Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Re: thoughts on shooting wedding

Subject: [OM] Re: thoughts on shooting wedding
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 20:12:51 -0800
Wayne Culberson wrote:

>..............
>Other than resized by Camedia software (which will destroy any picture :-),
>the picture is as it came from the camera.
>
So I resisted the first time...  Why do you use it if it degrades the 
picture? Why post pics that you say are compromised? Without some idea 
in what way they are compromised, how are we to react to your complaints 
about the results from the camera? There are lots of other ways to resize.

>http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3175400
>Trying to focus with the OM's was a challenge........
>
>Here is a picture of the bride and Bismark, who is a permanent resident at
>the Inn.
>http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3175402
>Again, shot on the C5050, and as it came from the camera, excepted resized.
>I also shot the same pose with the OM2s and Kodak Portra 400NC. As you can
>see, the bride's white dress is about right, at least to my eyes, but
>Bismark is almost blacked out. There is almost no detail in his coat at all,
>and the walls behind him are as dark as his coat, although they were
>wall-papered in a much lighter color. The candle lighting can again be seen
>in the background. Of course it can be lightened up, to show detail in
>Bismark's coat, and the papered wall, but then the bride is washed out.
>In contrast to this, the Kodak Portra film rendered the bride and her dress
>perfectly, as well as amazing detail in the various shades of Bismark's
>coat, and even shows clearly the pattern on the wallpaper and wallpaper
>border behind.
>
So you are complaining that an amateur DC didn't render the subject as 
well as a professional film? If you want better results, why not use a 
better camera? The 5050 uses quite a small sensor, and small photosites 
mean lower dynamic range, especially at the shadow end. Since I gather 
the RAW capability on this camera is compromised by poor software, I 
assume you were getting 8 bit color depth images. That limits the 
results to 256 steps of luminance. All DSLRs do much better dynamic 
range than that, as do many prosumers.

Did you notice C.H's recent post about the new Rawshooter converter?

"The extra benefit of this Rawshooter is it also convert C5050 RAW file, 
I have start to shoot RAW with C5050 as it has very fast saving speed 
(around 4 seconds) and I can get better control and quality image, 
especially used with NeatImage."

Did you try different contrast settings in the camera? The DPreview says 
"Generally good metering, tonal balance will be too contrasty for some 
but easy to change" The problem of lack of shadow detail would certainly 
be less with less contrast. The Portra NC films are low contrast films 
with huge latitude because that's just what you need for this kind of 
photography. As someone else mentioned, the camera will auto bracket, 
too, to help get the best exposure

>Besides this, the Portra film rendered the skin colors perfectly, not with
>reddish-pinkish hues as the C5050 did. For darker skinned people, perhaps
>this is not a problem.
>
The DPreview says "The C-5050 Zoom's automatic white balance really only 
performed well in natural light where it seemed fairly capable at 
deciding the difference between sunlight, shade and cloudy conditions. 
Under artificial light however there was a pink or yellow warm cast to 
images and the best results were obtained by switching to one of the 
preset white balances or by creating a manual (custom) white balance. 
It's also worth considering that all of the C-5050 Zoom's white balance 
settings can be fine tuned."

I'm sure you realize that all pro wedding shooters try mightly to pre 
test any new environment. You could have pre-arranged the 4 custom 
settings for different aspects of the shoot and had your WB, contrast, 
etc. much better for each shot. So you chose a 5050 as your tool, for 
whatever reasons. If you want to get the best out of it, you need to be 
familiar with its strength and weaknesses, if you are to get the best 
results with it. Of course, you already know how to do that with an OM 
and Portra from past experience.

>I realize all this can perhaps be manipulated in PS, but my question might
>be, what pro wedding photographer would want to spend their time
>manipulating 300+ photos in PS, when it is so much easier to just use Kodak
>Portra?
>
They wouldn't, and that's one reason they wouldn't use a camera like the 
5050. And if they did, they would know ahead of time how to get the best 
out of it in the setting.

>As to color balance and the developers, I use a local Kodak Image center
>that is about 12 kms from where I live. I know the people, and the few
>weddings I've done, I am sure to stress to them that these are wedding pics,
>so I don't want a one hour lab job done, nor am I interested in saving a
>couple dollars. They printed each of these photos one to a time, taking
>special care to blow dust off each neg, etc., you get the idea. But still
>they got them to me the same day, quite amazing. Again, I just can't imagine
>a wedding pro not using a service like this, as it is so cheap in
>comparison. You'd have to work in PS with your digital pics for 50 cents an
>hour to compete.
>
Unless, of course, he sets thing up ahead of time and has a camera, 
settings and automated work flow that don't require all that time.

>Perhaps in different circumstances.........
>I think I said once before, it is not a matter of film versus digital for
>me, but learning which is best for the particular situation. This time film
>wins by far.
>
I'm not trying to attack, nor do I wish to say you, or anyone else, 
should or shouldn't use film or digital for weddings, or for anything. I 
do think you have created a shoot out between camera/sensors that's like 
matching a welterweight against a heavyweight. So the heavyweight won, 
so what? There are digital heavyweights too. There are, by the way, 
DSLRs that will AF fine in that light without assistance, although they 
won't necessarily focus on the eyes. On the other hand, they will tend 
to have more DOF.

Moose





==============================================
List usage info:     http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies:        olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz