1st Time shooting black people for a wedding with my S2..HMM..

I have had my S2 for a while now and 90% of all my wedding are white or asian weddings... 2 weeks ago a shot a outdoor session with my s2 with a semi light black bride and were fairly happy with the shots... Most of them, I was able to save the dress and keep her face light enough to see..

Well this weekend I shot a fairly dark black couple and I am not to happy now... most of the shots were a compromise and to even see their faces I had to blow out all the white in the dresses and the cake is really bad.. Esp since it is closer to the flash.. Their is nothing to do about this as far as I know since the dynamic range of the camera (and all digital cameras) is not as wide as film.. I shot a lot of black wedding before and the lab was able to save the white cake and the faces look great... I would rather a new Fuji camera have more dynamic range then more MP.... The only work around is to shoot RAW and process one image 2 fstops about the merge the images and work from thier.. but that is very time consuming...

First off, some people tell me they feel 'strange' writing to me with hey babe. Well hey Masterdeath isn't unstrange either ;-))

No expert, lots to learn too and I haven't done this yet. But on the S2 you can shoot multiple exposures so you meter for the white first and then for the black and merge in PS7 - would that be a faster alternative. Like I said, I haven't done it yet.

babe
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LIFE ON THE FLY

That works but it is very time comsuming.. To time consuming. ugh

Babe said:

First off, some people tell me they feel 'strange' writing to me
with hey babe. Well hey Masterdeath isn't unstrange either ;-))

No expert, lots to learn too and I haven't done this yet. But on
the S2 you can shoot multiple exposures so you meter for the white
first and then for the black and merge in PS7 - would that be a
faster alternative. Like I said, I haven't done it yet.

babe
--
LIFE ON THE FLY

Click to expand...

Hello. This is some info I picked up some time ago and when I tried it , It improved the skin tone to more correctly reflect what the correct color was. It is probably not what you are looking for what you might find it useful. This is post processing stuff. - Will

1. Except for infants, the yellow number should always be equal to or higher than the magenta number.

2. For very fair-skinned Caucasians, the yellow may be the same as the magenta number or only a few points higher.

3. For darker skinned or tanned Caucasians, the yellow number can be up to 10% higher than the magenta number.

4. For Asian persons, the yellow number should be 10-15% higher than the magenta number.

5. For people of African descent, the yellow number should be 15% higher than the magenta number. Cyan increases 30% - 50%

6. For very tan or very dark-skinned Caucasians, the yellow number can be up to 20% higher than magenta
7. For light-skinned Caucasians, cyan should be about 10%
8. For Asians, cyan should be 10-15%
9. For tan or darker-skinned Caucasians, cyan can go as high as 20%

10. For black skin, the cyan value increases ; 35 ; 50% is acceptable, although 50% is unusual.

For these examples, you can usually ignore the K(black) value, or add it on to the cyan value. I hope this is helpful for you. These are not my ideas, although I have added my experiences. I know

Babe said:

No expert, lots to learn too and I haven't done this yet. But on
the S2 you can shoot multiple exposures so you meter for the white
first and then for the black and merge in PS7 - would that be a
faster alternative. Like I said, I haven't done it yet.

Click to expand...

This typically will only work with static objects. With people, every picture will be a little different and do not merge exactly like the previous. No too pictures have the same facial expression.

Doing the same process with RAW is time consuming but you will get good to great results.

-James

My suggestion is to get the hang of curves in Photoshop. The S2 does cover the dynamic range sufficiently and by using curves in photoshop effectively you can very easily overcome the problem. Just make sure you check your histograms while shooting to make sure you are not blowing out the highlights. Curves will enable you to bring out the detail in the skin and shadows.

I ride the edge to of the histogram to NOT blow out the highlights OR shoot RAW... The problems are is that when you use the curves it increases the noise also... So you then have to shoot ISO 100-200 to keep the noise low... I have tried A LOT of things..

I think the future solution will be the new Fuji CCDs.... You know.. To me it seems Fuji is the only company really coming out with new things.. Canon used CMOS to save money and power, and so does Kodak.. And Nikon it seems is falling behind and just making money off of lenes.. But Fuji is coming out with that 20mp MF back and they have had super CCD for a while and now the new sensors for more dynamic range.,.. hmm

Michael Stephen said:

My suggestion is to get the hang of curves in Photoshop. The S2
does cover the dynamic range sufficiently and by using curves in
photoshop effectively you can very easily overcome the problem.
Just make sure you check your histograms while shooting to make
sure you are not blowing out the highlights. Curves will enable you
to bring out the detail in the skin and shadows.

Click to expand...