leighton w wrote:
I've had 4 surgeries since May all because of a kidney stone, so I've been off and on quite a bit. Had one yesterday matter of fact.
Sorry to hear this Leighton, I have had them twice, last go around I had lythotripsy which really made it like passing 4 stones the hard way in a week. What you must be going through must be horrible at times. May this all end soon for you!
James Markus wrote:
rafael,
The improvement in software imaging is very apparent in your samples. Your EXIF and IPTC metadata has been stripped from your photos - I assume by Flicker, or possibly by FM, but here is my "advice".
Theater can be quite a challenge in getting a good WB and/or exposure. So, what I am about to say is going to sound counter-intuitive - shoot everything in manual mode. The first thing I would do is set a manual WB in degrees kelvin (usually between 3300-4700K). The reason for doing it in camera - is that Nikon's 14bit RAW capture in camera is better than any after the fact adjustment through software. Doing this frees the software from doing more drastic adjustments, because it is already close. I never used manual focus lenses in live theater photography - unless for staged group shots. I had a method of even thinking about all the shots based upon a "base exposure", and how to establish that base using the doubling and halving relationship between shutter speed and f-stop. I also used a negative EV to preserve highlights, but usually -1/3rd and occasionally 2/3rds of a stop.
Jim, your advice regarding the RAW balance is quite useful, I have the advantage of doing this as a hobby with friends who are happy with getting the photos. Could never do it professionally with MF lenses. As it is I get enough in focus photos, the extra work is on me to select them. Using the wrong software for processing high ISO and high contrast photos (mostly just very inefficient) had taken the fun from it.
Raphael always a treat to see your captures. The stage shots remind me a lot of Ray's work.
James I like the expanse of the panorama/landscape. Great composition,
Here are some from Big Bay and the Falls located somewhere at the end of the dirt road which ked then to a good hike! A lot of work to get these and I turned one into a pano of six or seven shots.
Thank you Ken. I want to get familiar with Adobe and ON1 noise reduction and do theater again.
rafaelcasd wrote:
I will keep boring you with my processing journey.
A long time ago I owned a copy of Photoshop; then Adobe dropped updates and went subscription. I swore never to use Photoshop again.
For most of my low ISO photos, standard Nikon SW does what I want: color, contrat, a bit of sharpness, exposure, etc.
For my theater photos I struggled with corrections (white balance, exposer, highlights, shadows etc.), long processing times and trouble with getting noise reduction right. This being one reason I stopped taking photos of my dancing friends. (the other reasons were work and the pandemic).
I decided to go back to Adobe.
Here is before and after with LR and On1 noise reduction.
Underexposure helps with theater light contrast (highlights), Nikon cameras have excellnt DR but get noisy in shadows.
Ansel Adams said that great photographs are made not taken (or words to that effect) and this is really true of digital.
To deal with noise I've found DxO Photolab 4's Deep Prime technology really excellent. Various comparisons have been made with Topaz and it is regarded as being at least as good. The denoising s/w is also available as stand alone . Deep Prime only works on RAW files but I love it.
saph wrote:
Ben now you are chasing Romans with a micro-Nikkor?? That is an excellent street portrait!
Yes Samy, chasing Romans with the micro Nikkor, well, it's mostly tourists actually, lol. It's better than going after them with a Tachihara 4x5 Field Camera, not that I could lift one.
Jim - thank you, yes, this micro Nikkor is incredibly sharp even for street work. I bought it from Indiana. But, to be fair, I probably took 30 shots that day and that's the only one that was in focus.
Leighton - that first one is beautiful, wonderful vista.
Ben
