alen_z

<p>Err...Mark, isn't that gonna be even worse? If I focus on the face and shift to the midsection, it's gonna lock focus on the midsection if I'm using AFC. I think the solution to this problem is using the different focus points...sucks, but oh well, it is what it is...</p>

<p>Hi all,<br>

Here's the reason I'm asking this question: Say you have a group of 5-10 people, and for argument's sake let's just say DOF is not a lot w/ the settings you're shooting at. Would you line up the group in a straight line parallel to the camera's sensor, or would you bring the people standing at the outer edge a little closer to the camera to get all of them in focus (since the people at the outer edge are farther away from the camera distance-wise)?<br>

x x x x x x x x x x</p>

<p>-----Camera-----</p>

<p> OR</p>

<p>-x x x x x x x x-<br>

x---------------x</p>

<p>-----Camera-----</p>

<p>I'm trying to find out if DOF is a fixed plane at the focus point, or if it is based on straight up distance to the sensor. I was pretty sure it's a plane, but after reading an example from a VERY reliable source (book) which suggested placing the outer people closer, it made me second guess myself.<br>

Thoughts?</p>

<p>The wedding will be located in cabo san lucas, so beach probably facing west? So I'm assuming use the orange gel?<br>

Is there a special technique to balance the flash w/ the sky, or is it just taking test shots and checking the histogram & results?</p>

<p>The situation is basically this:<br>

@ the beach, about 20 min right before sunset (so there WONT be the nice red/yellow glow). It'll probably be dark enough where I HAVE to use flash. The ceremony will finish 30 min before sunset and I'll need to quickly take small group formals (5-10 ppl max at a time), then take a few couples shots.<br>

What I'm worried about is the flash part, particularly mixing the flash w/ the already low ambient light. I don't want them to look like ghosts, and this is where I was asking for help.</p>

<p>So you're saying have sunlight shine on their faces and add fill flash (maybe -1 comp) + diffuser to make it softer and lift shadows?<br>

What would you say about shutter speed? From your experiences, has it been more toward the flash sync speed (to capture flash light), or more around the slower end to let ambient light saturate?</p>

<p>Hi guys,<br>

What's your approach to using flash on the beach, about 20 min right before sunset? At this time, it's kinda dark to rely on ambient light alone, and adding flash gives weird colors and is kinda harsh, but that's probably just my bad technique. I could use a reflector, but I don't know how much help that would be, considering sunlight would be very low. Any suggestions from you gurus? The subjects are the bride and groom...</p>

<p>Good to know :)<br>

So exposure comp is only useful in Aperture priority or Shutter priority mode.</p>

<p>Looks like my previous post didnt go through, thanks for the replies. I'm not saying shoot it randomly and fix it in post. I just wanted to confirm that exposure comp CHANGES one of the exposure settings (either aperture or shutter) before recording the image, and as some of you said thats exactly what it does. I just wanted to confirm this. So if you're shooting in manual, it can't change either???</p>

<p>Hi all, my question is why would you use exposure compensation in-camera (this question only applies to those shooting in RAW) when you can modify it in post very easily. To my knowledge only 3 things affect exposure: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. The way I see it, increasing brightness and using exposure compensation in post results in the same effect. So why do it in-camera? If you use exposure comp before shooting, does it meter the scene BEFORE recording the image and automatically change aperture or shutter speed (depending on what mode you're in) AFTERWARD?? Or is it essentially just increasing/decreasing the brightness after taking the image?</p>

<p>Here's a crop of the eyes</p><div></div>

<p>Now look at this one. The eyes are not sharp at all. Maybe because he's taller and I had to focus and recompose a longer distance.</p><div></div>

<p>See how sharp the eyes are!</p><div></div>

<p>Hi All, as I read your comments above, here are the pics I promised to post. I'm reallyyyyyyyy beginning to think focus-recompose is not gonna work for me anymore after viewing these pics. I guess I'll have to learn to choose outer focus points very very quickly, but even then I think some focus-recompose will need to happen as the focus points are near the center of the frame.<br>

Let me know what you guys think about this test.</p><div></div>

<p>I'll post it once I get home. Is back/front-focusing specific to a particular model of a lens, or specific for every individual lens? Is it a problem with the specific lens?</p>

<p>Nadine, I have seen a lot of pros that have shallow dof and still have the eyes tack sharp. Is it just their equipment + using the correct focus points? This lens I was using is one of the sharpest lenses out there so I'm sure it wasn't the equipment.<br>

Bob, what if I wanted the background to be completely gone. I'm sure 3.5 at that distance and 140mm is completely reasonable for sharp focus. Do you think it's the cosine error causing the problem, or am I expecting way too much at 100% (IMO eyes should be pretty sharp even at 100%)?<br>

Alec, can you please explain, or point me to an article? I didn't quite understand</p>

<p>Hi guys,<br>

I have another technical question, this time about the whole cosine-error issue (focus-recompose). So it was a relative's wedding and I have my Nikon D700 + rented the nikkor 70-200 VR lens (which is one of the sharpest lenses out there). I was using single-servo focus, spot metering off the cheek, and recomposing the shot. One example I had was around 140mm f/3.5 at shutter 1/800 or something around there so there was no chance of camera shake (I was also standing about 20-25 feet away). When I viewed the images 100% on a monitor, I saw that the eyes were not as sharp as they should be!! After doing some reading I came across the cosine-error flaw.<br>

I know that at that range, DOF should be pretty adequate to keep everything sharp within a foot or two, however, things were not as sharp as they should be. I read that rotating the camera's axis when recomposing even a little bit can throw this sharpness off. Is this true even for standing 20-25 feet away??? How do you guys work around this? I find it's a little better when I choose the focus point manually, but that's not always possible when shooting candid shots.<br>

Tips? Suggestions? Personally I like to focus-recompose, but I'm scared to do it now because even a little bit of rotation will cause unsharp images. Have you guys experienced this too?</p>

<p>Ahhhhhhh! That's what I wanted to hear Bob/Dave, thanks! I knew there had to be some kind of explanation to this. And I'm not talking about indoor church pics either, I'm talking about scenarios where you could easily choose 1/125 but rather chose 1/60. Makes sense that it's just preference from the film days.<br>

As a side question, don't you find 1/60 gives you hand-shake and isn't as sharp as could be??</p>

<p>Hi guys,<br>

I've been reading a lot of wedding photography books, and it seems a lot of the awesome pics are taken at 1/60s shutter speed, and I'm beginning to wonder why! And please dont tell me it's because of low-light situations or using a tripod...most images I've taken with 1/60 arent tack sharp (full-res). I feel I need to be at least 1/125 to get very sharp images. Boosting ISO isn't a huge problem nowadays with technology, and they could have easily increased the shutter speed to reduce shake/blur, but chose not to. That being said, WHY are most amazing wedding pics taken at 1/60? Is there something magical that happens at that shutter speed?<br>

Note: this question is in regards to non-flash, handheld photography.</p>

<p>WOW! Veryyy interesting. I experienced this problem this weekend when I rented a Nikkor 70-200mm 2.8 lens with a Nikon D700. I was shooting a half body portrait at 100mm / 3.5 from about 25 feet away. I focused on the cheek using spot metering (middle focus point) and recomposed. The depth of field I was expecting was about 3.8 feet, but when I viewed the picture on my computer the eyes were NOT tack sharp! WHAT THE HELL!!?? Can a few degrees of tilting throw it off THAT much???</p>

<p>Nadine, why shouldnt you use Av inside with flash???</p>

<p>Completely agree w/ Jonathan....reflector + spot metering on face + manual mode. It's not always convenient to use a tripod (I hate walking around w/ a tripod), so if your camera has a Mirror Up mode, use it to reduce any camera shake.</p>

<p>Hi guys, I'm new here and would like some opinions. I shoot with 14-bit RAW and the images come out amazing when processing. When I save the jpeg, the result is not as sharp, more noise is introduced, and seems a bit darker than the original RAW file.<br>

I'm not new to digital processing and I understand the bit loss, etc, but would like to know how you guys work around this. Especially for event photography where you need the best quality PRINTS. Do you send the lab the edited 14-bit RAW files? TIFF files? PSD files? Whats the best for print?</p>

<p>Thanks for the help in advance!</p>