Specifics on difficult situations such as low-light sports photography, tricky exposures and post-processing hints, tips and tricks.
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Midnight Blue > Gym with very difficult lighting. How difficult? Uneven, not much of it, dark green tarp backdrops (major ISO noise), sometimes a bit of sunlight from a door in one corner, plus, as a bonus, a different (more blue) type of light leadking in over the top of tarps on one end. 30D 70-200 f/2.8 IS @95mm, Av, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/125 as above results in underexposure (histogram pushed left); if that is 'pulled' up in camera raw, the ISO noise goes completely haywire. Best solution: Buy a prime f/2 or faster for this situation (and any gym, actually). Compromise: Stay with the 70-200 f/2.8, go to ISO 3200, use Noise Reduction add-in; results OK for my purposes here on SmugMug, not acceptable as a pro. HOW? Go manual, ISO 3200, f/2.8, shoot test exposures, push the exposure so that the histogram is at least centered (brightness). This results in a useable shutter speed, but barely.
Midnight Blue > Warning: Steep learning curve ahead. In CS2: Noiseware/Pro with tweaked custom settings was used prior to any sharpening, but AFTER color correction, &#43;5% saturation RGB (taste), pulled up the curve for some contrast, unsharp 85/1/4 &#43; local contrast unsharp 20/50/0, flatten image, JPG 12 quality.
Midnight Blue > RAW converted to JPG, absolutely no adjustments at all. Zoom to see ISO noise. Clearly, this photo has a strong color cast, and needs serious adjustment. If you spend some time looking at corrected photos, it doesn't take long to spot color problems after just a few hours. ;}
Midnight Blue > [BAD] - First attempt to correct this photo, used full Noiseware/Pro noise reduction; zoom in, the guys look like plastic! It may look fine at the size you see now, but it is not a good result at all. (And, IMHO after the fact, it is oversaturated)
Midnight Blue > Better, but a bad color correction using curves. In this phase, though, custom Noise Reduction settings were done by very carefully looking at results and controls in Noiseware to get rid of major noise yet leave enough detail. In this case, I was watching the holes in the jerseys; the much pixel-peeping? U bet, when it comes to custom noise reduction settings!
Midnight Blue > When using LEVELs to do color correction, great care and observation is required. This look good to you? Red color cast? Yep. How did it get that way? By desaturating GREEN. See next photo for the keeper.
Midnight Blue > Keeper and as far as my NOOB skills can get me. This is what I saw, but actually brighter and, of course, tighter. To me, this kind of moment, from a time and place your eye could not go -- That's what it is all about!
Midnight Blue > Panning and zooming - 1st attempts.
Midnight Blue > Panning and zooming - 1st attempts.
Gym with very difficult lighting. How difficult? Uneven, not much of it, dark green tarp backdrops (major ISO noise), sometimes a bit of sunlight from a door in one corner, plus, as a bonus, a different (more blue) type of light leadking in over the top of tarps on one end.

30D 70-200 f/2.8 IS @95mm, Av, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/125 as above results in underexposure (histogram pushed left); if that is 'pulled' up in camera raw, the ISO noise goes completely haywire.

Best solution: Buy a prime f/2 or faster for this situation (and any gym, actually). Compromise: Stay with the 70-200 f/2.8, go to ISO 3200, use Noise Reduction add-in; results OK for my purposes here on SmugMug, not acceptable as a pro.

HOW? Go manual, ISO 3200, f/2.8, shoot test exposures, push the exposure so that the histogram is at least centered (brightness). This results in a useable shutter speed, but barely.
> Gym with very difficult lighting. How difficult? Uneven, not much of it, dark green tarp backdrops (major ISO noise), sometimes a bit of sunlight from a door in one corner, plus, as a bonus, a different (more blue) type of light leadking in over the top of tarps on one end. 30D 70-200 f/2.8 IS @95mm, Av, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/125 as above results in underexposure (histogram pushed left); if that is 'pulled' up in camera raw, the ISO noise goes completely haywire. Best solution: Buy a prime f/2 or faster for this situation (and any gym, actually). Compromise: Stay with the 70-200 f/2.8, go to ISO 3200, use Noise Reduction add-in; results OK for my purposes here on SmugMug, not acceptable as a pro. HOW? Go manual, ISO 3200, f/2.8, shoot test exposures, push the exposure so that the histogram is at least centered (brightness). This results in a useable shutter speed, but barely.
Gym with very difficult lighting. How difficult? Uneven, not much of it, dark green tarp backdrops (major ISO noise), sometimes a bit of sunlight from a door in one corner, plus, as a bonus, a different (more blue) type of light leadking in over the top of tarps on one end.

30D 70-200 f/2.8 IS @95mm, Av, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/125 as above results in underexposure (histogram pushed left); if that is 'pulled' up in camera raw, the ISO noise goes completely haywire.

Best solution: Buy a prime f/2 or faster for this situation (and any gym, actually). Compromise: Stay with the 70-200 f/2.8, go to ISO 3200, use Noise Reduction add-in; results OK for my purposes here on SmugMug, not acceptable as a pro.

HOW? Go manual, ISO 3200, f/2.8, shoot test exposures, push the exposure so that the histogram is at least centered (brightness). This results in a useable shutter speed, but barely.
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