Quoted from "Wexie"

Quoted from "tonibduguid"
Whoops, I took too long to post. No, there is no specific reason to not use tiff. I suppose it'd be useful if you wanted to send someone a high-res copy of your file so that they could edit it and then print it huge. Otherwise, it just seems like one extra unnecessary step.

The reasons to use the TIFF file format is: - You are doing high quality professional work. There is no image loss, and it is a standard file format for print professionals. - TIFF is non-propriety file format. (Unlike PSD). If you need to share high quality images, and not have to worry about what applications the other folks working with the files have, then use TIFF. But you are correct that the average person using pictures for home use, would not need TIFF.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned my mother is a professional photographer (who sells very large prints of her work) and she (and Frankyboy) are the sources of my madness.

When you save as a TIFF file on Photoshop CS, it asks you if you want any compression - you can choose none. I presume that it what you mean by both lossy and lossless components. Or perhaps not.

I posted this query to a photography board, but I thought I'd let y'all take a swing at it as well.

Exposure Compensation vs. AE Lock vs. Grey Card, What do you use?

I'm getting a lot better about not using a flash unless necessary, but that means a lot of underexposed images. I started reading my dRebel manual to figure out my options. The camera sees the bright Florida sun and puts everything else in shadow. Here's an example of what I'm trying to avoid. (Image SOOC)

I mean, I was able to brighten it up in PS, as shown below, but that introduces a lot of noise, the colors are a bit washed out, and goshdarnit, I just want it right SOOC!

Here's another image from that same shoot that was more properly exposed. This is what I'd like to get every time. (Again SOOC) I'm guessing that it helped that the sun was on us instead of behind us.

So, as far as I can see, a have a few options. The first is exposure compensation (EC). If I see that the sky/background is really bright, I can simply estimate (or take a couple test shots and check the histogram) and increase my exposure accordingly. This seems to be the simplest, but the least accurate. However, it would mean that I could set it and hand the camera to a friend to take a photo.

Side note - now that I'm "the one with the camera" among my friends, no one else ever brings a camera to events. Therefore, if I want myself in any photos, I have to hand my camera off to a friend. (I have a couple friends I trust.) This is why I want to find at least one solution where I can just pre-set it and hand it off. Also, if I want a quick portrait of Chris and I (that's us above!) I have my friend use my camera. I usually scope out the scene, get Chris posed, set the camera accordingly, and then hard the camera off, and jump in the scene. However, the large majority of the time I'm the one taking the photo, so I'd also like to learn more complicated techniques like AE Lock.

Aaaaannnd... that brings me to AE Lock. This seems more accurate than EC, but more of a pain. It took me a bit to get the exposure locked last night when I was practicing with Chris and a lamp behind him. I hate to ask people to wait that long, and with my nephews, I really can't ask them to wait at all. Does this become faster with practice? Is this worth learning?

Lastly, should I break down and get a gray card? I take a lot of candid photos of friends and parties and such, and I really can't break out the gray card then. However, when my SIL has her twins over for a portrait, should I have one to use then? Will this make a big difference instead of just metering off someone's face?

Please, any tips and tricks y'all can suggest would be great. Thanks for reading through my crazy-long post. Help me figure this out so that I can tackle WB next.

I"m a big fan of using a grey card. It's how I learned when I was a photography student. But you're right, it's not always practical.

As a general rule, try to avoid backlighting (where the source of light is behind your subject). That's going to result in an underexposed photo, because the camera is going to think that there is a lot of light (from the sun) when your subject is in shadow.

You could also try bracketing. If you're using aperature priority - take the photo as the camera thinks it should be exposed, then use the bracketing feature to open up the aperature (at least to correct for backlighting, you need to allow more light in either by stopping down - larger aperature, or shooting at a slower speed).

(Of course, I graduated college in 1990, so it's been awhile since I've actually thought through the process, so I may have gotten it backwards...)

I'm with Rubymae. If you're out in the sun like that, make sure the sun is behind the camera if you don't want that mild sihouette. In your second picture the sun is exposing your faces quite nicely. In the first picture it's backlighting. The simplest solution is to find an angle in which the sun properly lights you.

Quoted from "Keither"
I'll reply to it at length later on.

We wouldn't expect anything less.

Let's say I'm out goofing around on the playground with my friends, and I see them coming down the slide and think "ooh, that's a cool shot!" Unfortunately, the sun is directly behind them, throwing them in shadow, but I still want to take the shot anyway. Should I overexpose the image, knowing that the sun will throw off the reading? Should I quickly zoom in and take an exposure off their faces? Will either of these techniques work to make the photo better, even if it ends up not being technically perfect?

I realize that the best situation is to arrange the subject and lighting to your best advantage, and use things such as light meters and gray cards to get a precise reading of your perfect lighting. However, that's not always possible, and I'm still training my eye to see light. I want to learn the real method for solving these issues, but I also wondered if anyone had any tips for quick improvements I can implement if I'm in a hurry to take a shot.

(I really do appreciate y'all's suggestions. You're helping me see techniques I might not have thought of otherwise.)

In a back lit situation, assuming you are not going to monkey around a lot with photoshopping then you're either going to have to expose for the subject, which will blow out the sky, or expose for the background, and have a dark (perhaps silhouetted) subject.

In the good old days of film, you could burn in the background in the darkroom in cases where you exposed for the subject; or you could dodge the exposure of the subject, where the background is exposed properly. (Of course, both can also be done on a digital photo in a photoshop, although I personally found it much easier to correct in a dark room than on a computer, but that's just because I'm an old dog who is not good at learning new tricks.)

As for your example of your friends coming down the slide and they are backlit, you're going to have another issue because they are moving. If you shoot at 400 or faster to stop the motion, you're going to have exposure problems in bright sunlight (on film the shot will be grainy and with digital the shot will have noise).

I wasn't suggesting it's better. I learned on film, and that was how you fixed it. I'm still learning digital and haven't had very good results dodging and burning on photoshop (due to user error, not the program).

Feeling defensive Musgy?

(I intended the "good old days of film" as a dig at myself, since I can't offer any relevant photoshop advice...)

I cut my student films on 16mm flatbeds and moviolas, and I edited my first sound by cutting and taping 16mm magnetic stock.

Good things and bad things. It's more than just different tools - they emphasize different things.

While I don't think that the old way is "better," there are a lot of things I miss about mechanical photography/cinematography that are just going to be lost soon. And that makes me a little sad.

Well, it sure didn't come off that way. Perhaps what you meant was "in the good old days of film, I could have done x y or z, but I haven't been able to do it photoshop".

Your post implies that it was done better in the film days, and if we'd just stop this digital nonsense there'd be better solutions.

I still stand by my belief that the final image is what matters - not the tools that got me there. If I can create my image with a digital camera and Photoshop, and you do it with film and a darkroom, neither of us is "better" or "worse".

All that matters is the final product. That's what we're creating. Not the process.

Shutter speed, dawg.

If you don't want blurry pictures, you have to adjust the shutter. The shutter determines how long the image gets exposed for - 1/125th of a second is the standard flash speed. But when you have dancing involved, people tend to move a lot in that 1/125th of a second, so you get blur, even if you're focused. It's motion blur. Add to that a traditional lack of good lighting in most dance venues which makes it MUCH harder to focus (more light = more detail = better focus) and you have a nice difficult matzoball.

If you want super crisp images then your shutter speed needs to be up in the 1/1000's. The problem with this is if you expose the frame for less time you need that much more light in that short amount of time to equal the exposure of a normal image. So you have to give up some aperture for shutter speed. This is hard to do in a dark environment because you're probably already totally open on the lens.

In other words, without a decent lighting source, yer screwed.

I think you're having reading comprehension problems today.

Be it film or digital, aiming to get proper exposure when the photo is taken is (IMO) always the best course. Sure you can correct either in the darkroom or on the computer but if you can get a good shot up front, it saves you a lot of work editing.

I don't consider exposure, color balance or contrast editing (either in a darkroom or on the computer) to be cheating. Manipulating a photo past that isn't cheating, either, but to me you are then creating something other than a photograph.

Furthermore, I don't have a preference (yet) concerning film v. digital. In fact, I'm quite amazed at these ease with which you can repair a bad photo digitally. It's far simpler to manipulate and edit a photo with a photo editing program as opposed to the dark room (if you make a mistake in photoshop, just discard the layer; if you f ck up in the dark room throw the print out and start over).

I will say that if you learned on a film camera and had to develop your prints in a dark room, it helps you understand what you need to get a proper exposure. You (general "you," so shut the f ck up, Mugsy) can be a very lazy photographer when you're using a digital camera, but can still come out with an outstanding photo after editing in photoshop. With film, there is only so much compensation that can be done in the dark room to save a photo.

If you want to get better exposure, then you need to understand aperature and film speed, and how they effect exposure. If you don't give a rat's ass, then stop responding since our replies were directed at Toni's question.

(Gah, I'm agreeing with St. Marcelo. Well, we always did have Gilmore Girls...)