I've got my 'first' (and possibly only) wedding in October.
I'm looking at ways Magic Lantern can help me, I'd love advice on any of these things - I'd like to practice.
5d mark III body.
The bride likes my photos, she asked me to photograph her wedding - a lot of stuff of mine has been f1.2 - one slight problem is that it seems a hell of a risk to shoot a wedding for real @ 1.2 - so I'm thinking aperture bracketing! f1.2 / f2.5 maybe?
I have a Carl Zeiss 35mm 1.4 lens, manual focus only - so I'm pretty glad for focus peaking or LV sharpening. Also the magic zoom with split prism - nice touch!
I've been playing with ETTR and Dual ISO today - these could come in very handy I suppose, I do get worried about the Dual ISO output though! doesn't exactly look good on camera.. I suppose the more I play the more I learn to trust it.
So is there anything else I should look at, or advice on the above?
thanks
I don't think dual ISO is worth it shooting stuff like this. It usually doesn't matter if backgrounds or windows are blown out when the subject is people. Maybe if you're going to be shooting into a bright light like a sunset or something. Otherwise that additional DR isn't worth the trade off of not being able to preview photos and having to run them through cr2hdr.
I personally prefer DIGIC slightly sharper over focus peaking, the latter of which obscures the actual frame. Magic zoom is ok, but it gets in the way too. Zoom on half-shutter is better. In the case of moving people though you have to go with AF anyway though.
In my experience shooting posed individuals, manually focused, with 1.2/2.5 brackets, I kept almost none of the 1.2s. But these are 3/4 shots or closer at 85mm. I know 1.2 is much better for full body portraits at 85mm or farther back.
White dress, black suit.
The biggest gains with dual_iso, are with the initial ISO bumps. ie: ISO 100/200 gives you around 0.9 EV of shadow detail, for 1 EV loss of ISO overlap. @ ISO 100/1600, you only gained another 0.5 EV or so, over using ISO 100/800, but you still lost another 1 EV of ISO overlap.
It's all about finding that balance, where the shadows have been lifted, just enough, to get them out of the noise floor, while maintaining good ISO overlap, to maintain resolution.
Highlight priority. Blacks crushed.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34113196/Dual-ISO/test/default2.jpg)
Midtone/shadow priority. Highlights blown
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34113196/Dual-ISO/test/boost.jpg)
dual_iso. 100/800.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34113196/Dual-ISO/test/dual.jpg)
And a 1:1 crop of the shadows.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34113196/Dual-ISO/test/crop.jpg)
Keeping good clean detail in a black suit is extremely hard. The DR results for ISO 100 might say 11 stops, but this makes no consideration for the noise level in the shadows. At ISO 100, the electronic noise in the shadows is a killer, and has an effect on the image well before 11 stops.
Consider this shot.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34113196/Dual-ISO/test/as_shot.jpg)
Trying to lift the shadow detail reveals the noise.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34113196/Dual-ISO/test/crop1.jpg)
FWIW, the black suit in this image is around 9 stops below saturation.
You may be happy to crush the shadows a little, you may be happy to kill fine detail with noise reduction, in this case, normal ISO may be perfectly fine.
I like to see the shadow detail, and I hate killing fine detail with noise reduction. I'm also considerate that the customer may want to print the image in large format (probably not this image, but you get the point). In which case, clean shadow detail is extremely important. If I could shot this scene again, I would use dual_iso 100/400.
Of course, you could apply some selective filtering, to work on the blacks while keeping nice strong fine detail throughout. Personally, having to specifically PP images in this fashion, especially when you may have 2000 photos or more captured photos, with 300 needing PP, is time wasted. Well it's wasted time when you can just dual_iso it instead. :P
AutoETTR is good, but it is slow. If you have changing lighting conditions, and, you're trying to capture moments, it's next to useless. It can be useful to have it enabled on half shutter double click. Here, if you have consistent lighting conditions, you can double click half shutter, and have your exposure set. This way, it only costs you the initial time for it to run, then you have consistent exposure, which is useful when post processing.
1.2 is pretty narrow. For staged shots, you have time to fuss around getting everything perfect. Run and gun shooting, you would need to be extremely adapt at manually focusing for it to be useful. Otherwise, you will probably get more discards then keepers. I'm pedantic when it comes to focus though. Bracketing seems like a good idea, until you have to start changing cards often, and then spending time, over and above the standard PP, sorting out all the double exposures. I struggle in PP though, so I'm biased.
Raw based exposure feedback is excellent. No more relying on JPG data that lies about the true exposure.
thanks for the informative post, certainly something to think about!
I was just looking through some of my shots to see what apertures I actually used.
1.2/1.4
1.2
(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2889/9115673389_32e6fb9a34.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9115673389/)
IMG_4324 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9115673389/) by dancook1982 (http://www.flickr.com/people/62198876@N02/), on Flickr
(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5453/9116620211_05b237e247.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9116620211/)
IMG_5261 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9116620211/) by dancook1982 (http://www.flickr.com/people/62198876@N02/), on Flickr
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7358/9116617523_fa3acfab48.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9116617523/)
IMG_5581 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9116617523/) by dancook1982 (http://www.flickr.com/people/62198876@N02/), on Flickr
1.4
(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3694/9117897866_3730721d1c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9117897866/)
IMG_4393 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9117897866/) by dancook1982 (http://www.flickr.com/people/62198876@N02/), on Flickr
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7397/9115103771_6b42f1d19a.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9115103771/)
IMG_4624 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62198876@N02/9115103771/) by dancook1982 (http://www.flickr.com/people/62198876@N02/), on Flickr
Nice work. I can only dream to manually focus at 1.2 ;)
Quote from: Audionut on March 18, 2014, 10:07:44 AM
Nice work. I can only dream to manually focus at 1.2 ;)
Thanks, but I think perhaps a misunderstanding.
The 1.2 I'm using, 85mm 1.2 II L, is AF.
It's the 35mm 1.4 I have which is MF.
the wedding, my first wedding, is for the bride aboves maid of honour.
heh, I see.
What's the CA like on the 85? The Sigma 85/1.4 is reasonably bad @ 1.4. And I haven't found a nice workflow to remove it, without effecting other areas of the image.
Quote from: Audionut on March 18, 2014, 10:14:05 AM
heh, I see.
What's the CA like on the 85? The Sigma 85/1.4 is reasonably bad @ 1.4. And I haven't found a nice workflow to remove it, without effecting other areas of the image.
Can't remember anything significant - it's been a while since I used the 85mm outside, lately it's been my 'home studio' lens. Using 135mm f/2 and 35mm f/1.4 outside more.
The only time I've had, what I would consider 'bad CA' with any of my lenses is shooting into the sun through tree branches.