severe processing C&C please

sineadw

Well I finally got to pick my camera up again for HWCH, and I have to admit I've been having confidence issues with my abilities shooting gig shots, but I promised two of the bands I'd shoot for them so I had no choice but to get on with it. At the time I was far too full of lemsips and lockets and bud to really care (if anyone did make it, I was the freak wearing the jacket and scarf all the way through the sweat-filled Hassle Merchants gig..), but the post-processing has kept me interested for the last few snot-filled days.

I'll post the raw to jpeg originals (I was shooting with 350D, 50mm 1.8 - of course:) - 1600 ISO, no flash) and my final attempts. If anyone wants to have a go at the originals please feel free (i'll email you the original RAWs if you want). All I can say is thank god for raw processing and the sliders!

I'm interested how you guys think I did, and if you would have done differently/where I went wrong. Full sets are on my flickr hopefully the ones posted here will give you an idea of what i had in camera.

Hmm.. what to post...

Ok this one I know is tremendously soft, but I'd missed all his shots as he was standing beside a huge RED LIGHT (!!) all the way through the gig so I had to dump most of the shots I had of him. I'd tried to get away with it until the band asked where he'd disappeared to. This (I think) was my best attempt of him.



And a jpeg of the original




From the Herm gig: (really bright yellow light and distracting background..)



and the original..



more or less

Valentia

I think you have done a pretty good job with these Sinead. The "softness" looks like movement and that's practically impossible to eliminate. A touch of unsharp mask would improve them even more.

I wouldnt mind a go with the raw. danny[at]porchfield[dot]com.

elven

I'm quite impressed with how you pulled out the subject from the background in the second, and the first although it's soft it's a damn sight better than I'd have managed given the circumstances - I think the conversion has some nice contrast, it doesn't look muddy like my previous attempts. So, no useful advice there I'm afraid!

Cabaal

second one is a damn good job imho,

bigeoino

strangely prefer the first one in it's original form. but you've done great stuff with the second.

Borderfox

Great job with the second one.

conzy

Very little noise for iso 1600....

Damn expensive cameras!

TelePaul

I've used the 350D with the nifty fifty to shoot gigs. I think 1600 might be pushing it a little bit (unless you're converting everything to B+W). Can you brighten the second one up just a tad? Maybe just around the edge of the bass to bring it out?

AnCatDubh

Sinead "freak wearing the jacket and scarf" - "snot-filled days" - ouoooooo..... what an image you've just put in our minds - LOL

Post processed are not bad at all considering the originals. 1st one is quite moody. b/w conversion is good - i'd nearly add some noise to it. i think it is that kind of shot. The second one is as good as it gets when considering the original methinks! The blue rather than yellow is effective - i presume white balance played a big part in this(?)

I agree with you on RAW. It's obviously better not to have to but if you need to make a recovery then you have the source material to work with RAW while JPEG will max out fairly early on.

Cheers.

sineadw

Thanks all I might do a bit of work on them all again, you've given me some ideas..

Yep I had to pull the temp all the way down and recover all the blown highlights, bumped the blacks and shadows up, then I did a fairly hefty curves mask to darken the image which I then painted back in on the mask to bring the subject back out. Then a big fiddle about with the red and magenta levels on the CS3 b&w adjustment layer. And a lot of cloning and burning. I would never usually be so heavy handed, but as I said I'd promised the bands something at least. I'm kind of liking the grungy look.

I need to get the hang of flash methinks...

Or get the 40D

thebaz

sineadw wrote:

Thanks all I might do a bit of work on them all again, you've given me some ideas..

Yep I had to pull the temp all the way down and recover all the blown highlights, bumped the blacks and shadows up, then I did a fairly hefty curves mask to darken the image which I then painted back in on the mask to bring the subject back out. Then a big fiddle about with the red and magenta levels on the CS3 b&w adjustment layer. And a lot of cloning and burning. I would never usually be so heavy handed, but as I said I'd promised the bands something at least. I'm kind of liking the grungy look.

I need to get the hang of flash methinks...

Or get the 40D

feck , your leaving me for dead with your ps wizardy , the course must be good , or are you getting private lessons again

Valentia

Be careful what you wish for. The noise on the 40D is worse at 1600 ISO than you have now. Worse than the 20D and 30D too. More pixels in the same space = more noise or something like that. I have seen some side by side samples and there is a fair difference :rolleyes:

The new Nikon D3 has amazing results (the best I have ever seen) at 6400 ISO but that's a ridiculous price.

RCNPhotos

Looking at the originals you would have gotten away with 800 I'm sure. it was in Tripod right? Their lights are pretty good so 800 on 1.8 would be fine. Great job fixing up the second one I must say. I was hoping to do HWCH but didn't know any of the bands personally and HWCH are hard to get onto methinks. It was too late before I realised when it was on etc. Was it good?

RCNPhotos

Oh and red lights.................the devil. Were they red for the whole set? If so then that sucks, that really really sucks

sineadw

Yep - red the whole way through for the LK. Well, until the band asked them to turn it off by which stage my card was full :rolleyes: The LK also project images onto the stage which kinda didn't help either. I'd tried 800 but was mostly getting speeds below 30.

It was a good laugh alright. I saw a lot of decent bands (once I put the camera away..). I actually ended up with an artist pass rather than a press one (long story - I was dave the rhythm guitarist ). There didn't seem to be any restrictions at all on people bringing cameras along though, which was nice to see.

And Danny I hadn't heard that about the 40! :eek: The higher iso is one of the main reasons I'm craving one

Barry - Its all Julie's doing! And here... Only starting PS in the course today.

Gonna miss the bus...

RCNPhotos

Speeds below 30??? With a 1.8? Were you shooting manual?

sineadw

AV.. It was very dark. It wasn't the main tripod stage - Crawdaddy and the Lennon Lounge (that teensy bar behind Tripod). I was hoping for much better light too. Maybe I need to change the metering?