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Taking pictures at a Midway Fair


Jill Morgan

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Starting Wednesday is our local fair. Its a fair size and goes for 5 days.  I want to take some interesting midway shots, but won't have a tripod with me.  Day shots probably won't be problematic, but evening and night shots will.

 

Are there any tricks to  taking these without using a tripod. (My son stole mine so I won't have it back for a bit).

 

How far can I push the ISO before it shows to much noise to pass QC?

 

I do have a tabletop tripod, but no sure how I could use it wandering a fairground.

 

Jill

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Depends on your camera. Nikon currently seem to have the edge with high-quality high iso pictures.

 

Personally with my camera (Canon 50D), I never submit stock pictures over 400 iso (just for safety).

 

For Alamy Live News pictures, I will go higher but I shoot a lot of live music where I need higher ISO.

 

 

Are your pictures going to be stock or news pictures?

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Depends on your camera. Nikon currently seem to have the edge with high-quality high iso pictures.

 

Personally with my camera (Canon 50D), I never submit stock pictures over 400 iso (just for safety).

 

For Alamy Live News pictures, I will go higher but I shoot a lot of live music where I need higher ISO.

 

 

Are your pictures going to be stock or news pictures?

 

Camera is a Canon T4i and they will be for stock, so I guess I am best to not worry too much about the night shots.  Unless I want to invest in another tripod.

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Depends on your camera. Nikon currently seem to have the edge with high-quality high iso pictures.

 

Personally with my camera (Canon 50D), I never submit stock pictures over 400 iso (just for safety).

 

For Alamy Live News pictures, I will go higher but I shoot a lot of live music where I need higher ISO.

 

 

Are your pictures going to be stock or news pictures?

 

Camera is a Canon T4i and they will be for stock, so I guess I am best to not worry too much about the night shots.  Unless I want to invest in another tripod.

 

Flash ?

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Personally, I would not carry or try to set up a tripod in a crowded place with a lot of foot traffic. I don't use Canons. Here's the noise report: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-650d-rebel-t4i/17

 

With my Nikons or Sony NEX cameras, ISO 800 or 1,600 are not a problem. I do use LR5 to tame noise some. You have good noise editing on CS6. Leave the table pod at home. Do you have vibration control or the camera or lenses—that's a big help. Shoot at night anyway. If it doesn't work out, just don't upload the night shots. 

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I've had Alamy rejections on my Canon 7D at ISO 800 recently. I think Alamy is getting a tighter on quality. I carry a tripod for Fair shots at night. If in the middle of a crowd I try to keep the legs close and use it more like a "stabilized" mono pod. Generally shots in a crowd don't work for me and I try to find a bit higher vantage point off to the side of the crowd. Then I use a full tripod. Sometimes even cranking it to max height to get above and shoot across the crowd. 

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With tabletop tripod extend the legs fully and hold tripod and camera assembly against a rigid object. Post, wall, car, whatever is to hand.

 

Allan

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Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

Andrew:

 

I have flash, but not much use for long exposure on the shots of the lit up rides.

 

Ed:

 

Yes, my lenses do have image stabilization.

 

Alan:

 

Not a bad idea, I"ll take my tabletop with me.  As Ed mentioned, with the benefit of digital, I can take the shots, and if they suck, just trash them.  I'm sure i"ll get lots of good stuff while I am there.

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Jill, I can handhold down to 1/10th with my IS (sometimes). And these fairs usually have bright lighting. I don't like flash for a situation such as yours. I don't think the subject matter of people at a fair would work with a tripod or table pod either. 

 

Stan, do you reduce the noise in PP? When an image is noisy I don't submit it to Alamy, but on almost anything I shoot at ISO 800 or even 1,600 I can correct and dissolve the noise in Lightroom 5. 

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Jill, I can handhold down to 1/10th with my IS (sometimes). And these fairs usually have bright lighting. I don't like flash for a situation such as yours. I don't think the subject matter of people at a fair would work with a tripod or table pod either. 

 

Stan, do you reduce the noise in PP? When an image is noisy I don't submit it to Alamy, but on almost anything I shoot at ISO 800 or even 1,600 I can correct and dissolve the noise in Lightroom 5. 

 

I'll be of tomorrow afternoon. Bought myself 3 day passes so plan to do lots of different kinds of shots.  The lights of the midway usually are quite bright, and if I can find a table or anything to steady the camera on I'll go for it. 

 

Regarding Lightroom, I have it, but have never used it. In what ways would you say it was superior to PS CS6?

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It is not superior to CS6. CS6 is top dog---look at your receipt. But I shot romantic realism (real life, but I pick up the candy wrappers). I have CS5, Capture NX2 and LR5. I use all three. But for me the exotic things that can be done with Photoshop are beyond my needs and beyond my skills. I find LR5 to be more user friendly. I do most of my PP in LR and finish up in CS5. Watch a few videos on LR5 in YouTube, a great place to learn things. 

 

The reason I'm being negative about using a tripod is you can steady your camera but the people, your subjects, will continue to move and blur. 

 

Have fun at the fair!  :)

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I suspect/hope that QC here take a pragmatic view about high ISO noise and IQ generally. If the shot is taken in a place/situation where it clearly would be impossible to get a clean image then their tolerance level will be higher. Fingers crossed, but I have not had a high ISO shot fail to date (Canon 5D and 5DII, Sony NEX).  

 

Against that, the latest crop of cameras using, for example, Sony manufactured sensors (alleged to include Nikon,Pentax,Sony) are much better in this regard, so the goalposts may have been moved recently.

 

David Kilpatrick advised against using the 16 MP NEX sensor at more than 1600, and I generally follow that advice and always control high ISO noise in LR. I have found that with high ISO shots, lifting dark areas in LR can increase noise significantly, to the extent that the image is clearly unusable due to unsightly chroma noise, so care needs to be taken; leave dark shadows dark!

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Jill, I regularly use ISO 5000 on my Nikon D700, with little or (most often) no post-capture noise-reduction. Many have been submitted and accepted by Alamy. If you've never gone beyond the oft-quoted ISO 1600, beg borrow or (figuratively) steal a D700 and crank it up to ISO 5000. You may be in for a very pleasant surprise if you've not used one before :-)

 

Other than that, the technique mentioned previously of bracing against a wall/post/tree is a much more unobtrusive and highly effective alternative to using a tripod.

 

dd

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Jill, I can handhold down to 1/10th with my IS (sometimes). And these fairs usually have bright lighting. I don't like flash for a situation such as yours. I don't think the subject matter of people at a fair would work with a tripod or table pod either. 

 

Stan, do you reduce the noise in PP? When an image is noisy I don't submit it to Alamy, but on almost anything I shoot at ISO 800 or even 1,600 I can correct and dissolve the noise in Lightroom 5. 

 

Ed,

I have both passed and failed with ISO 800 batches from the Canon 7D. Occasionally I post process with the Imagenomic Noiseware plugin for Photoshop. I do not use Lightroom. I use  the Weak Noise settings or my own Very Weak Noise settings. I get afraid of getting the surfaces too artificially syrup smooth if I go to higher settings. Perhaps smoother might pass better but I'v not tried due to loss of fine detail. I don't think I have ever submitted ISO 1600 shots.

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Jill, if you search "Canfield Fair" you will see my fair shots. Unfortunately, they do not sell well enough in recent years to cover my fair mileage, tickets, funnel cakes, Stromboli, and Coke.  On the other hand, I can write these off as photo business expense (USA) and still enjoy a day shooting at the fair.

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Jill, if you search "Canfield Fair" you will see my fair shots. Unfortunately, they do not sell well enough in recent years to cover my fair mileage, tickets, funnel cakes, Stromboli, and Coke.  On the other hand, I can write these off as photo business expense (USA) and still enjoy a day shooting at the fair.

 

Thanks Stan.

 

Had a look at your pics and I can give you a few good keywords for the horse-related ones. (Horses are my specialty, not in photography, but in life).

 

For all the ones with the draft horses.

 

The beigey brown ones are Belgians.

 

The grey ones are Percherons.

 

The event they are competing in is called a 6 Horse Hitch.

 

The one of the 3 girls riding, the one nearest the lens is on a Clydesdale (Budweiser horse), next to her the black one is a Percheron and behind them the girl is on a Belgian. Most people don't ride draft horses, so that might be a good keyphrase.

 

Of the horse racing ones, the horse breed is Standardbred.  They come in two types, Trotters and Pacers and you have sets of photos of both. The pacers have hopples on that go from the front legs to the back legs. Sample of yours with Pacer: BGB455

 

The other ones are the Trotters. Sample:  C5CDDW

 

In pic ADR2D4 the horse is a Belgian and Bailer is spelled Baler. 

 

In pic C5J9B7 the horse is a paint or pinto and he is barrel racing. 

 

In these two pics:  CW27AG and CW279HC these horses are doing an event called pole bending. The brown horse looks like a Quarther Horse and the other would be a Paint or Pinto.

 

Hope this helps you get some extra hits on your pics.

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These days, I'm unlikely to come across a horse here in NYC, but it's nice to know we have someone knowledgeable, like you, Jill, here in the forum. Back in my childhood, we still had ice and coal delivered by horse-drawn wagons in Brooklyn. 

 

Bryan, I agree with you on the dark, shadowy areas being image-killiers on our NEX images . . . but any underexposing in digital is still a no-no. 

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Got to agree with you on this dd, I had never even thought of pushing the iso on my D700 to 5000 until I read your post... So I thought I would try it yesterday evening and have just processed them now, absolutely amazed ... Just run them through nik define 2 and the jobs done. must remember that very helpful.

Jill, I regularly use ISO 5000 on my Nikon D700, with little or (most often) no post-capture noise-reduction. Many have been submitted and accepted by Alamy. If you've never gone beyond the oft-quoted ISO 1600, beg borrow or (figuratively) steal a D700 and crank it up to ISO 5000. You may be in for a very pleasant surprise if you've not used one before :-)

 

Other than that, the technique mentioned previously of bracing against a wall/post/tree is a much more unobtrusive and highly effective alternative to using a tripod.

 

dd

 

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I don't see the point in going up to ISO5000, but I've no doubt that my D700 could handle it swimmingly. Nikon really tamed noise with this camera. I bought mine right after getting a D90 (nice camera too) mostly for its noise control. The D3 had the same ability.

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I don't see the point in going up to ISO5000, but I've no doubt that my D700 could handle it swimmingly. Nikon really tamed noise with this camera. I bought mine right after getting a D90 (nice camera too) mostly for its noise control. The D3 had the same ability.

As  general rule I try to keep the iso as low as poss, but it is nice to know that you can get away with it if you need to ( handholding inside etc)

I still use my D90 along with my D300s which are both good camera's but not a patch on the D700.

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Jill, if you'll be shooting midway rides at night, you might also try some shots with slower shutter speeds to get the blur of the lights. Again, digital is great for narrowing down exactly what speeds will give a good result.

 

Then you can join the throngs of shooters for those shots (search "carnival ride blur" etc. on Alamy).

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I don't see the point in going up to ISO5000, but I've no doubt that my D700 could handle it swimmingly. Nikon really tamed noise with this camera. I bought mine right after getting a D90 (nice camera too) mostly for its noise control. The D3 had the same ability.

Ed, try "one teenage and one pre-teen daughter heavily involved in gymnastics and sport-cheer" . . . ISO 5000, sometimes 6400, absolutely essential :-)

 

And you can add to that "indoor cricket" . . . :) . . .

 

dd

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Got to agree with you on this dd, I had never even thought of pushing the iso on my D700 to 5000 until I read your post... So I thought I would try it yesterday evening and have just processed them now, absolutely amazed ... Just run them through nik define 2 and the jobs done. must remember that very helpful.

Jill, I regularly use ISO 5000 on my Nikon D700, with little or (most often) no post-capture noise-reduction. Many have been submitted and accepted by Alamy. If you've never gone beyond the oft-quoted ISO 1600, beg borrow or (figuratively) steal a D700 and crank it up to ISO 5000. You may be in for a very pleasant surprise if you've not used one before :-)

 

Other than that, the technique mentioned previously of bracing against a wall/post/tree is a much more unobtrusive and highly effective alternative to using a tripod.

 

dd

Steve, see post above re: reason for trying in the first instance :-). I upgraded to the D700 (from D200) as soon as I possibly could because of its high-ISO capabilities. In no hurry to move away from this brilliant machine.

 

dd

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I don't see the point in going up to ISO5000, but I've no doubt that my D700 could handle it swimmingly. Nikon really tamed noise with this camera. I bought mine right after getting a D90 (nice camera too) mostly for its noise control. The D3 had the same ability.

Ed, try "one teenage and one pre-teen daughter heavily involved in gymnastics and sport-cheer" . . . ISO 5000, sometimes 6400, absolutely essential :-)

 

And you can add to that "indoor cricket" . . . :) . . .

 

dd

 

Dusty, horse tranquilizes are available with a RX.  Sports and young people is a different ballgame.  I certainly agree with your opinion on the D700. 12MP is perfect for stock.

 

I'll see if I can open the door to my basement to do some very low-light shooting.   :)

 

Steve, there isn't even a hint of noise in the darkest shadows with the D700 at ISO800. 

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