jammer_jammer Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Here is the image in question. Sorry for the size but I want you to be able to see the entire cropped image.<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/7534/1sampleforbrianns0.jpg" target="_blank">http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/7534/1sampleforbrianns0.jpg</a> </p> <p>Last Saturday I went to and shot the Pa. Farm Show. One of the main attractions was in a huge arena where all of the horse activity took place, like bareback riding, bull riding, roping, etc., etc. The subjects of my images were too far away for my lens and so dark that I was forced to be wide open and use an ISO of 1600. Obviously, because of the distance, my on-board flash was not even used.</p> <p>I'm showing you one of the images here. I haven't chose this image because it is exceptional. It isn't by any means. I've chosen this shot because it is representative of many of the problems that I want to ask you about.</p> <p>In the image, you will see where I placed a white outline of a man. These were the entrances into the arena. If you look to the right you will see the next one with several people in it and then the next one has the one lady with the white bag. These entrances were around the entire arena. Since there was never really any seating, and I didn't want to be locked down to one spot anyway, I would choose which ever one of these entrances was the closest to the action at any particular time. I'm showing you these entrances so that you have a frame of reference for how far away I was from the action.<br />Now, for my questions:</p> <p>1. As I mentioned, in order to freeze the action, I needed shutter speeds between 500 to 800 of a second. In order to get these speeds, I had to be wide open and at an ISO of 1600. I probably should have at least tried a couple shots with ISO 3200 just to test it out but I figured the noise would just be unacceptable. I took some shots with an exposure compensation of (-2) to get the shutter speed up as far as possible, figuring I would just push the raw files in post. By the way, this is pretty much a straight conversion from raw with no noise removal or sharpening as of yet. Under these circumstances, do you think that I did pretty much all that I could have done? Given my limited equipment, is there anything else I should have tried?</p> <p>2. Even though I got the shutter speeds up to between 500-1000th of a second, I STILL didn't freeze the action in many instances. Wouldn't you think that at that distance, those speeds should have been plenty fast enough to stop the action? I was pretty surprised at how frequently it didn't.</p> <p>3. The image I'm showing you here is cropped to approximately one half of the original size. In order to have the horse and rider be more than just a spot on the image, I'm going to have to crop most of these shots down to about one quarter of the original size which of course will only exacerbate any blurring and or noise problems. This is one of the first times that I will have to actually do something about noise. Is the noise in this image pretty much expected at the settings and crop that I had to use or is there something wrong here?<br />4. What is your favorite noise removal tool at the present time?<br />5. I know that an 80-200 lens would most likely have been ideal in this situation but my dream Canon lens in this range is around 2 grand. :o There is a much more reasonably priced and well respected 80mm 1.8 prime in the Canon line up. Given this particular shooting circumstance and distance, do you think the 80 mm would have made enough of a difference to improve the images or not? How about an 80 and an extender of some sort?</p> <p>5. As I mentioned earlier, so far I only have the on-board pop-up flash. Would a good, external flash have been strong enough to reach into the the arena and make any difference or is that too far for even the dedicated flashes?</p> <p><br />Thanks, <br />Randy</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvy Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>randy,<br> noise is a problem here. so high iso and your camera is not a happy marriage. so you would have needed iso 800 or below that. you don't state the type of gear you carried. a very fast prime or telephoto would perhaps have been a better bet here. i would like to have seen events isolated and the crowd in a blurred background. the image you have attaches has too much going on.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rffffffff Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>you didnt mention what camera or lens you were using, but by the looks of it its a small sensor camera or a really slow lens. If the 80-200 is out of your price range and you need to shoot in this situation more, you need to get closer and get a faster lens. <br> I am not sure what lenses canon has out there, but look for a prime lens like nikon's 180mm f/2.8, or even a tamron or sigma lens if you have to.<br> It looks to me, though, that you also missed the focus. I think the focuse on on the guys in the pink shirts in the middle, or even behind them, and you need to get the horse and rider in focus instead. That problem will be mugh worse when you get a faster lens, though, so work on that beforehand!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer_jammer Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Darn it! I can't believe I forgot to mention the lens. It's the lowly 50mm 1.8 on a 30D</p> <p>Thanks guys. Keep 'em comin'.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rffffffff Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>if you were wide open at 1600 with that lens, you arent going to do much better with a zoom lens at all. <br> I would then look into (once again, nikon speak) a 135 f/2 or 200 f/2, but the second lens is $4000. You definitely need to get closer, though, with a 50mm lens.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gt1 Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>1) "-2 exposure compensation". Don't underexpose at any ISO. Underexposure increases noise in the shadows when you bump the exposure back up in post processing.</p> <p>2) I think you did freeze action. I think you're confusing motion blur with subjects being out of focus. What focus points were using? I generally set my camera to the center one, focus and recompose. If you're letting the camera decide then you may not end up with the right part of the image in focus.</p> <p>3) See number one. Don't underexpose with digital cameras.</p> <p>4) I switched back to med format film because I got tired of digital noise, I find it much uglier than film grain.</p> <p>5a) 50mm to 80mm isn't a very big difference. An extender will help but remember, you lose light with extenders.</p> <p>5b) Judging from the size of the arena flash wouldn't have helped much from your position.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer_jammer Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Thanks to everybody. I appreciate the help.</p> <p>Greg,<br> I use the same focus method that you do, focus, recompose. In this instance though pretty much anything on the arena floor was at infinity so there wasn't really much of a choice there. I do notice that really nothing in the shots are sharp. I guess it's just the combo of noise and being wide open.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daverhaas Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Randy -</p> <p>1. Get as close as you can to the action.</p> <p>2. Sigma and tamron both make canon mount 70-200 af f2.8 zooms. For a fraction of the cost of the Canon.</p> <p>3. Noise ninja is your friend. Noiseware Pro is too.</p> <p>Dave</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce_margolis Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>At 1/1000, usually you can freeze the action but yours is a bit blurry. I suspect your DOF was so shallow that you might find the background is more in focus than the action on the turf.</p> <p>Next time I would set the camera for continuous shooting and shoot the fastest fps your camera allows. Certainly it would help if you had a much longer lens (at least 200mm), shoot f/2.8 and spot on the rider. Some kind of support -- even a monopod -- would help with panning the action. And yes, NR software could help smooth out some of the noise. That's fine for background but you have to be careful reducing the noise in your subject.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnmarkpainter Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>An 85 1.8 would have been nice if you wanted to shoot Tighter.<br> A 2.8 Zoom would have just given you slower shutter speeds.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer_jammer Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Thanks everybody!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjlewis Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>I have the 30D and underexposing any higher ISO's is bad/bad. The images are frequently unusable. It's better to go to 3200 than to underexpose. I use 3200 for concert shots all the time and it's quite usable. Noise reduction capability makes it even more so but it works best if the subject is not underexposed. Cleaning up background is easier especially if out of focus. Don't be afraid of 3200.<br> One of the problems you have here is flat lighting which is hard to do much about unless you can get close enough to take advantage of your f/1.8 which will provide some contrast between the subject and the background clutter. Without a longer lens one would have to find a way to get closer, which sometimes is not all that hard if you can find the right person to negotiate with. At f/1.8 you'd have a tiny focal plane but then that can interesting too.<br> When limited by the gear one has to find the type of shot that might still work. If you cannot freeze the action learning how to make it interesting sometimes works. Learning to anticipate when the subjects are about to pause is really helpful, then shoot away rapid fire. Forget trying to stop fast action and focus on moments of opportunity.<br> This is a shot I took with a Canon 300D (worthless at any ISO higher than about 400) and a slow 28-135mm. It was dusk and I saw these kids playing in the surf. It's not a great shot but it's an example of how sometimes not freezing the action can work. http://www.photo.net/photo/8500052<br> It's easy to come up with a list of gear one could have to make anything possible, but I think it's sometimes very instructive to learn how to use what one has to get something usable.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernardwest Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Just so you all know, shooting at ISO 3200 is really ISO1600 underexposed a stop and then pushed one stop in raw conversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer_jammer Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 <p>Thanks folks.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepal news, documentary an Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 <p>“<em>If your</em> photographs aren’t <em>good enough</em> , <em>you’re not close enough</em> ” Robert Capa</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 <p>If you mentioned sharpening, I missed it. Nice shot. Good focal length.</p> <p>IMO Photoshop's Smart Sharpen would make a big difference...you can do a lot without introducing artifacts. If you're printing this you'll probably be thrilled by Lightroom's sharpening and noise controls.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer_jammer Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 <p>Thanks John.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethspics Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 <p>You might be surprised what a powerful flash can do at moderate ISO ratings. The Metz 45 is available quite cheaply on auction sites. At full power the flash is about 1/300 sec, but if you work at lower power it is shorter. You don't need to expose the shot fully as you will be adding to the ambient. There is also a telephoto attachment available which doubles the range for use with longer lenses. Do a bit of research on guide numbers and see what works for you.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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