Your advice is appreciated!

I was asked to take some pictures in a christening, it was not paid, I did not use flash and decided to go with sepia. I only had the 12-35mm and even used the 2x function on the camera.

Comments are welcome.

Cheers,

E.

I do not think sepia works for this subject matter.

TEdolph

I'm inclined to agree.

I agree as well.

On a couple shots (i.e. wood panel background) the sepia makes it look period (from that time). But the others need color, without the flesh tones and pastels of the garb it doesn't do your shots justice.

The first shot would have been fine in B&W.

Considering the modern achitecture of the setting, color may have been better for the others.

Sepia works best when you are trying to give something a very old feel, like 50-100 years old.

The subject matter itself has to support that suspension of disbelief if you are going to use an effect lilke sepia.

Tedolph

Does the sepia filter out the color data ? Can the color data be recovered (or was it never recorded)? If shot originally in color (his option) could he apply a sepia filter in printing ? And, can he remove the sepia turning the first shot into B&W ?

I agree with you for the most part, but I wonder if it wouldn't be best to give the entire set the same treatment.

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Frank

You have certainly received feedback on the Sepia but I'm assuming you have other questions or would like other suggestions.

I too agree the sepia is not an effect I would use in this situation unless I offered both.

I think that a few of the shots could use a little cropping and adjustment to the brightness and contrast also.

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Dan

Thank you for your feedback I guess I tried

I think the shots are ok. While I agree that sepia is not the way I would have gone, photography is about personal preference and what I like may not be what somebody else likes. The important questions are: do you like them and does whoever you shot them for like them? If the answers to both those questions are "yes" then way to go. I am looking at them on my phone. The pictures seem to be clear and in focus. You grabbed some nice facial expressions. Composition to me could be played with but nice effort

Did you ask foe advice?

Sepia is OK for funerals. For a such a joyful event I'd come with colors.

For the lens you have selected and distance your shots have been taken, I'd advise you to look at inexpensive LED panels ($40 approx.) They work for hours on standard AA batteries, they do not flash, they do not disturb for the extend of regular flash does, and LED panel could be acceptable in your environment.

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Looking for equilibrium...

Others said they didn’t like sepia, but they made no suggestions about alternative treatment.

I actually like the sepia for this and I think they wilk be valued in years to come but I would also like to see the color -- possibly a little desaturated. It depends on the lighting too, of course.

Some very nice pix.

Cheers, geoff

--
Geoffrey Heard
http://pngtimetraveller.blogspot.com/2011/10/return-to-karai-komana_31.html

Did you take these in RAW or in JPEG-only?

I mentioned this in another thread today, but in a situation like this, I would ALWAYS photograph in RAW + JPEG, even if I was normally a JPEG-only shooter. Always, but especially if I was thinking about shooting with a sepia, black and white or other art filter.

With RAW + JPEG, you'd have the original files (with all color information retained) plus the JPEGs with your sepia treatment. If you did that, you could always choose to apply a different filter (or no filter at all) to the RAWs if you decided the sepia didn't do the trick for you.

I don't think they look too bad, and your 'customer' will likely not be a photographer. The customer may not know that sepia is best for funerals

The first time I was ever asked to photograph an event for pay was a christening almost 10 years ago when a friend asked me to photograph his daughter's christening, something that wasn't really widespread practice in Austria at that time. Good grief, it was dark - here's a picture of the church exterior. A very old church with a very tall ceiling and vry dim lighting. I didn't use flash (didn't want to disturb the service), and most of the light was either from candles or from light filtering in through stained-glass windows. I was way outmatched. My EOS 300D plus kit lens (all I had at the time) was definitely not up to the task

So, I'm just trying to let you know, I think you did a fine job - the pictures look clear and in focus, and the subjects are charming. Just remember, it could always have been worse

tex

Besides the sepia, what advice do you have on the framing? I would have liked more shallow depth of field which would have made the framing nicer but shallow dof is not the forte of the Panasonic 12-35

Thank you again for your input

#1 is very nice. It's too bad that the baby's smile was covered up.

#2 is a tough one. On the one hand, it'd be nice if both girls were in focus, but I see that you really were already at the floor for shutter speed and maxed out on ISO so no way to stop down (unless you'd had an external light source. Flash rules.:)). I might have crouched a little more and stepped back and to the left to improve the composition and get both girls faces in the same plane.

#3 I'd crop a little from the top. Really nice moment, though.

#4 Cute.

#5 I'd have tried to include a little more space above the gentleman's head. I think it's a nice picture though.

#6 Again, cute and nice light on the girl's face. The composition doesn't look right to me. I would have liked this better with her looking into the frame instead of looking out of the frame. Maybe crop to portrait or square and include only the right-hand side of the picture for this one? It would have been different if there was some important action occurring behind her, out of focus or not, but I don't see any reason to include the left-hand half of the picture.

The last "6" is by far the best of the lot.

Not to sure with the sepia, I think just plain old B&W would have been better.

A pity you did not use flash, generally speaking I believe flash is OK in churches, just not during the service.

If it was a definite no no, manual mode with auto ISO would have been good(if your camera allows it) to maintain decent apertures and shutter speeds, some of your pictures look a little soft and little noise would not have mattered too much.

Thank you so much for your great feedback!!

Thank you, I do agree that I should have used a higher ISO/speed as for 2.8 aperture I think it's pretty sharp on this lens.

Yeh zuiko lenses have alway been generally pretty good at f2.8. Have a play with auto ISO, its got me out of trouble more times than I can remember