Troubled Night shoot

[john101477]

First off I would like everyones opinion on this image. I had a hard time with noise and even after masking the noise slightly I am not sure of the dark images I took the other night. to much noise reduction seemed to soften/blur the image to much and even if I sharpened it again it just reintroduced the noise. what would have been the correct procedure in a darkly lit middle of down town situation?
50mm
f1.8
1/125
ISO 1600
sb800 = ev. -2/3 (trying to make the light soft

Attachments:

[Steve (FloppyDog)]

The first thing I see right off, is that you could stand to turn your ISO down and add more shutter speed time. Contrary to what many people believe, you don't necessarily need high ISO settings for night photography if you can get away with longer shutter speeds. You might try using rear-curtain sync while using your SB800. This will give a longer exposure time and still give you a proper amount of flash.

For those who may not know what rear-curtain sync is: Under "normal" circumstances using flash, the camera uses a fairly fast shutter speed which is why you get dark backgrounds with flash. The rear-curtain sync function tells the camera to use a longer shutter speed to burn in the background. It then triggers the flash at the end of the exposure, just before the shutter closes.

[john101477]

hmmm I see kinda. how do I set that up? I may have to go digging in the manual to see. how far would the shutter need to be with a lower ISO? say 800 or so? or could I go lower yet? I might have gotten some pretty cool motion light with the road behind her.

[OrcaBob]

Was the shot handheld or on tripod? If you go slower than 1/125, handheld is going to lack sharpness no matter what. If you weren't using a tripod, I'd suggest using one. I'm not sure how much the model was moving around. A very slow shutter may not be feasible.

I'd suggest adding some light with a bounced and heavily diffused Speedlight. It probably won't take a lot of light to make a big difference in the exposure.


Love that model, BTW. She's a beauty.

[john101477]

yeah the night shots I took were all hand held because we were walking all over downtown. the model did move a lot but she knows what freeze means for the most part. The slow shutter sync deal like steve said might give me that same look as the image I showed you last week. Idk I probably could have backed off the ISO a little and used a shoot through maybe. hard to say. other issues may have arose with that one. public side walk having to stop every 10 frames to let some one walk through. Staying close enough to the model so she felt safe while all the jack holes leared and whistled as they walked or drove by. I am just fortunate that she is willing to try the late shoot again.
Laura is a gem, kinda like Jazzy is for you, Laura is steering business my way. I used one of her images in my business cards and gave her a bunch to hand out. She photographs well and I do not have to get to awfully heavy on the PS.

[OrcaBob]

If you're walking all around, at least use a monopod. With handheld in low light and slow shutter, it doesn't matter how well the model freezes; you'll still get blur from your own handshake and body tremor.

[OrcaBob]

Another point:
Knocking the Speedlight down 2/3 of an exposure value won't soften the light. It'll reduce shadows only by virtue of putting out less light. The only way to truly soften the light is to diffuse it.

[jimhobson]

John, I'm at a loss here. What exactly are you trying to do? Keep the background lit and sharp? Let it blur? Show motion? in the background.
Noise reduction does reduce resolution. Sharpening does enhance resolution. Reducing flash output does just that, reduces output. To soften use a diffuser.
Rear curtain sync tells the camera not to fire the flash at the beginning of the exposure, but fire it at the end of the exposure. Some cameras (Canon XTi) actually fire two flash bursts. The difference it makes is how moving objects will appear in the image. The light trail in front of the moving object or behind the moving object. The speed of the flash burst is what will stop motion or the movement of your model.

[Steve (FloppyDog)]

It would surely help to turn on your histogram and shoot a few test shots before hand. Get an idea what setup is working well for what you want. One advantage in night photography is that the levels of available light in your scene usually stay pretty stable. (I.E. you don't have cloud movement etc. causing light changes) So, once you find something that works, you can use this setup for the majority of your shots.


One way to approach this type of a photo is to look at it as a combination of two different exposures. One exposure is your background illuminated with ambient light, the other is your foreground with your model illuminated with a strobe.


Background: If you want to keep your background sharp, you’ll have to use either a fast shutter speed (about 1/60 and up), or like Bob said use a tripod if using a slower speed. If you’re background is going to be out-of-focus, you can probably afford to use a slower shutter speed. In fact, with a slow shutter speed you might even add interest to your image with the weird light streaks you get.


Foreground: In flash photography it’s important to understand that your strobe is illuminated for only a few milliseconds. The “freezing” action of your strobe is not related to your shutter speed. You’ll get the same freezing action with your strobe with a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second as you would with ½ second or even if you leave your shutter open for an hour. That is, if your strobe is the only thing illuminating your subject. If other ambient is present, you may still get ghosting in your image if using too slow a shutter speed.


I may get spanked for this, but: Determine your exposure based on the ambient/available light. Consider your desired aperture since you’re shooting portraits and find a good shutter speed that will allow you to capture your background lights. This is the time you’ll be determining your ISO, keeping at the minimum you can get away with. I’d be willing to bet you could get away with ISO 200 or 400 if you can shoot at ¼ or ½ second of shutter speed. Then, set your SB-800 to TTL and shoot a few test shots and see what you get. You may end up switching your flash from TTL to Auto. This would be a good experiment to try before your next shoot. Don’t forget to keep a close eye on your histogram.

[john101477]

Bob - Yeah I should have used a monopod but I am generally pretty steady down to 1/80. using the speedlight, I did have the little diffusion cap on and the flip down out as well ( I should have mentioned that from the start). I kind of think next time I will just pick a spot set up 2 speedlights on shoot through umbrellas and deal with having to move everything every 10 minutes. This should allow me to dial down the ISO considerably. Will this give me more room to play with the DoF? or in this setting am I stuck at 1.8?
Jim - I am just trying to get a good sharp late hour image without to much noise. I like the way the light was hitting her, just not the noise that was included with the high ISO. trying to find balance

[john101477]

Steve, I am not sure a shutter speed that slow would work for the model, I may be bass ackwards here. I am going to have to try a few things like the flash delay and the umbrellas. maybe I will drag my wife out and test on her lol. As I said before my main issue is the noise and ISO so I have to drop the ISO and get more light while diffusing it enough to create a soft feel.

[jimhobson]

John
"Steve, I am not sure a shutter speed that slow would work for the model" As Steve said "The “freezing” action of your strobe is not related to your shutter speed.", providing the model is only lit by the strobe, which appears to be the case.
Try exactly as Steve explained it. I think that would work well for you.

Oh yea...... You don't practice on your wife? I'd be lost without my permanent "test subject"

[OrcaBob]

Tons of excellent advice here and I don't think any of it's contradictory. The differences just illustrate the many options available in this scenario. It all comes down to dealing with the three main shot parameters. If your priority is a clear, less-noisy shot, then you're taking ISO out of the list of variables. Using supplemental light just gives you more leeway in how to play with the remaining variables.

[Steve (FloppyDog)]

Nov 4, 2009 16:30:20 GMT -5 OrcaBob said:

Tons of excellent advice here and I don't think any of it's contradictory. The differences just illustrate the many options available in this scenario. It all comes down to dealing with the three main shot parameters. If your priority is a clear, less-noisy shot, then you're taking ISO out of the list of variables. Using supplemental light just gives you more leeway in how to play with the remaining variables.

I couldn't agree more. A photographer I used to assist for (and learned from) once gave me a "homework" assignment. His simple instructions were to choose one of the three variables and write down how many exposure combinations are possible for any one photo. So, I dutifully went home and put together a list of shutter speeds possible for a standard outdoor-on-a-sunny-day photo. I probably had about a dozen, but the real answer: Infinity. There are an infinite number of combinations that can be used for any photo with the only restrictions being the capabilities of the camera.

[john101477]

thanks guys. I have a couple of weeks for a reshoot. I have a western shoot in 3 weeks with the same gal. I am shooting with another gal this saturday. Long blonde hair, We will see how it all works out.