M8 at 2500

[Jamie Roberts]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Jamie, First, the wb -- I used a WhiBal card at the end of the shoot and balanced all the pix with that gray. The overhead lights were some funky combination of incancescant and either fluerescent or something else with a lousy color frequency. When I applied the wb in C1, I thot the colors cleaned up a lot.

 

I agree the organ is blown out (no pun intended), but I really want the dancer to be the focal point, so if I have to bring skin up from the lower zones, it's really going to be noisy. I tried to get the skin in a high enuf zone that they'd look like people.

 

I took these pix for a friend (her dance and dancers) and sat in the front row. If they were for me, I would have come at dress rehearsal and positioned myself where the damn organ weren't in the background -- or maybe had them turn off the lights that show off the pipes.

 

I posted that particular picture because of the way I felt Neat Image cleaned up the shadow on the leg. I am really pleased at its ability in that part of the image.

 

Hey Bill--

 

Ah the pain of mixed lighting!

 

I could tell from the colour shift that there was something weird with the WB. I'm not all that fond of the WhiBal these days, and I'm darned if I know why, except maybe I'm more critical than before.

 

I got one of those new expodiscs and it seems to be better. It's certainly more disciplined in some ways--you usually pick your key light, for example (which is the one, after all, that counts the most!)

 

Anyway, the organ isn't actually blown at all, just the top part.

 

The dancer is at least a stop--if not more--underexposed, and I'm only mentioning it because usually your stuff isn't

 

She needs a real lift in her face but that lift actually shows a bit of banding because you're dragging her up so much from an underexposed shot.

 

I would have blown out the organ completely and pushed the exposure to get her even higher!

 

Ah well. Just a thought; I think the colour is off because it's so dark...

[eronald]

If you people are interested, I could probably cook up some special profiles which might stretch the ISO more. I'm not certain that it would be better than fiddling the sliders, but one can try

 

Edmund

[lars_bergquist]

Bill, of the pictures of the single dancer, and the woman with the viol, I actually preferred the crisper look of those without noise reduction. Honest!

 

One way to reduce grain in B&W printing was to set your El-Nikkor to f:22 in order to let diffraction take some of the bite out of it. The effect was not unlike a mild noise reduction. I came however to prefer my grain just like my whisky – neat. But here of course you have not only luminance but also colour noise, which is more unnatural-looking maybe. I do prefer to leave off colour beyond 640.

 

I think digital noise will in time acquire its own esthetic and following, just like film grain did. Around 1960 we had a photog by name of Rolf Winquist who shot beautiful young girls on Tri-X and dunked them in raw Rodinal so that the poor things looked as if they had been airbrushed on macadam. He became famous for it, but he died of it (admittedly, this also had to do with the fact that he worked in a closet-sized darkroom while chainsmoking).

 

The old man from the Age of Grain

[wparsonsgisnet]

...

Regarding noise reduction, for some shots it really works well, but I hesitate to use it on all shots. I read with interest that Bill uses it on 'every' shot. Perhaps you can explain more about 'why' you do this Bill, and how much difference you can see on regular prints (I typically only print up to A2+).....

 

David, I can't see this on the screen here, and will address this when I am at my computer at home.