Bad Portrait Session

[brian_f2.8]

I had a bad portrait session tonight. I did photos for two girls hockey teams. We were suppose to shoot in the locker room. Just my luck 8 lights were out. I know don't shoot or reschedule. I had secondary lighting(consistent lighting). I use that. I would have thought that f5.6 / 1/60th / ISO 500 would have been fine. The images looked good on the camera but when I got home they were blurry and the color was off. I am cleaning them in Aperture now and then moving to PS for final edits. Im really not happy. I would love to share a drop box folder with you so leave your email. Ill only share with the first 2 or 3 people that leave their email. There are 27 photos in the folder.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

What focal length were you shooting at, mostly? 1/60 isn't all that fast in some situations both to freeze movement and for hand-shake.

 

[dhris]

Do you shoot in RAW ? If not, do you custom color balance or use a grey/white card in the scene for adjusting color in post ? Did you not zoom in on the first shot of the session to reassure yourself that all was well ?

If you were shooting a team, focal length shouldn't have been a contributing factor to the blur (via camera shake) given you were probably shooting wide. Or were there close up individual shots taken at a longer focal length. >100mm at 1/60 and you would probably be in trouble.

 

[brian_f2.8]

Rotanimod - I shot at 50mm on a D7000(equivalent to 75 on a fx body). I wanted a full body shot but then I decided to crop. Some girls were fine others were not. I could not get to 1/125th at f5.6. The room was way too dark. My video lights(very warm) clashed with the two strobes. So All I could do is just put the video lights on the side and shoot away. I did go up to 1/80th and it was a little cleaner.

I dont shoot raw(I use CS4 and a D7000 do not play nice with raw files). I zoomed in and it looked fine to me. What settings do you use for portraits?

 

[brian_f2.8]

I didn't want to go any higher on ISO(500) to increase the shutter. Could have used a tripod with a wireless trigger. They look ok in thumbnail view but Im not happy, how would you edit these?

 

[brian_f2.8]

Here is the team

 

[JAC526]

Just as a suggestion for next time:

Use flash. Then you don't have to worry about how many lights are out. You bring your own!

Also check out da grip....it really does work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDsx3-FWfwk

EDIT: It will not let me embed the youtube video...sorry.

 

[brian_f2.8]

Are they bad or am I beating my self up too much.

 

[Robin_Usagani]

If you have strobes, why use vid light? If you shoot with jpeg, why didnt you use custom WB? Nothing makes sense to me.

 

[brian_f2.8]

well to be honest, i had the strobes but they were too powerful. i adjusted them to 1/4 power, i guess i could have kept going. all in all we were in a rush because this was before a practice and ice time is limited. i got there at 5:15 to set up and do all this work. no one showed up till 6:15 to let me in and start setting up.

 

[runnah]

Sorry but you are boned on this one. Can fix the color but the blur is a deal breaker.

Are you auto focusing? Why f/5.6?

The hail mary I would do is try to use the in focus faces from the group shot and put them into the portraits.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I dont shoot raw(I use CS4 and a D7000 do not play nice with raw files).

Adobe has a fancy pants DNG converter, that will convert your raw files to DNG, which is adobe's "raw" digital negative format.

Oh, and it's FREE!

 

[Robin_Usagani]

1/60 with strobes would have been fine. 1/60 with continuous lighting... not so much... especially if you dont use a tripod.

 

[fjrabon]

They're bad, yes.

I always zoom in to 100% for EVERY SHOT I TAKE when doing events like this. Yeah, it slows you down, yeah it's a hassle, but you just have to.

The color can mostly be fixed I'd guess. But no type of sharpening is going to fix the blurriness.

To be honest I would have just used the 'overstrong' strobes, went to base ISO and whatever f/stop I needed. Overpowering the ambient isn't a huge deal. Blurry photos from using 1/60 and constant light is a big deal.

Try to schedule a reshoot if possible. I know that sucks, but its better than the alternative of turning these pictures in as a deliverable product.

Try to have the right equipment if you reshoot and zoom in on every single portrait before you let the player walk away.

 

[brian_f2.8]

I think I am just going to re-do them. What f stop would you use? I used f5.6 because it was a good setting. These are just two of the images, I would like to share a folder with someone and get some feedback.