fast lens for church photos

hi, i shoot alot of church photos with available light and stage lighting. i need a fast lens so i can avoid 3200 iso. also i use the dimage software that came with the camera to edit raw pics, im totally new to editing any ideas on better programs? thanks so much any help is greatly appricated! vicky

well for indoor speed, i like the 50mm 1.4, although they are a bit hard to come by as of late.

Depending on where you are situationed and whether you can move around, the 50mm may be too narrow or too wide for your purposes.

regarding programs, NoiseNinja does wonders on high-ISO shots. With NoiseNinja you may find that you can print a decent image from ISO 1600 or even 3200, although its subject to personal interpretation.

N

For me, the 50 1.4 was the perfect length and speed for dark churches. Here's some samples using this lens. I suppose you could also get by with the 50/1.7 or any fast wide angle but the 1.4 worked for me.

try the free community edition of noiseware. It works on jpg files, is very easy to use and does a pretty good job.

http://www.imagenomic.com/index.aspx

as for lenses, the tamron 17-50/2.8 is very good. To go faster you need a prime, such as the sigma 30/1.4, which is also very good.

vbyrd said:

hi, i shoot alot of church photos with available light and stage
lighting. i need a fast lens so i can avoid 3200 iso.

Click to expand...

If you can find one, the 100mm f/2 is a good lens for that kind of thing (typical stage lighting in a church). depending on what you're trying to capture and your distance/vantage point.

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JimC
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http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

I think you can opt for the 50mm f1.7 (more easy to get than the 1.4) and if you are lucky you can find a 28mm f2 lens. The sigma 20mm f1.8 gets got reviews tooo.

In combination iso 1600 and f2 it probably gives shutter speeds of around between 1/20 to 1/250 depending on the amount of light. This is with these focal distances fast enough when assisted with the AS.

Zoom lenses with a constant f2.8 e.g. Tamron 17-50 might be a good choice too, although at the long end you might end with motion blur.

universal - 70-200/2.8 G SMM
50/1.4
35/1.4

or end - 135/1.8 CZ

...

I also do a lot of work inside churches, but mostly with flash. I use a Tamron 24-135/3.5-5.6, a Sigma 17-70/2.8-4.5 and a KM 50/1.7. As for RAW software, after testing several I ended up with Silkypix - not the most friendly interface ( IMO Bibble is the best on that ) but powerfull tools and excellent colors.

... Lucas
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You're welcome to: http://www.pbase.com/lucaspix
Always having fun with photography ...

thanks to all! happy shooting

I replied to your other post of some time ago where you asked about shooting in church.

As I said back then, I shoot a couple of hundred shots every Sunday, and now that we are in double services, it is an even higher count and I have been doing it for several years now.

I stand by my original recommendation that a zoom is indispensable in this kind of work. Depending only slightly upon your final output (print or web), and more upon the lighting in your venue, you may not need a super fast prime lens at all. In fact, I find fast primes in my scenario pretty limiting. I shoot a 7D and in the sanctuary I shoot at 1600 ISO. No flash, of course. I use two zooms and alternate them due to changing lighting conditions between the morning services and the night service. In the AM services I use the Tamron 28-300 3.5-6.3. The AM service is brighter due to large windows and daylight they add to the overall light mix (Ya gotta love raw files!). I shoot raw+ and shoot in S mode @ 1/40sec. Occasionally, I can get to 1/50sec. This results in apertures between f/4.0 (when @ 28mm for choir or congregation) and f/6.3 at the 300mm end when isolating a great expression from an individual (or baby) in the congregation or around 200mm to isolate the speaker, song leader, etc. About once a month or so, I pull back to one side of the platform (behind the pianist, who provides a good foreground) and rack it to 28mm and take two shots of the congregation @ 1/50 and f/5.0 and then make a pano showing the entire congregation/church. I must have a super zoom for my church work and the 7D w/AS is tailor made for the job because ISO 1600 is very smooth on my particular camera and I can cover an individual at the back of the sanctuary @300mm and a moment later cover an entire row @ 28mm as they break out in laughter together and it's all done at both ends of the zoom and I rarely move from my seat in the front row, right center aisle.

For the evening service I use a Sigma 28-105 f/2.8-f/4.0. This gains me another stop and more over my morning zoom and I need it because I now have lost my additional daylight. I have shot @ 3200 and it works okay too, but I am fastidious in my PP of 3200 and most of my stuff is for the web and it works, but my comfort zone is 1600 for my church work. After services, I step out into the foyer, go to 800 ISO and flip the built-in flash up in TTL, go to manual camera exposure @ 1/40 and f/4.5 and I get the whole foyer lit (fluorescent lights) due to the 1/40 shutter and the people I shoot pretty much fill the frame and they are roughly 8' - 20' from the camera. These settings are locked into a memory and I simply flip from memory 1 (sanctuary) to memory 2 for the foyer as I am moving into the foyer and all is good to go.

If you decide to go with a fast prime or two, I don't envy you and the angst you will endure when you aren't quite wide enough or you aren't quite long enough and you have to either start moving around (that's not a good thing...) or compromise by working your images over to try and make those primes work in a very fluid situation. Neither of those two scenarios is at all appealing to me because my 28-300 just does it all, almost as tho it was made just for getting complete coverage in my church scenario.

Anyway, that's my recommendation, based on several years of church shooting in different churches. YMMV, simply because your church lighting may be entirely different than what I experience. Use raw, a decent wide to tele zoom and DON'T be afraid to use 1600 ISO!
Regards, Jim
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Odds N' Ends album here:
http://www.pbase.com/jimh/inbox&page=all
Z album here: http://www.pbase.com/jimh/marilyn_the_car&page=all

Ive used the Sigma EX 10-20 DC hand held in churches with just available light to great effect. Also the Sigma 15-30 for that matter, though the 10-20 is preferrable IMO.

Cheers!
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Craig A Clark
F-Nine ~ DIGITAL
http://www.f-nine.co.uk/

i've always thought the tamron 28-300 was an outdoors lens, interesting to hear you get such good results inside a church, with good lighting from outside. Could you post some examples? thanks!

thanks, my church has no windows, lots of florscent lights, which are usually toned down alittle during worship and multi-colored stage lights. i moved around somewhat during worship. my problem is the lights are casting a yellow hue on the worship team and even in raw with dimage i cant quite overcome. most photos are used for the web but some are needed for calenders and such, which ends up looking awful. i have an older minolta 75-300 w/4.5-5.6 and 28-100 w/3.5-5.6. do you think a 28mmw/1.8 for $270 at b&h photo would be worthwhile? thanks

The Tamron is one of my most used lenses. Here are a few samples of what I do in this church when using the Tamron 28-300. As you can see, even tho it appears relatively bright inside, there is a lot of PP going on in these to get to that level for these are shot @ 1/40sec and f/4.0 - 5.6 @ 1600 ISO. The back-lighting can be ferocious when needing a shot that forces me to shoot toward the large windows at one end, but the Tamron copes well enough. I use the full extent of the zoom of the Tamron in every service and I'm indebted to it for its range (and the KM AS!). These files are heavily resized and compressed so don't mind the artifacting going on. Oh, and no flash was used (or injured!) while shooting these.







Regards, Jim

foot said:

i've always thought the tamron 28-300 was an outdoors lens,
interesting to hear you get such good results inside a church, with
good lighting from outside. Could you post some examples? thanks!

Click to expand...

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Odds N' Ends album here:
http://www.pbase.com/jimh/inbox&page=all
Z album here: http://www.pbase.com/jimh/marilyn_the_car&page=all

if you shoot in RAW, you can adjust WB in PP. many programs allow you to click on a sample "white" pixel, and then will adjust the colors to match.

This will also work in jpg, however during the compression, sometimes too much color channel information is missing, so it doesn't work as well.

I don't have this program, so i can't say for sure, but the box for PSE 5.0 mentioned something similiar for skin tones. ie click on a face, then click on a tool palette with different skin tones, and PSE will then adjust the colors to match.

This works best with a single type of light source. If there are multiple light-sources, each will need their own white-balance setting. I guess you can do this with masks & layers....

jim-

Thanks for posting your images. They look very nice.

here's one i took at a civil war re-enactment. km 5D sigma 30/1.4
wide open at iso 3200.

I was lucky to get anything at all!! everybody else there gave up. ppl were asking if i was getting anything, and i showed them the LCD. wow! it looked like i was shooting in daylight, when the sun had already gone done.

Exposure Time 0.0333s (8947849/268435456)
Aperture f1.4
ISO 3200
Focal Length 30mm (45mm 35mm)