<p>Hi there, <br> This is my first post so I hope I put all the relevant information down. <br> I have recently started to make my main income from photography. I usually shoot property and portraiture in the studio but have been asked to cover a couple of events. Every event I have covered so far, including theatre productions (no flash obviously but great focused lighting on the stage), have been fine and I have been pleased with the results. The most recent event however was a dinner shot in an art gallery where flash was not allowed and the only natural light in the venue was from a ceiling box (very high ceilings and in the evening so the light had started to fade). The 'artificial' lighting wasn't the best and was there to highlight the paintings on the walls, rather than any event. I was asked not to use a continuous light source as it would be distracting.<br> Anyway, to cut a long story short, as you can probably guess I am not pleased with the results. I shot at f5.6 most of the time and a 1/125th for most which given I was doing group shots (people chatting - reportage really) was as low as I wanted to risk going from a movement and sharpness point of view but as a result I was at an ISO of 10,000 (ouch!) and some of the photos were still slightly under exposed. The photos look sharp (under the grain) but as soon as I apply any noise reduction the majority go soft - there are one or two that are 'good' but it is mostly where people are standing still not talking or looking up at the ceiling so not what I would usually put forward as part of the submission. <br> I shot with a Nikon D750 and a 80-200 Nikon lens which I kept on just about the whole event as it is the fastest and sharpest lens I have. <br> For editing I have tried using the noise reduction in Photoshop Raw and in Photoshops editor - both of which produce slightly blotchy results and loose colour; Topaz DeNoise which is OK for the faces but still results in softer images than I would like (due to the amount of noise reduction) and also (I forgot to mention this bit) the gallery has deep red walls and the software produces bright prink / dark pixellation in some ares; Noiseware - same as Topaz; and Nik Collection and Photo Ninja - results were grainy and again seemed to loose some colour saturation. I have used a little bit of Topaz Clarity to try to rescue some of the colour. <br> I want to submit about 150 images at 12x8inch - I have not been asked for this size of image so I am wondering if I should reduce the size to 6x4inch; the photos look much better at this size.<br> I guess I have three questions (in addition to the one above! :-))- at the moment I am trying to use two or three techniques to 'help' the photos but give the number it is taking me an age. Does anyone have any suggestions as to any other way of editing the photos that would produce better results and take me less that 45 minutes a photo (and still not happy with it!). I hate putting my name on soft images, if not artistically intended (even slightly soft) - but for event photography in such an environment would this be acceptable. Last question, is there anything I could do differently in this environment as they have asked me to go back and at the moment I just want to turn down the job, which I hate doing, but I don't feel at the moment I have the skill set to take decent images in this environment; I hate submitting an invoice when I'm not happy with the results. I realise I am on a huge learning curve but this is a professional environment and I don't want to get a bad name because of less than satisfactory photos.<br> Many thanks for any help / suggestions!<br> Sally</p> <p> </p>
