Advice - just learning...

So i picked up the 510 and the 70-300 lense to try and get some of the kids sports activities. Just learning, 2 weeks in so I'm experimenting and trying to learn.

A few questions with the attached image (on of the better ones from this past weekend) not so much for image quality put the action and the facial expression captured.

I am now learning what a "blown highlight" is and it seems like that is what is happening to the stick in this image. What would someone do to prevent this?

This picture was in sport mode with Auto exposure and white balance. I'm switching back and forth between sport mode and S to try and take some manual shots.

Sport JPG 252mm 1/500, F5.5, ISO 400, Metering Spot, exposure Auto, whitebalance Auto

Nothing was done as far as adjusting yet. Any suggestions on processing?

It looks like a fairly balanced exposure to me. If you are shooting people and a mix of shiny white things in the sun like helmets and sticks, you are much better off letting the highlights "blow" so you can see the faces still. If you hadn't blown the highlights here, the faces would be too dark, and the image quality poorer overall. You have to ask if the overdone highlights have any detail that's important.

Not sure where the sun is exactly in the photo, but for the best balance of detail on faces and highlights you'd turn so the sun lights the faces (difficult at high noon down South).

The final thing is that the 510/410 cameras are known for clipping highlights with jpegs. If you switch to raw you can do better. And follow the 510 setup advice on Wrotniak's site:

http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/43/e510-rev.html
--
John Krumm
Juneau, AK

In addition to Wrotniak, here is a link to an old discussion about avoiding blown highlights that I thought covers it well.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=28237271

--
Andrew, Toronto ON
(laziness, not necessity, is the mother of invention)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajcgn/sets/

shooting sports outside in bright sun is tough, to put it mildly. Personally, I think you got a pretty nice photo, there.

I don't have the 70-300, but I use the e-510/50-200mm combo to shoot baseball.

Lots of opportunities for blown highlights with bright sun, uniforms, shadows, different sun angles. Same as what you'll get shooting lacrosse.

I'm pretty pleased with the JPS I get, but for the past few months I've had the best luck with my 510 shooting RAW (honestly not as much work as you'd think at first and man oh man, can you "recover" more highlight and shadow).

You can sharpen as required.

You have plenty of buffer to shoot a 4 or 5 frame RAW burst.

Also, you might experiment with setting Aperture mode/auto white balance. It's helped me when I've had to swing quickly from bright sun to a dugout interior.

I'm looking forward to seeing some more lacrosse. A friend/mentor shot a lot of high school and college lacrosse and got some really compelling photos.

I think you'll really like that camera after you get to know it, but if you ever make the mistake, as I did, of renting an E-3 for a weekend, you'll be re-cycling cans and bottles and searching the sofa cushions for change, saving up for one ;=) They are nice. Very, very nice...

Have fun with it.

--
bob naegele
san diego, ca
http://www.rjndesign.com/

In bright sun light that I'd shoot A-priority, ISO 200, f/5.6 with -0.7 EV compensation.

Or I'd just go half a stop under sunny 16 (1/2500, f/5.6 ISO 200).

--
Good shooting.

• Adam

Equipment in plan

Why go ISO 200 in bright sun?

--
'When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at
his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.
Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two,
and I know it was not that blow that did it,
but all that had gone before.'
-- Jacob Riis (1849 - 1914)

Stay Well,
Pete K.

I'm not sure that I would use the spot metering in this situation because there is so much motion on the field and I'm sure you are focusing on getting your framing and timing correct that using spot metering could not be the best choice. For sports I'd use center weighted or ESP metering to ensure that the overall frame is exposed correctly and not whatever happens to be in the center spot for a given photo.

If lighting is fairly consistent for a period of time maybe use manual mode.

Brian
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24850448@N02/
http://photobybfunk.blogspot.com/

Is that the Panny sensors are better at ISO 200 than ISO 100.

I have yet to see this play out in my pictures - if it were my E-1 I'd be at ISO 100 1/1000 f/5.6 in a heart beat.

--
Good shooting.

• Adam

Equipment in plan

Thanks for all the replies!

John, I did take a run through of the 510 settings from your link (prior). I did not catch all that much, maybe I changed compression setting and 1 other adjustment. I read through again.

Bob - Baseball starts for me this weekend. - We'll see how I do.

I did take a few raw last weekend. Not enough to gain any knowledge, ill keep adding some raw pictures (but I'm waiting on my new XDcards!)

Ill post some more Lax as they come in, if their worthy. I have not utilized burst yet....something else for me to try.

Andrew, thanks for the link, Ill review the thread.

Adam, I heard a few recomendations to shoot in A vs S for sports, I guess something else to try...thanks!

Brian - Regarding spot metering, I was afraid of the background colors having too much of an effect. Not so relevant in these pictures with the trees but last week I had the sky in the background. Maybe I do not understand metering fully yet but I thought a bright background on ESP would make the subject too dark, Again, not a bright background this time but I adjusted for my first try and stayed with it.

Interj said:

So i picked up the 510 and the 70-300 lense to try and get some of
the kids sports activities. Just learning, 2 weeks in so I'm
experimenting and trying to learn.

A few questions with the attached image (on of the better ones from
this past weekend) not so much for image quality put the action and
the facial expression captured.

I am now learning what a "blown highlight" is and it seems like that
is what is happening to the stick in this image. What would someone
do to prevent this?

This picture was in sport mode with Auto exposure and white balance.
I'm switching back and forth between sport mode and S to try and take
some manual shots.

Sport JPG 252mm 1/500, F5.5, ISO 400, Metering Spot, exposure Auto,
whitebalance Auto

Nothing was done as far as adjusting yet. Any suggestions on processing?

Click to expand...

I would try to learn not to use the modes. Its not that they are bad you will simply have more control if you use the basic controls. For shooting sports I tend to try to get a faster shutter speed. It is easier to boost the image in PP then to try to get blown highlights out.

For this kind of shot I would have set ISO at 200 (I don't go below 200) and use Shutter Priority at around 640 but you could go higher if it is a really bright day. I would also use EPS metering. White balance on Auto is ok. I also always shoot in RAW.

Since you requested suggestions on processing I took the liberty of doing some on your image. I hope you don't mind. I did everything in lightroom 2.3. Basically I did a gradient on the field, cropped the image down, and set decreased the highlight exposure with a couple of tools. Anyway here is the shot.

Jim



--
Olympus E-510 and a bunch of stuff to hang on it.

... I'm always learning too.

acwalbur said:

The "perception" around here....
Is that the Panny sensors are better at ISO 200 than ISO 100.

Click to expand...

DPR indicated that with the E-30 review but I never heard it applied to the E-510 or other Oly cameras. OTOH, I can't read every thread either.

acwalbur said:

I have yet to see this play out in my pictures - if it were my E-1
I'd be at ISO 100 1/1000 f/5.6 in a heart beat.

Click to expand...

--
'When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at
his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.
Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two,
and I know it was not that blow that did it,
but all that had gone before.'
-- Jacob Riis (1849 - 1914)

Stay Well,
Pete K.

Jim,

PP - post processing??

So the thing that was bothering me the most was the blown out white in the stick, It looks like you were able to recover it some in lightroom. I have photoshop CS3 which I assume could do something similiar,can you tell me specificaly how that was adjusted?

I watched some online courses for sharpening and color but have not see the exposure adjustements yet.

Thanks! Looks great.

Here was my first attempt at processing -



While I'm posting, this was one of the better soccer ones from last week....spring is going to be busy!

When you open the image in a raw developer you have some control over the exposure. The data is linear so you can adjust the exposure as if you were 'retaking' the shot. Now, this only goes so far, since the amount of noise is fixed in the capture, but it gives you the ability to tweak the exposure.

When highlights clip in the raw data there is nothing you can do to recover them. The information is lost. With one exception. There can be data in one of the other channels that did not clip and some raw developers can use the information to recover and reconstruct the highlights approximately. LightZone is very good at this and Master merely substitutes gray for clipped data.

The other issue is the tone curve. When the raw data is converted to a usable image (either by sending it from ACR to photoshop or by rendering to JPEG), the contrast is adjusted to be more suitable to printing, viewing on a monitor, the typical uses we put photographs to. The tone curve of the rendered image is adjustable.

Sometimes highlights are lost or clipped in this process. The detail is there in the capture, but not in the rendered JPEG image because as tones are mapped from the raw data to the final image, highlights can be pushed into clipping or compressed so you can't tell the difference between tones. The highlights look white. If you opened your image in ACR you might find detail in the highlights on the stick. That would mean the sensor did not actually clip, but the tone curve applied by the JPEG engine caused them to clip. If not, then you would need to adjust the exposure slider to see if any detail can be recovered and if not, it is lost.

The tone curve adjusts contrast as it moves tones closer together or further apart, compressing them or stretching them. The camera does not offer a wide range of adjustment, neither does Master, but ACR/Photoshop or Lightroom, LightZone do.

--
Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/knoblock/
http://picasaweb.google.com/steve.knoblock

Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. -- Jean Cocteau

Interj said:

Jim,

PP - post processing??

So the thing that was bothering me the most was the blown out white
in the stick, It looks like you were able to recover it some in
lightroom. I have photoshop CS3 which I assume could do something
similiar,can you tell me specificaly how that was adjusted?

I watched some online courses for sharpening and color but have not
see the exposure adjustements yet.

Thanks! Looks great.

Click to expand...

I dont have CS3 but I believe it would work the same (on a PC I don't use a MAC). Make a new adjustment layer. Use the Majic wand and click on the really bright highlighted area of the stick. You will see a dashed line drawn around the highlight. If you want more areas adjusted hold down the shift key and click on them as well. Then adjust Exposure setting. It should only affect the areas surrounded by the dashed line.

Another possible way is using the shadow/highlight adjustement.

Adobe puts out a great book (although it is over priced!) for Photoshop called Photoshop classroom in a book. It is a great learning tool. Below is a link to it on amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Photoshop-CS3-Classroom-Book/dp/0321492021/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239119038&sr=8-1

Good luck. Really liked the soccer shot!
--
Olympus E-510 and a bunch of stuff to hang on it.