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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Working with RAW

Yeah, my DLSR has that noise reduction feature, but it takes as long as the exposure. So, for example, if you take a 45-second shot, it takes the camera 45 seconds to process the noise removal. That won't work for timelapse, because the 45 pause between frames would make the sequence very choppy rather than smooth. Anything more than about a 10-second interval between frames looks choppy.

Rudi, is it simply a matter of exposure time? I could always just set for longer exposures.
 
Tom,

First, there are a few color artifacts all over the sky area, which are the result of having such a wide lens open wide, so I would try to set the lens at 5.6 and that should decrease the noise/artifacting in the lit areas considerably. And yes, it looks like this particular shot could have used as long as a 3 minute exposure, at the very least 2. A friend of mine that was doing timelapses for video was having the same problems and he ended up going for very bright exposures, where the image basically looked like it was shot at dusk, but he had a nice, strong histogram to start with. Then he would just pull back the exposure, which is always easier and less destructive than increasing it, and he was fine. But his rule of thumb was to expose as if it was for an overcast daylight image, and pull back from there.
 
Tom, what "look" did you want to achieve with the shot? What was important? Obviously the night sky and arch. But what I mean is did you want more detail in the arch? Or have it silhouette against the night sky? If the former, then a longer exposure would have helped. Raising dark/shadows in post will just reveal the noise there. So it's better to lift it during exposure (while being careful to not blow out any detail that you want to preserve in the highlights) and then pull it back down in post. (Of course, there's always noise removal software).

But obviously it's also good to know how much you can save a shot too. 20/20 hindsight advice is helpful for the future, but it doesn't help the shot. :) But that's what I love about RAW.

Maybe I missed your intent (photography is so subjective and personal to me), but here's some quick RAW and PS work. No noise reduction. My noise reduction software is on my other pc at home. Not that different then your PS work. (The third pic is just an attempt to lift the arch without introducing too much noise).

I like your composition, by the way. :)
 
By the way, you can do so much more with this shot once you get into secondary/masking work. :)
 
Yup, that wouldn't work for timelapse, but it would help with the noise. Maybe if you could take a black frame yourself ahead of the timelapse, it might be good enough to subtract it from all frames of the same shutter speed afterwards, but I don't know of any raw software that would allow you to do that....

Graeme
 
Graeme, I've never heard of this black frame/timelapse/noise reduction thingy. What is this black frame? I'm assuming it must be more then just a simple frame of black.
 
Very nice samples Jing!

I had one go to try and "fix" the image as much as possible without going for a look but for a better histogram. I decreased saturation on all the colors that, to me, were not essential to the shot and played with Exposure et al, and this is what I got, which, though not a bad looking image, is not as creative or pleasant as Jing's examples. The shot is just too badly underexposed, though for something like TV, you could get away with any of the looks Jing proposes, or many others. On a big screen, or at HD1080, you would get noticeable noise though.

2969_1206558384.jpg


It is still too dark, but these are the highest noise levels I could work with while still having hope to be able to sell it for NTSC broadcast. Your composition is nice!
 
Thanks.

Personally, I don't think any of the samples are "too dark", tom's or rudi's. (the original RAW is too dark, of course).

I consider it just a "low key" shot. I guess that's what I meant by photography being subjective and personal. I can see this shot (even the darker versions), in a quick establishing shot in a movie. "Too dark" to me is when I can't get the information or understand what's going on. But in all the shots I can see that there's a beautiful starry sky and a stone arch that would be fun to walk on... :)

FYI: There was no vibrancy/saturation bump. Just temperature/tint moves in RAW. Instead of going neutral, I opted for more blue in the highs. One pic had a color dodge layer applied in PS. But that's about it for color.
 
Yeah the shot is waaay underexposed. The trouble is, there was no moon at all, so it was super dark out there. Plus I was about 5 beers into a six pack, waiting the stupid airplanes to clear out of the sky. :) I really have to try to guess at exposure times, and in this case, my LCD was probably set too bright, because it showed a decent exposure. (I think I forgot to turn down the LCD brightness :)). Next time I'm shooting with no moon I will try a much longer exposure and see how that works out.

Thanks for the advice and everything. I really need to learn more about how to read histograms.
 
Keep in mind Rudi that its a night shot. IE 80% black, there really shouldn't be much more meat to the histogram, and if there was it would no longer "look" like a night shot.
 
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