Contrast Wedding

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.)

Jack wrote:

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.

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.



wrote in message
oups.com...
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.