-=50D Owners Unite! Share Tips and Post Pics

Only had my 50D for a week,

im curious to know how this meets your standards guys? is this considered unusable/ unacceptable image?..

pretty new to the 50D specs so I would appreciate your honest opinions.

shot at ISO 2500

kris142 wrote in post #13910736
MY pictures are basically useless at anything above 2000 iso, I'm thinking my sensor is going out or something

I wont send them for competitions, but they are quite usable for me. Especially, when the alternative is to not have that shot.

Here is one at iso3200 with -1EV as well (that's the worst I have taken it), with pretty much no noise reduction applied.

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Greg, what were your other specs on the shot? it appears the Exif is not listed... Generally shooting to the right (overexposed) will help an image with noise, meaning if you shoot an over exposed shot at 3200 and bring it down, it will look less noisy than a proper exposure at a lower iso. It seems like your image is very very underexposed, and any pushing in post at higher ISO's will cause pretty bad noise on most any camera!

paradiddleluke wrote in post #13911054
Greg, what were your other specs on the shot? it appears the Exif is not listed... Generally shooting to the right (overexposed) will help an image with noise, meaning if you shoot an over exposed shot at 3200 and bring it down, it will look less noisy than a proper exposure at a lower iso. It seems like your image is very very underexposed, and any pushing in post at higher ISO's will cause pretty bad noise on most any camera!

thanks for taking the time to share your insights, Luke

heres the exif screenshot i pulled up from DPP.. i dont know why exif does not show up, so i've attached it..

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This is pretty good article on exposing to the right in RAW, basically raising your exposure one stop will double the amount of data you have to work with (more signal/less noise). Just have to be careful not to blow anything out.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial​s/expose-right.shtml

@greg, yeah that seems to be a pretty tricky exposure, musta been dark!! 2500iso with f/2.8 and 1/50th. Worst case scenario I would have tried to go down to 1/30th of a second or so and see if you can hand hold it sharp enough, but yeah that's a tricky one! gotta hate low light, that's where f/1.4 primes come in handy

I've found that using the full stop ISO's seems to produce more usable images. Always stick to the standards: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200. The in between stuff tends to get pretty bad.

The examples in this album are all at 1600 or higher: http://www.flickr.com …y/sets/72157625​919718968/

mkallstrom wrote in post #13909547
It's taken at 1/30s handheld so I wouldn't be surprised if there is some camera shake. No exposure compansation when I took it, pulled exposure back -0.3 in Lightroom. I just took that as a snapshot in a pub and have basically made no effort to clean it up, just thought it would give an idea of how the camera handles low light situations. Do you think it looks that bad?

I took the values for your camera settings. My bad.
Nonetheless exposing to the right and shooting RAW helps cleaning up things. But you are right, pictures taken at ISO 3200 with minimal pp look the way yours look.

Cheers.

Thanks Luke and Headsick for sharing your inputs and knowledge.. very much appreciated..

RAW-Shooter wrote in post #13912026
I took the values for your camera settings. My bad.

I wasn't very clear on that and it was maybe not the best picture to use as an example. The couple in the back is actually a bit OOF since I focused somewhere around the steps in the middle (if I remember correctly and I can't really explain that decision).

RAW-Shooter wrote in post #13912026
Nonetheless exposing to the right and shooting RAW helps cleaning up things.

Fully agree! I have had this camera for a couple of years now, but it's only very recently I have started to really pay attention to the exposure when shooting in low light, mainly because of some threads on this message board. Earlier I have tried to avoid even ISO 1600, often resulting in under exposed images that are very hard work to clean up in PP. Based on recent tests I have done I feel fairly confident in shooting up to ISO 3200 with the 50D (as long as I keep in mind that the photos will maybe not be suitable for large prints).

Two more examples (then I will stop posting crappy photos in this thread). This was mainly a first test of UniWB, but I paid attention to the exposure and tried to expose as far to the right as possible without blowing any important highlights. I think I missed focus a bit on the second one, but that wasn't really the point of the test anyway. The lighting is of course also horrible for a portrait. I seem to often mess up exposure (I don't blame it on the camera, it's mostly because I don't think things through before I take the picture) and I'm quite a hack when it comes to PP, so if you are interested in seeing what the camera is capable of under difficult circumstances there are plenty more where these came from

ISO 3200, exposure pulled back in Lightroom together with minor NR (luminance 10, color 25):

mkallstrom, ISO 3200 looks A-OK! thanks for sharing.. atleast i wont be too scared to shoot use 3200...

paradiddleluke wrote in post #13911054
Generally shooting to the right (overexposed) will help an image with noise, meaning if you shoot an over exposed shot at 3200 and bring it down, it will look less noisy than a proper exposure at a lower iso. It seems like your image is very very underexposed, and any pushing in post at higher ISO's will cause pretty bad noise on most any camera!

Yup. When shooting at high ISOs with my 50D I usually over expose at least a full stop.

Honestly, I find the 50D usually underexposes about a half a stop so I always over expose a half stop when shooting at lower ISOs as well.

Also, when shooting RAW, you have much more leeway if you over expose than if you under expose.

GadgetRick wrote in post #13913467
Yup. When shooting at high ISOs with my 50D I usually over expose at least a full stop.

Honestly, I find the 50D usually underexposes about a half a stop so I always over expose a half stop when shooting at lower ISOs as well.

Also, when shooting RAW, you have much more leeway if you over expose than if you under expose.

My 50D doesn't seem to underexpose, but before I would overexpose a full stop I'd probably just shoot a stop lower ISO. Not sure I am following your train of thought here.

District_History_Fan wrote in post #13913755
My 50D doesn't seem to underexpose, but before I would overexpose a full stop I'd probably just shoot a stop lower ISO. Not sure I am following your train of thought here.

I think you got this mixed up. In this scenario, if you lower your ISO you actually underexpose....

GregPH wrote in post #13909022
heres one at 1600.. pretty happy with how it performs.. it was quite dim when i shot this as well..

Yeah looks pretty good.
For me it was in a studio setting and I think I know what I did wrong.
I think the model is to far from the main light and that's what caused the picture to look
more pixelated. Please correct me if am wrong. I was shooting iso 100 f11 1/125th.

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