The Lowdown After 1st wedding with a900 (many img)

[Shelby Lewis]

Great stuff Marc... really nice indeed.

I agree about the d700 being a good companion camera. I'm already seeing that in "cave" venues that the a900 will suffice but not delight.

... and I agree with Guy... that first shot is FANTASTIC.

 

[fotografz]

Great stuff Marc... really nice indeed.

I agree about the d700 being a good companion camera. I'm already seeing that in "cave" venues that the a900 will suffice but not delight.

... and I agree with Guy... that first shot is FANTASTIC.

Your stuff is pretty darned good to Shelby, especially like the B&W shots ... wish we lived near each other, it'd be great to shoot a wedding together.

Frankly, if Sony would do an A800, 12-15 meg, full frame with fat pixels, I'd opt out of Nikon altogether. That would fund the Sony 300/2.8G and Leica M Noctilux I'm lusting after

We need a Zeiss 35/1.4 in this line up ... that would help a lot.

 

[Mark K]

Shelby
Thanks for sharing...
I have been using 5D for years. D700 would have been a better replacement. A900 is just outstanding

 

[douglasf13]

Marc, I dont think it's the fat pixels that are the problem. That's a bit of a low noise misnomer. If Sony got rid of Exmor , and used weaker CFAs, they could release another 24 mp camera that competed with D700 for high ISO. The Exmor is optimized for low read noise at low ISO, but begins falling apart when amplified to higher ISO. The D700 sensor has higher low ISO read noise, but is much better at higher ISO. It's just a different sensor design philosophy, and I don't expect Sony to change anytime soon, so I think your dual setup will be ideal for a while.

Great wedding shots. You and Shelby would be welcome to shoot my wedding any day!

 

[jonoslack]

Great wedding shots. You and Shelby would be welcome to shoot my wedding any day!

Well Douglas - Marc said he'd like to shoot a wedding with Shelby, and you're getting married.

After all the input you've had around here I think it'd be churlish for them not to shoot it for you:thumbs:

Nashville, Franklin, LA - just around the corner from each other . . . aren't you?

 

[fotografz]

Marc, I dont think it's the fat pixels that are the problem. That's a bit of a low noise misnomer. If Sony got rid of Exmor , and used weaker CFAs, they could release another 24 mp camera that competed with D700 for high ISO. The Exmor is optimized for low read noise at low ISO, but begins falling apart when amplified to higher ISO. The D700 sensor has higher low ISO read noise, but is much better at higher ISO. It's just a different sensor design philosophy, and I don't expect Sony to change anytime soon, so I think your dual setup will be ideal for a while.

Great wedding shots. You and Shelby would be welcome to shoot my wedding any day!

That's cool, since I already have the Nikon stuff

Where and when is your wedding?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I will tell you one thing and it's a pretty rare day when I say this because I simply don't see it in Nikon and Canon very often BUT I am seeing a lot of 3d looking images coming from you guy's . The last ones with Shelby and Marc there are a couple in there that are making me drool and i don't say that very often.

 

[Shelby Lewis]

I will tell you one thing and it's a pretty rare day when I say this because I simply don't see it in Nikon and Canon very often BUT I am seeing a lot of 3d looking images coming from you guy's . The last ones with Shelby and Marc there are a couple in there that are making me drool and i don't say that very often.

You know... what I'm enjoying is the number of images I'm finding that have that look at the end of a shoot. Like MF, it's hindered a bit in action scenes by an AF system that's a tad bit slow (although accurate)... but when you hit it... BAM... 3D-ness all over the place.

 

[hardloaf]

I'm very interested in this topic of A900 low light shooting abilities. We actually did a lot of testing in this area with my friend Iliah Borg and so far we came to some conclusions. After all - who could possibly care more about blacks and shadows than a wedding photog? I actually often see clipped blacks in examples posted here from A900 and would really like to figure if better processing can help with this issue.
One key point - A900 optimal ISO range is 320-800. This means that at ISO below 320 red and blue channels getting highly non-linear in shadows. To add insult to injury they also getting clipped and we have those large and bad looking black voids in dark areas. Green channel looks fine at any ISO below 320 (possible hint: BW produced by cutting R and B channels off). Above 800 is also not recommended, because noise is getting ugly and looks like it's better to push in Raw converter. This means that you just don't go up and underexpose instead.
Regarding pushing - only precise processing can help here and if some of you happened to be Mac users you may try my converter for such difficult shots. Also please try to print processed shots as you'd do this for a client - RPP doesn't do any noise filtering, instead I'm trying to not amplify it and make it look more like a fine film grain. This means that what you see on screen and what you have on print is going to be very different.
The converter is free for as long as you want to keep it free, no risk and no hidden strings I'll answer to all your questions in email or here.
http://www.raw-photo-processor.com/
Pushing in other converters usually is rather disappointing exercise, but if you have some info to share this would be very interesting too.
I'd also happily process such shots as proof of concept if you send me link for problematic Raws. I can also post 100% crops here if owner permits.

Andrey

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Andrey you should put that link to your software in your signature so folks can find it. I'm sure some folks would like to try it out. We always like the support of vendors products here.

 

[Shelby Lewis]

Hey Andrey... thanks for the reply.

I own (well, donated to) RPP and love the results... but as a wedding photographer in the US, RPP seems essentially unusable in a high-volume workflow. Again... i LOVE RPP as a converter and if I could get faster previews of settings changes and a better sense of it's batching capabilities, I'd love to use it more. Same with Raw Developer.

As it stands, C1 seems to be the best "in-between" product between ACR/Lightroom and RPP. I like michael richmann's C1/LR workflow... and might give it a shot myself.

Care to give those of us in high-volume workflows some thoughts as to how to integrate RPP more efficiently into our studios?

Thanks!

BTW... Clipped blacks aren't really a huge deal to me, actually. I'd rather not have them, that's for sure... but clipped whites are much more problematic to deal with IMO. As a matter of fact, with noise being what it is on the a900, clipping the blacks slightly can (in certain instances) actually improve the overall look of the image IMO.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Very true if your seeing noise in the shadow area's which obviously I get a lot of doing event work with folks on podiums and such with Black drops in the background I will clip the blacks to eliminate noise sometimes . Obviously the highlights are the biggest issue with any camera and raw converter the better the highlight control on the raw converters certainly brings a more useful converter to the user. Weddings are tough but I run into the same issues a lot myself with my type of work as well.

 

[hardloaf]

Andrey you should put that link to your software in your signature so folks can find it. I'm sure some folks would like to try it out. We always like the support of vendors products here.

Done. Thanks for advice

 

[hardloaf]

Shelby,

Hey Andrey... thanks for the reply.

I own (well, donated to) RPP and love the results... but as a wedding photographer in the US, RPP seems essentially unusable in a high-volume workflow. Again... i LOVE RPP as a converter and if I could get faster previews of settings changes and a better sense of it's batching capabilities, I'd love to use it more. Same with Raw Developer.

As it stands, C1 seems to be the best "in-between" product between ACR/Lightroom and RPP. I like michael richmann's C1/LR workflow... and might give it a shot myself.

Care to give those of us in high-volume workflows some thoughts as to how to integrate RPP more efficiently into our studios?

It's definitely possible. Simplest way is to use that LR plugin to call RPP directly for a specific shot or a batch. Batch itself is a serous topic and if you figure it out you may do a lot and rather fast on a good computer. In any case if you or anybody else have specific questions please don't hesitate to ask here (probably in a separate thread) or in email - I always answer to all emails. I can describe my workflow which I used personally on up to 500 shots and I know that some of my users go to thousands with it and find it efficient and 'low maintainance' as long as it's set properly from the beginning.

BTW... Clipped blacks aren't really a huge deal to me, actually. I'd rather not have them, that's for sure... but clipped whites are much more problematic to deal with IMO. As a matter of fact, with noise being what it is on the a900, clipping the blacks slightly can (in certain instances) actually improve the overall look of the image IMO.

I understand that - controlled clipping of blacks is very important part of processing and pretty much required if you want to get deep good colors. Problem usually is in how they clipped - they should have smooth roll off and shouldn't have sharp edges or blotchy structure.
What I meant is that nobody wants camera to clip shadows - in this case it's a much bigger trouble because information is lost and ugly shadows may ruin a good shot forever.

Regarding highlights - I totally agree and I'm trying to handle them as gentle as possible. In fact I have special Compressed Exposure control just to process highlight properly, i.e. when exposure correction doesn't clip them, but compresses instead with all thin details intact.

 

[edwardkaraa]

Done. Thanks for advice

Hi Andrey,

Any plans to make RPP available for windows?

 

[douglasf13]

Marc and Shelby, I'm doing a simple elopement next week in Hawaii, as my fiance and I are trying to spend the money on a long honeymoon, rather than a big wedding. We probably couldn't afford you guys! lol. Seriously though, I'm from Indiana originally, so I know people in your general vicinity, and I'll be sure to recommend you.:thumbs:

Andrey, I've moved back to PC this past year, and not being able to try RPP is probably my biggest regret of the switch! Any plans on an evil PC version ? I've been getting good results with Raw Therapee (Iliah recommended it, since I don't run Macs,) and, like Shelby, have come to find that C1 PRO is a nice compromise. However, build a PC version RPP, and I'm all over it .....with donations.

p.s. Andrey, it would be great if you could get together with Iliah and give clearly laid out shooting recommendations (like the above) for the A900. The tests that the two of you have done would be invaluable for us to get the most out of this camera. I've been giving advice here and there on this forum in regards to what you guys have discovered, but it would be better (and more accurate) coming straight from the source. thanks

 

[hardloaf]

Edward, Douglas,

Another platform is out of my reach so far - there is too many dependencies in RPP on Mac OS X and I simply have no time to maintain two separate products.
Sorry.

 

[hardloaf]

Douglas,

Andrey, it would be great if you could get together with Iliah and give clearly laid out shooting recommendations (like the above) for the A900. The tests that the two of you have done would be invaluable for us to get the most out of this camera. I've been giving advice here and there on this forum in regards to what you guys have discovered, but it would be better (and more accurate) coming straight from the source. thanks

Will do for sure - we love A900, best thing in DSLR world since 2004 and we would be more than happy to share our findings

 

[douglasf13]

Wonderful. I've been recommending some jpeg settings that I've found to give a somewhat more accurate histogram of RAW (in combination with uniWB,) and I'd love to see what you guys are doing in that regard...especially in relation to the ZONE setting. Thanks, and I look forward to your teachings. :lecture::clap: