srika

oops I think I botched that Youtube link.. here:

http.com//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkoJR7xOE6Q&eurl=

Mizouse

i wasnt gonna say anything other than i need to learn to take better pictures

mattg

found it.

srika

wtf... lack of oxygen to the brain? botched link twice... obviously it should be like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkoJR7xOE6Q&eurl=

srika

Dan Martin

@ the boob slip

You must have been laughing your ass off when you were taking that shot.

srika

Actually when they asked me to take a pic as I was walking by, she was dressed. She didn't do it until like maybe 2 sec before I took the pic. And I barely noticed because it was towards the end of the night, I had already taken like 700 pics and was pretty zoned out. I then realized after the fact what had happened, and yes it was funny. They musta been pretty drunk or something because none of them said anything about it - I even doubt the guys even noticed she did it.

Crazy Bimmer

Holy sausage fest!! Where the chicks!

srika

lol good observation you man-lover.. the chicks were umm... hiding.

react

wow! what ISO were you shooting?

leftride

iTrader: (1)

awesome shots srika, i haven't looked at this thread in a while and things are really looking great.

srika

Probably 99% of my club pics are between 500-800. Probably 80% of those are at 640 - I kinda feel like thats my "magic number". But I want to play with it more.. I have been meaning to try 100 for a while, as a friend suggested.. but haven't got around to it. And with this camera, it almost seems like you can use any ISO and the pix look about the same . I did try 3200 once and the pix were noisy as fawk.

btw you can see EXIF info for all my 5D pics at my site - keep in mind I do individual PP on pretty much every shot. Something I was thinking about one day - if you do PP on your shots, how helpful is your EXIF info.. not much, I would seem to think...

thx 4 taking a look man, glad you liked em.

srika

How do these pics look to you, as a whole? Washed out (I know some are, but more as a whole)? Saturated? Colorful? Dry?

I think I am having a color problem with my new ( ) laptop. I work on pix on it and then take them home and they look cooked... conversely I work on pix at home and then view them on my laptop and they look washed out. But I think my home monitor might not be totally accurate either? At this point I don't even know what these pics look like. I look on my work computer and they look about average.

I have run Adobe Gamma on both computers. Maybe I need to run it again on my laptop.

I checked this calibration site and I start seeing change at step 4, which isn't too bad apparently. So I don't know what to do. This laptop (Dell E1705) has a NVIDIA 7900GS at 1920x1200 on a Sharp LCD.

It just sucks because one of the main reasons I went with this (big) laptop and this display was so I could work on pix. :<

srika

interesting thread...

LCDs suck for webdesign!
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...hreadid=423253

Dan Martin

Srika, it sounds like you should pick up a calibrator. Editing colors on multiple uncalibrated screens will cause premature baldness.

You're right though, most LCD's are crappy for photo editing. I'm dreading the day my Sony Artisan CRT packs it in or doesn't calibrate anymore.
You can get LCD's that beat CRT's for color accuracy, but they're big bucks. ~$900 for a 19" LaCie 319...

Try calibrating all your displays before you start changing hardware though. Most people run their monitors too bright and too blue.

srika

this sucks.. can you recommend a calibrator? And, what does that do that say, a Monitor Wizard or Adobe Gamma can't do? I just have this fear that I'll get it and try it and it will not help. Maybe its time to bust out my old 19" Viewsonic p90f CRT?? lol

Dan Martin

Well, you can get close by just using your eyes and a wizard, but your eyes can easily play tricks on you. Calibrate your screen as best you can, then hold a sheet of white paper next to it and see how close you are. Chances are you're not even in the ballpark.

Throwing 2 or 3 other displays into the mix doesn't help.

The only way to get accurate and repeatable colors between displays is to create a profile for them with a colorimeter. There are plenty to choose from, but I'll likely be upgrading my ColorVision Spyder to a Getrag Eye-One just for a more complete solution.

Start by checking out this article: http://www.shootsmarter.com/monitorcentral.html
ShootSmarter.com has some really good articles on color management equipment and monitors. Another good resource is Cambridge in Color: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...anagement1.htm

srika

thanks for the links, it was some good info.

Question - when exporting from Lightroom - should I be choosing sRGB or AdobeRGB? I was choosing the latter... and from those articles, it sounds like I should have been choosing sRGB. The reason I was choosing Adobe is because I read somewhere along the line that if you PP your pics, you should use that. Thoughts?

Dan Martin

AdobeRGB is a larger color space so it gives you a little more headroom for manipulating your images without losing image quality. However, if you're going to be displaying your images on a website, you'll need to convert (not assign) to sRGB before you save. Almost any device you use, including most printers, are designed with the sRGB color space in mind. When you load an AdobeRGB image in a device or application that expects an sRGB image, you'll loose saturation and contrast.

I generally say, unless you know you need to use the AdobeRGB color space, it's better to stick with sRGB all the way through your workflow.

srika

good to know... I think Im gonna switch to straight sRGB. at least see how it goes.

here's the gallery from last Saturday, with IS turned off... overall not too bad, got about 180 keepers. I did take over 900 tho

And, I processed these on my laptop - what I did as an interim solution was, to just adjust the color settings on it so the pictures looked as they did on my computer at home. That's all - kind of obvious in retrospect. Just didn't strike me right away. And I think it has helped achieve a workable scenario.

http://www.delobbo.com/gallery2/v/01...dymoor_vision/

you can see how the details are not steady in some shots. better examples in here, from last Thursday:

http://www.delobbo.com/gallery2/v/011107_rj_row_tryst/

such as this shot - the lights would have been steady with IS on:

Dan Martin

Srika, do you mind if I post a side by side comparison of one of your photos from this site you posted earlier with the same photo converted to the sRGB space?

I think you'll be surprised at the difference...

srika

go ahead

Dan Martin

The only change was a color space conversion to sRGB using the Relative rendering intent. When you post the jpgs in AdobeRGB online, they look desaturated and not very contrasty. If you drag it into photoshop which is a color space aware application, they will look fine.

srika

yep - thats a difference I saw between programs and it left me - thanks for the info.. im gonna use sRGB exclusively from now on.

srika

well I switched everything to sRGB.. I think I have it under control now. I had a combination of trouble - one being the color profile but also the laptop screen, for instance. And also the older monitor I was using on my home comp before. There are def a lot of variables to keep abreast of... without further adue, here are some pix from Roger Sanchez @ Crobar Friday.

http://delobbo.com/gallery2/v/011907...anchez_crobar/

srika

oh and - thanks for the pointers Dan - helped a lot!

Mizouse

damn you're so lucky with that gig you have there,

Dan Martin

Cool shots Srika!

I'm glad you're on your way to solving your color issues.

waTSX

srika

just to clarify the issues (and resolutions)..

- Color Space (set sRGB on camera and in software - best option for web work)
- Monitor Calibration (calibrated and saved custom color profile for all monitors used, standardized the displays - trying to use only one display for PP - laptop)
- washed out LCD - swapped with newer one

As a next step I could use a calibrator but honestly for what I'm doing here, this is enough. Actually this is more than enough. I am shooting at S size JPG, that's all I need for this.

It's been a great learning experience over the past months and I thank you all for your feedback and comments.

MrChad

wow were was this thread earlier...

I'll admit I didn't want to read all billion pages, how is it you were allowed to bring your gear into the club?

Do you do much printing at home as well? You'll also want to be sure you download an sRBG color profile for your printers too. It's a shame most places (and sites for printing only support sRGB). Luckily, I haven't had much of an issue with this as my older DSLR only support sRGB so I've been forced to keep both my bodies set that way.

Do you get to shoot in this club often? I love dance music and I have a few coworkers that hit the clubs downtown a good bit (I don't dance) but I'd love to shoot in the club. I really like the picture of the DJ with the flash light in the rear pocket, nice catch.

srika

it was one of those good nights..



MrChad I will get some answers for you soon..

srika

Ok to answer - I started out with an SD550 in April of '06. I just kept going to shows and taking pics with that. Did what I could with it - made some contacts just from seeing the same faces every weekend, and in Sept they let me bring my D70 in. And, this thread was born. After that, I just kept taking my camera there, I got to know the people at the door and other management and that ALWAYS helps.

I rarely print at home - I would like to more though. I have a cheap Canon i470d printer and it does pretty well. I did print some 8x11's from F1 @ Indy 2004 and the regular observer would not be able to tell they were printed at home. I haven't even looked at color profiles on the printer but the prints I did do matched the screen quite well.

Yeah I shoot this club pretty much every Saturday. After April of '06, I would have to say I went there every Saturday, with the exception of only a few. The same goes for Spybar on Friday. It has been a mixture of my desire to photograph, combined with my life-long love of music (club music in particular over the past several years). I would have to admit that it's arguably ridiculous to go to the clubs every single weekend, but, it's what I want to do. More importantly, persistence is the product of dedication. I'm not really sure whether this is going to result in anything in the long run per se, but I do know that I have had a lot of fun with this over the past months and if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Also, it's not on my mind really. I love the music, I love taking pics, and that is all. If it ends up becoming something down the road, I won't turn it away, but I'm letting nature take its course at this point. /rambling

Over the past months I've noticed things seem to be a bit more relaxed in terms of SLR's in the club - I have seen at least a couple in the crowd. I don't think its far-fetched to try at the door. If you really want, we can meet there sometime and I could quite surely get you in with your cam. Some clubs are stricter than others with that kinda stuff - but Vision is not too bad.

Another thing I've done in the past - email a club and ask if I can shoot at a particular event - send a link to some of your work but I don't think you need to. I have never got a "no". I did this twice in CA last year and recently in Detroit (although I didn't go) - the only thing they have asked for is copies of the pics, and of course that's not a problem. All you have to do is ask.

Thanks for having a look. Gonna post some more pix shortly.

MrChad

You just walk around taking pics, I mean clearly it would be difficult to dance with an SLR at your side, or have a drink in one hand :P

srika

hah no, I don't dance, been there done that. Maybe once in a while if "needed". But, not if I have my SLR on me lol. I do drink though, honestly, it helps what I like to call the "creative process" lol. I have taken more than a good number of pics while holding a beer. Now, this is not entirely professional and I wouldn't do it if it were any other venue - but everyone is out to have a good time, it's low-key - nobody really cares honestly. And that factor just gets greater and greater, as the night goes on. :P And yes, I just walk around taking pics.

srika

trying to decide whether I want this pic cropped or not... I like the full version but there's just a lot of "empty" space, but is that a bad thing..

Mizouse

i dunno but all i gotta say is

srika

you goon

wndrlst

I like your crop - the vent is a little distracting in the uncropped version (but probably only a girl would look around at a vent, eh?). I wouldn't crop it any further to get rid of more dead space, though, because I think the blue shaft of light is an important element, and gives good context. Just my opinion for whatever that's worth. GREAT photo. Really compelling.

srika

oh my god... i didnt even see the vent until you mentioned it. LOL!!!!! looking at it now, I think I can achieve a common ground by just cropping enough to get the vent out. haha.. too funny. yeah I like the light too. thx for your input!