Ok, I think I'm convinced...2nd practice

[ldibo]

I tried again and this is what I got for pictures. Thanks to those who responded to my post the other day. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=126250 The lowest my lenses would go was 4.0. Then I used 1/500 and ISO 800. They appear grainy to me. I guess it's time to start selling stuff to get a better lens as when I take pictures at tournaments I cannot use a flash. I'll report back after I get one.

Lynn

[dmwierz]

Not sure what was said before, but your shots are being adversly impacted by the backlighting. If you can, I'd try some fill flash, or maybe a reflecting card. It would bring out the details in the face, and eliminate some of the grain. ISO 800 isn't always grainy. I regularly shoot ISO 1600 with the XT and it can be OK.

[Palladium]

quick workup in cs2 (about 2 mins) duped the original used mag lasso to seperate student from background, duped the new student only layer and set the visibality option from normal to screen and reduced the opacity from 100% to about 75%. used reduce noise filter set 3, 15, 0,0.

saved for web jpeg at 71% or original to keep it under 100K (lost alot of it's range :cry: )

[ColoradoKen]

I tried again and this is what I got for pictures. Thanks to those who responded to my post the other day. The lowest my lenses would go was 4.0. Then I used 1/500 and ISO 800. They appear grainy to me. I guess it's time to start selling stuff to get a better lens. I'll report back after I get one.

Lynn

yes fill flash might help, along with a bit of post processing. Here's the same pic with a basic "Levels" adjustment.

If you think ISO800/1600 is "grainy" on an XT/10D/20D you probably haven't seen pics from non-Canon DSLR's! The Canon's are "clean machines" indeed or ... shot film in the ISO800+ range!

Lastly if you shoot at 1600 (and noise does become much more apparent) try any one of the popular noise reduction programs. I use Noise Ninja (for digital and film scans) and it works quite well IMO.

[liza]

If you decide to pick up another lens, consider that 50mm. It's inexpensive but still good in low light. Also, can you shoot from the other side of the mat? I know that isn't possible sometimes, but it would eliminate the backlighting issue.