Newfound Lightroom skills

So, I'm posting one of the photos from my last post after some additional post-processing. I got some really good tips from the people in the Retouching forum on dpreview.com. I am really excited to be learning more about the program. I know it can give me great abilities -- I just haven't taken the time to really try things out. This photo gave me a good reason to.

So, here's my new edited version. One other thing I'd really like to do to finish it off would be to run it through some dedicated noise reduction software, but I don't have any of those programs (Noise Ninja, etc.). Ah, well.





















I actually used the Mask tool to brighten the man's face and darken the plate on the wall right behind his head. I used Lightroom's noise reduction, but the beta only lets you do color and edge detail NR, not luminescence NR. I made the colors a cooler blue-ish tint. I could have lightened the photo more, but I like the shadows on the right side contrasting against the bright neon lights on the left.

If I have time this weekend, I would love to take some old photos and run them back through Lightroom to see if I can do better.

Night shots

I experimented a little with night shots last week. I had no idea what settings to use, so it was pretty much all trial and error. Here's one that I think turned out okay.

It was taken with my 85mm at ISO 800, f/2.8, and 1/200 sec.





















I think the colors of the neon lights are interesting, and I'm hoping the man's face is light enough to be noticed. I think it is.

Here's another with the 85mm, at ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/50 sec:






















I like the colors in this one, too. The lamp post in the foreground looks neat to me with the yellow and red casing.

And here's the uncropped, unstraightened version of it, which I include because I like the dark figure on the far right of the frame, and I missed him when I had to straighten/crop:





















I wish I knew of a way to sort of copy-paste him back into the straightened version. I might ask on the retouching forum if anyone has any ideas. I think he adds a lot to the photo.

But anyway, I was actually quite pleased with these two since I hadn't really tried to shoot outdoors in these kind of lighting conditions yet. It was pretty hard for me to get anything that wasn't blurry, and these two are two of the three best. I scrapped almost everything else. Nothing I took of people walking by came out -- too blurry. I know the shutter speed was to blame for that, but I already had the aperture as wide open as I thought reasonable, and I wasn't willing to boost ISO to 1600, but maybe I should have been.

But I think they're not bad at all for ISO 800 on the 350D. When I zoomed in while editing in Lightroom, I definitely saw noise, but when looking at the photos "normal" size, it doesn't bother me -- I don't even notice it.

I think night images like these two are all fine and good with my current set-up, but if I ever want to get keepers of people in these conditions who aren't standing still as statues, I think I'm going to have to invest the time/$ in learning flash. I keep avoiding it because I don't think I'll be willing to carry around flash equipment all the time. I like photography a lot, and I like taking the kinds of images I take, but I can't see myself ever becoming the kind of photographer who carries around tripods and bounce cards and three bags' worth of equipment. I like being mobile and last-minute and flexible.

I like being the kind of photographer who happens to have her camera with her when she sees something interesting. And even when I'm with friends, I want to be able to pull out my camera and take a few shots without holding everyone up or exasperating them while I set up a tripod and connect a flash. Maybe that means I'll always be an amateur, but that's definitely okay with me.

I'm also afraid that my enjoyment of images like these has sealed the deal for me -- my next camera body needs to be awesome at high ISOs. I think I would get a ton of use out of that ability.

50mm prime at night

We went to see the National Christmas tree over the weekend. I took the 50mm to see how it did at night. The results were mixed, but I have a feeling that's partly because of the operator ;) I think some of them were lucky shots, but I learned a lot.

I didn't use flash on any of the shots. I put the specs above each. I realized when taking note of all the specs that I should have tried to up the ISO on some of them. Why not? Test the Rebel XT and see what it can really do. If I'm trying to figure out which body to upgrade to, I need to know where my current equipment is lacking.

First, Ye old tree. It was a little... lumpy-looking. And it had a growth on its side at the bottom, ha. Let's just say, a little less than impressive. But it was fun to see the tree for each state/territory, and lots of the buildings in the district were decorated as well, so that was cool. And there was a yule log! Specs: 1/160, F1.8, ISO 400:

M&J were great sports and put up with my many attempts at photos of them. I'm also pleased with this one, though there's a bit of blur when blown up (camera shake, I'm sure). If I could re-do this shot, I would up the ISO to 800 and see if I could have stopped down a little while still allowing a faster shutter speed, which hopefully would have resulted in less blur. Ah. This was taken right beside the big tree. The smaller tree behind them is the one for Virginia. Specs: 1/5, f2.2, ISO 400:

You can't really see them, but there were two Christmas trees on the "back porch" of the White House, on either side of the door. Specs: 1/60, f1.8, ISO 400:

This was back at M&J's place, with their lovely Christmas tree in the background! Specs: 1/40, f2.5, ISO 800:

Had to give this shot a try. I love M's reflection on the shiny part of the ornament. Specs: 1/50, f2.5, ISO 800:

Then M got super-excited about my camera and we ran around her house pulling interesting-looking things off the shelves to shoot. The chess set did well -- some of hers are even better than this one :) Specs: 1/10, f3.5, ISO 800:

Their black dining table made for some nice reflections.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how the lens did outdoors at night -- as long as there was enough light to light my subject even just a little bit, I could usually get the shot. I realize I could definitely have done much better with it if I had some flash equipment (& the knowledge to use it), but I'm not into night photography enough to make the purchase(s) worth it. Besides, I already know what lens I want next, which is bad, because it'll be a little while before I can afford another one :)

Fun weekend!