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Photo Forum / Photo Technique / People Photography / May 2006Contrast Wedding
Hi I have a digital camera (canon 5D) that allows one to change the Contrast from zero contrast to maximum (8) I will be using the camera for a traditional wedding with the bride in a white dress and the groom in a black suit. How important is the contrast setting? It also has Sharpening, Saturation and color Tone settings. Will zero contrast give me the best tonal range, and what will the picture look like? Thanks m > Hi > I have a digital camera (canon 5D) that allows one to change the Contrast [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Will zero contrast give me the best tonal range, and what will the picture > look like? If you have to ask questions like this, perhaps you shouldn't be photographing once-in-a-lifetime events. haven't been to this newsgroup in years.....still see randall is still a pompous a.s.....gee, nothing changes >> Hi >> I have a digital camera (canon 5D) that allows one to change the Contrast [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > If you have to ask questions like this, perhaps you shouldn't be > photographing once-in-a-lifetime events. > haven't been to this newsgroup in years.....still see randall is still > a pompous a.s.....gee, nothing changes [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >> If you have to ask questions like this, perhaps you shouldn't be >> photographing once-in-a-lifetime events. He has a point though! If you ruin a set of wedding photos,you can't just restage the event and take them again, can you. I did wedding photography myself for a while, and it's not as simple as 'point camera and shoot'. How come nobody's answered my question? I thought the idea of this newsgroup is mutual support. Best wishes J > > haven't been to this newsgroup in years.....still see randall is still > > a pompous a.s.....gee, nothing changes [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > photography myself for a while, and it's not as simple as 'point camera > and shoot'. > How come nobody's answered my question? > > I thought the idea of this newsgroup is mutual support. > > Best wishes > J Because it's open ended questions. You have to find the answers that work for you. What's best for me may not be best for you. What's important for me might not be what's important for you. For instance ... white dress, black suit = high contrast. But, do you want to emphasize that contrast more? Or minimize it? What style are you looking for in your work? And, how will what you do to the contrast between the dress and suit affect the contrast of the rest of the scene? Which end of the control scale does which? Does a setting of 8 make the scene more contrasty when it's recorded, to compensate for low contrast? Or does a setting of 8 make it easier to record high contrast scenes by making them less contrasty? Maybe it's in the user's manual. You should have received one with the Camera. I don't have one, so I can't tell you what your user's manual says. >>haven't been to this newsgroup in years.....still see randall is still >>a pompous a.s.....gee, nothing changes [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > photography myself for a while, and it's not as simple as 'point camera > and shoot'. If you're getting paid for it, you might be obliged to. I know of one photographer who had to fly a whole wedding party down to the caribean from the mid-west because he gummed it up the first time round. High society wedding, prominent families & he couldn't afford to piss 'em off. Came out of his pocket, although I'm sure his business insurance covered most of it, and the rest got written off on his taxes. > If you're getting paid for it, you might be obliged to. > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Came out of his pocket, although I'm sure his business insurance covered > most of it, and the rest got written off on his taxes. Back when I had the studio, there was one of my competitors who - and I know of at least two instances - had to pay to restage a wedding because he screwed up the pictures. > He has a point though! If you ruin a set of wedding photos,you can't > just restage the event and take them again, can you. I did wedding > photography myself for a while, and it's not as simple as 'point camera > and shoot'. He didn't say that he had been hired to do that as a job. Though it is a pro quality camera, it also could be someone that likes to use pro grade equipment just because its the best and for them money is no object. My personal suggestion is to do two things. First get the manuals out and see what you can find out in there, with a possible call to Canon to help explain what the controls actually do. Though I don't do weddings, the trick would be to have as much flexibility as possible in the post capture processing as possible. The more flexibility, the more likely you are to be able to correct problems. Second I would find some friends of theres to be test subjects. Ideally Id want someone to wear the exact dress and suit that will be used on the big day. If thats not possible get as close as you can, and then spend the day playing with different settings, ect so you are not guessing what will happen. You know what will happen. Finally Id get there early with a lap top to check some early work. Slip a CF card into a reader and check and make sure what you think is happening really is before its all messed up. The monitors on the back of the camera never worked that well for me for this. Better to find a few shots off and fix the problem than have a whole card full of images with a problem that can not be fixed. Thanks for all this. I find that the proof of the pudding is in the prints. I can't really see the results until I see the prints in my hand. I then have to decide whether the problem is the lighting, camera, lens settings, flash etc. Nothing is static when working with people photography. How come people don't really know the Canon 5D? I think I will try the Canon helpline. J > > He has a point though! If you ruin a set of wedding photos,you can't > > just restage the event and take them again, can you. I did wedding [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > fix the problem than have a whole card full of images with a problem that > can not be fixed. >I find that the proof of the pudding is in the prints. >I can't really see the results until I see the prints in my hand. >I then have to decide whether the problem is the lighting, camera, lens >settings, flash etc... >I think I will try the Canon helpline. oh.. dear.. Think about those comments, in light of the fact that he is about to shoot someone's wedding *as the prime photographer*. (See other thread) I feel *very* sorry for the couple. (Or him, if he is trolling, because it isn't particularly funny.) > haven't been to this newsgroup in years.....still see randall is still a > pompous a.s.....gee, nothing changes Somebody is going to photograph an event that is the most important event in at least two people's lives, and the questions he asks are questions that shouldn't be asked. This is a wedding, not pictures of your little kid washing the car. > Somebody is going to photograph an event that is the most important > event in at least two people's lives, and the questions he asks are > questions that shouldn't be asked. This is a wedding, not pictures of > your little kid washing the car. I fail to read anywhere where he said that he's the official wedding photographer, or a professional, or just that he's paid by the wedding couple. A couple of thoughts about this (keeping it basic). 1) Shoot your photos RAW (or RAW+JPEG if you must), and get a good post-processing program like CaptureOne Pro, Photoshop CS or RawShooter from http://www.pixmantec.com/ - they have an extremely capable "Essentials" product that is totally free. Then you don't have to worry (as much) about in-camera settings and can concentrate on composition. The camera settings you mentioned are used only to generate a JPEG file in the camera, but shooting in RAW format records the exact data coming off the camera's sensor, and you can make decisions about contrast, saturation, white balance etc on the computer later. Caveats: - you still have to watch that your exposure is not over or too far under. Processing RAW can do some amazing rescues, but if the shot is overblown and clipped there ain't no way to get the top-end detail back. Similarly for under-exposed. - The image files are much larger, so you'll need more cards or some way to dump them onto a laptop or Hyperdrive-type device. 2) Practice, practice, practice and experiment, experiment, experiment. One of the single best things about shooting digital is that experiments have (nearly) zero cost. If you MUST see prints they are cheap too. Found a solution On my software pack that comes with the Canon 5D is a software package called Digital Photo Professional that gives one incredible control over jepg and raw files created by Canon cameras. One doesn't have to open a file in order to make adjustments, it works through a browser interface. In addition to the adjustments available to jpg files there additional adjustments available for raw files. One adjustment for raw files is the ability to assign a canon "picture style" to a picture. I took one picture in raw format and made five copies from five different "picture style" conversions of the same picture. I printed them out and compared them. Wow what a great learning tool with instant feedback. Canon's ZoomBrowser EX is also a awesome picture browser. > A couple of thoughts about this (keeping it basic). > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > experiments have (nearly) zero cost. If you MUST see prints they are > cheap too. |
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