Help - I had a major problem taking pictures this weekend

[mblanton]

Hi,

I have a 10D, 28-135 IS (IS always turned on), and a 420EX. I usually take pretty good pictures. Something was different this weekend. I took 130 pictures at a egg hunt and ended up correcting 130 pictures in elements 2.0. I never have to do this...what went wrong? Many pictures were way to soft and I had to lighten some as much as +75 brightness, which made them all most useless. A few of you more experienced photographers please take a look at a few of pictures and see if you can point me in the right direction. Let me know what information I can give to help you understand what I did or didn't do. Thank you very much.

Mike

http://www.pbase.com/mblanton/easter

[IndyJeff]

What ISO were you shooting at?

What was your apt setting?

Which focus point did you have the camera set on?

Are ths images in the gallery before or after you did corrections? I am guessing they are after.

[Harry Settle]

When I first got my 10D, a few months ago, I jacked up the LCD brightness. Today after shooting I had some shots that turned out dark, although they looked fine on the LCD. I remembered that the histogram on those particular shots was skewed to the left and I ignored it because it looked ok on the lcd. (I know better than to trust this method) Tonight I cut back on the LCD brightness to see if I get a representation that will cause me not to ignore the histogram.

[Jon, The Elder]

I shoot the same lens and speedlight except I have the 20D.

Indoor arena shots (horse events).

ISO 800 - f5.6 or 6.3 at most. 135mm for across arena, Av mode, centerpoint focus.

Your shots look fine on your site. What specifically are you not happy about ?

[JAZZ D.P.G.]

IndyJeff has asked the right questions. What were the settings? What mode for both the camera and flash. EXIF information.

Can't really say what with-out knowing, would be educated guesses at best. Misleading info at worst.

I see a few "washed out" portraits, and a lot of really BRIGHT white in exterior shots.

By the way, the last shot of the young girl waiting for the rain to end is terrific. Should post this for comments as it is real life.

[mblanton]

Thanks for taking a look and trying to understand my question. Most of my inside shots were taken at ISO 100, 1/60, f/5 +2/3 stop. Flash was set to +-0 and bounced for all indoor shots. I just get really tired of having to correct every shot that I take. I will turn down the brightness on the lcd screen, but I still don't understand how to read a histogram. I wish there were some simple rules to follow when using the flash (specifically the 420ex). Thanks again and I will check back later.

Mike

[tim]

Did you use a lens hood? On a lot of those shots the contrast is quite poor, they look like they were taking through a steamy window. This can be caused by incident light hitting the lens, which a hood prevents.

[robertwgross]

Mike, you stated that it was an indoor event, so you used bounced flash. What were you bouncing it from? If it was a high ceiling, then that would explain some things. If it was a non-reflective ceiling, then that would explain some things.

What was the approximate range to your subjects? You know that the flash range is pretty limited when you shoot at ISO 100.

It is a MUST to learn how to read a histogram.

---Bob Gross---

[mblanton]

I always shoot with a lens hood, but the house did have vaulted ceilings. So, it sounds like I was pushing ISO 100 to far. I started practicing with the FE Lock last night and the histograms moved more toward the center. The problem with this method is the FE Lock is only good for a couple of feet and would you really want to pre-flash every subject before you took the picture.

I was also wondering about using the flash outdoors. How do you get that perfect look for an outdoor portrait. Is there a formula for figuring fill flash manually or are the better photographers using handheld meters?

[IndyJeff]

First off I think if I were shooting this I would have not even considered ISO100. I would have started at 400 and seen what I was getting and adjusted from there.
When outside, a cloudy dark day at best, 100 ISO isn't going to cut it. Your flash only extends so far. ISO 400 would have been better and maybe even 800 would have given better results.

1/60 is to slow a shutter speed for hand held and for subjects which may be moving.

[jukas]

Most of my inside shots were taken at ISO 100, 1/60, f/5 +2/3 stop. Flash was set to +-0 and bounced for all indoor shots.

I just got a 550ex and I too and trying to get used to getting consistantly correct exposure with a flash, so I'm just curious (and not saying you're wrong) as to why you set +2/3 camera exposure and +0 flash?


I'm just wondering if there's a specific reason and if maybe I'm doing it wrong (I usually do +0 on the camera body and -1 on the flash)

[robertwgross]

I agree with IndyJeff. I generally leave my camera set for ISO 400, and then I adjust up or down from there depending on light conditions. The flash range is just too limited at ISO 100. Just for an experiment, crank it up to ISO 800 and give it a try.

---Bob Gross---

[Chilly]

As you boost the ISO speed don't you lose clarity? I am not sure how digital works in this respect.

[robertwgross]

As you boost the ISO speed don't you lose clarity? I am not sure how digital works in this respect.

Clarity? No, not exactly.

As you push the ISO upward, you tend to get more color noise, but that depends on which camera you use and how high you are pushing.

Pushing to a higher ISO simply makes the main sensor and processor more sensitive to light (and the image file that comes from that). You get more luminance noise, and that manifests itself on the digital image as color noise (the little pink and yellow speckles in a white field). In most normal cases, color noise can be post-processed out, at least up to a point.

---Bob Gross---

[IndyJeff]

As you boost the ISO speed don't you lose clarity? I am not sure how digital works in this respect.


Generally it has been my experience that if you shoot an underexposed ISO 100 you will have more noise than if you used the ISO 400 or 800 and get a proper exposure.

And with all the noise software out there, noise has become a moot point basically.

[tim]

And with all the noise software out there, noise has become a moot point basically.

In my experience, if you use ISO3200 you do lose some fine detail even with noise reduction.

[mblanton]

I took my camera to work yesterday and took some outdoor shots. I set the camera on ISO 400, used my 75-300 mkII IS and used my flash in high speed sync mode (shutter speeds above 200). I got some really great results. I still had a few that I ended up throwing out but the biggest part of them were keepers. I will keep trying.