I have a bride who's made a request for a silhouette shot in the entrance to the church. I've never really attempted one of these, but since this bride really wants it I'd like to make sure I nail this shot.
My guess would be meter for the sky behind the bride, set to manual and fire away. Maybe even stop down 1 additional stop?
As long as you stick to ISO100-400, you won't see any noise. I shoot a proper exposure for the background and adjust in RAW. You don't want to risk having to bump up your exposure. That's what'll give you noise.
If you've got a high ISO and an older body (300D, 350D, 1D), underexposing is guaranteed to give you some nasty noise and (usually) banding even before having to bump up the exposure in PP. A 5D or similar will give you much more leeway when you do underexpose and have to recover it, but even a 5D RAW will start to show noise if you bump it more than +1 in PP.
bacilonur wrote:
If you've got a high ISO and an older body (300D, 350D, 1D), underexposing is guaranteed to give you some nasty noise and (usually) banding even before having to bump up the exposure in PP. A 5D or similar will give you much more leeway when you do underexpose and have to recover it, but even a 5D RAW will start to show noise if you bump it more than +1 in PP.
I assume that you were trying to answer my question to Liza, and I know what you mean with high ISO & pushing exposure in pp. I thought Liza was on to something I didn't fully understand before. Thanks for clearing that up though.
Stopping down "too far" means "too much" to the point that you have to recover a bit in post. However, if you stop down to where it needs to be your noise should not be bad.
Thanks everyone! This is one of those, get it right in the camera, and your post production will yield better results.
Liza, I'm with ya... stopping down too far would then require you to bring the background back up in PP, resulting in noise. Rather a properly exposed background, and bring up the blacks a bit does the trick right on.
Sorry I wasn't able to answer your question in a timely manner, Matt. I shoot sports as well and am all too familiar with the noise problem in underexposed images when you try to adjust them in RAW. It's best to either properly expose or overexpose just a bit to avoid the noise issue. In the photo I posted above, you could see the couple in the original. I made the silhouette using a RAW converter.
Best thing is to set the exposure in manual for the scene as though the couple were not there. So that the background is well exposed. Then take the photo making sure the couple is in the shadows.
