve it.

[elliot1]

I regularly shoot an event with the same issue - lots of red lights. You can somewhat fix the problem by reducing the intensity of the red and yellow channels during post processing, reducing the contrast a bit, and some form of D-Lighting. You will get better results with a RAW file.

 

Your shots also look overexposed by perhaps half a stop or more.

[gabriel_afana]

Im goign to try the WB thing....What temp are typical event lights at? So maybe setting it to manual at 3500K with the color balance away from red should help. Im shooting an event tonight - ill give this all a try.

 

Shooting in raw is not an option :-( Im taking 1k+ photos at each event and not only would it be space-prohibitive to shoot in raw, there is no way I could manually edit each photo. I just drop it into th CS3 and batch it. So my only practical solution is to do something to the camera while shooting.

 

I was thinking about teh whole whitebalance thing but if I skewed it away from the red, how would that effect the other colors? (yellow, white, blue, green lights...etc)

 

About overexposed...nice eye. Yes, I shoot in aperture priority and sometimes bump it up 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop to pull out the ambient lighting. Since im dragging my shutter and the subjects are primarily lit by the flash, this typically works out very nicely (strong background colors with well-exposed subjects) The thing I just realized is for wide-angle shots of distant objects, the flash becomes useless (many times not even used) and all im doing is overexposing my subjects! Duh! haha, Seriously, you learn something every day. The more I figure out what the heck im doing, the more im realizing that photography is serious business!!!!!

[elliot1]

You can get a similar effect of dragging the shutter by using the shadow control in CS3.

 

Memory cards are cheap. Shooting compressed RAW give you great files to work with during post processing that

don't take a ton of room on a memory card. DXO software could easily batch process your images with minimal

setup time. I can typically batch process hundred of images with about 5-10 minutes of prep time (this obviously

does not include processing time).

 

The bottom line is if you want better looking shots, you are going to have to do things a little bit differently

than you are now.

[mats nilson photography]

I actually think those images are very nicely exposed! Anything that's not illuminated by strong monochromatic stage-lights seems quite

free from colour casts. Nice work! Those images give me an immediate sense of what it must be like in such a place. Taking away the red

wouldn't do that, I think. After all, coloured spots are part of the show!

 

However, if you want to do anything about it, you really do need to shoot RAW. Then you can forget about WB altogether, and save that

decision to post-processing. I do all my PP in Lightroom, and there it's quite possible to, e.g., lower saturation for reds only. But - those

faces will still be lit by a strong monochromatic red light, and if you want to achieve natural skin colour - rather than just desaturated reds -

you must resort to flash. Just more of it than you do now, and then anything not lit by flash will go dark. That's just physics.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"Active-D lighting: off "

 

Turn it on to high as you are i na high contrast lightign situation.

 

and Shoot raw not JPEGS, and don't use the small gamut sRGB working space. You photos lack the subtlety you want becasue sRGb is clipping all of the highly saturated colors to one value.

[Spearhead]

I shoot in this kind of environment regularly. Just last night, in fact. The problem isn't saturation and it isn't white balance. Lights with gels are almost impossible to correct. You have two choices - flash or living with it.

[andy a.]

Not a great answer, but if you're shooting a subject and you want detail on the skin, spot meter for just that. Obviously hard if the lights and people are moving around, but that will keep that area from blowing out.

 

If you are forced into jpg, I like the idea of setting the wb manually for a bit and seeing how that works. Something very low, say 2200k or so. I can't remember how far the D300 lets you go. Also you may want to try adobe rgb colorspace to avoid needless clipping. Active d-lighting could also help with highlights at the expense of shadow noise.

 

How I shoot the occasional dance shot with flash: (this usually assumes I can bounce off something). Rear-curtain sync. Aperture priority with camera exposure comp. -2 or so (brings in some ambient, not enough to blur too much). Tweak iso to achieve desired shutter for effect (a long as maybe 1/2 sec to as short as you want. might also set iso to auto to lock shutter to a specific duration if I want to achieve a particular effect) Flash on ttl, maybe -2/3 to keep things subtle.

 

One final thought: Gel your flash with CTO (color temperature orange) to better balance ambient. Or try gelling with blue/pink/etc. (maybe off camera on sc-29 cord?) to go the other way and emphasize the contrast. That in particular might allow you to illuminate wide-angle crowd shots with your flash looking like part of the light show. I think your work is great. I wouldn't worry so much about details (clipping, etc.) in the scene so much as capturing the mood. Think about ways to enhance that.

[eric_arnold]

red stage lights and gels are the bane of club/concert shooters with DSLRs....

 

there's no one optimal fix just a few workarounds...

 

one thing about active d-lighting: dont turn it on, set picture control to vivid, and shoot at high ISO unless you like mushy images.

 

you can desat in camera (i think you can do a desatted picture control on the d300 just for this)

 

and also adjust the color balance axis in the wb settings...

 

or just completely desaturate the pic in-camera or in post by turning it B&W

 

also, if you havent upgraded the d300 firmware yet, i'd do that as it makes auto WB a lot better indoors.

 

i think the lowest d300 kelvin setting is 2500k. in these type of situations i might set that to take the 'reds' out, but the problem is that if you shoot no flash at 2500k then flash immediately after, your exposure might be very blue unless you remember to switch your settings back. sometimes it works out cool, sometimes not...<div></div>

[eric_arnold]

gabriel, you're shooting flash at iso 3200? that could result in increased saturation, actually, making your reds even

redder, as in your first example. with flash, i try to shoot at the lowest iso i can get away with. here's an iso 400,

f/3.5, 1/15 sec, rear-curtain shot from a club with a red background (and red lighting) with the tamron 28-75 and

d300...<div></div>

[eric_arnold]

looking at your second and third pics, they kind of have that washed-out look which appears to be a combination of flash, red lighting and high ISO... i'd definitely go with a lower setting with a flashgun.

[gabriel_afana]

I have to shoot with a high ISO....yes, there are many times when I can reduce the ISO and get away with it, however most times I really really need all the speed I can get to avoid motion blur.

 

About the WB, I was thinking that it wont work to set it to 2500k because I do use the flash intensely...and many times switch between flash and no flash constantly trying to achieve that perfect DJ shot....So I think I am going to shoot with WB on flash and then just adjust it away from the red color spectrum...I'll see if that works. Typically the most problems I have are with orange and red....only once did I have problems with blue.

 

Again, I take 1,000+ photos/event and there is simply no way I can spend the time to edit each photo so even if I could batch RAW files, I would still need to give attention to each photo. And when there is a problem...it usually affects most of the pictures and not just some so I think its a camera thing I have to figure out.

 

Im going to give this a try at the next event I shoot (November 29th).

 

1) Try Active D-Lighting (low, normal, high)

2) Try all various white-balance settings

3) change to adobe RGB

 

I'll let you know what seemed to work best

[todd peach seattle, washi]

I can't do the WB / Kelvin math in my head, but I would think there may be a solution where you manually set the WB down to where you get the ambient results you're after and then gel the flash itself to a "tungsten-like" appearance. I believe the Nikon SB-800's come with the appropriate gel.

 

Then you could switch back and forth from flash/no flash without changes.

[debejyo]

Well, my short suggestion would be to shoot raw at uni-white balance. Your picture will look green out of camera. In such conditions, I would not go by meter. I'd prefer to underexpose by at least 1/2 stop. Use the right white balance to your taste and D-light on the raw files later. I think this is because of the channel saturation. It happens on film too. If you try to meter correctly and shoot a bright RED flower using velvia 50 or 100, you will see exactly this condition. I do not have a scan of that picture, otherwise I could have shared it with you. (just to let you know, I shot it on a cloudy day with 81A). Hope this helps.

 

Good luck.