Gion Matsuri, with an Oops
So I took quite a few pictures today. 627 to be precise.
Well, 628 if you really want to be precise, but the bowl of peanut butter and jelly rice doesn't really relate to the rest of what happened today. Today was the parade for Gion Matsuri, and it's a pretty big affair. There's about a week of lead-up to it where random people from around town build the floats out of various bits of stuff. There are around 30 different floats, and the parade lasts from around 9AM to well after noon. The floats are pretty, if not exactly to my taste. And I'll admit I was a little creeped out by the plastic people mounted in all but the lead float. But! It's pretty neat as parades go and everybody takes lots and lots of pictures.
I'm still working on translating some stuff for my last class tomorrow, so I haven't had time to sort through the pictures, but I think I got some pretty good shots...
...
... at 3200 ISO.
[seppuku noises (whatever those are)]
Here's the story of how it happened:
So last night I was demonstrating to Aaron what difference ISO makes and why it is that you would never want to take pictures you care about at 3200 ISO. The noise reduction required to get a vaguely decent picture completely drains all the color out of it, and all the detail is sort of smudgy. If you use RAWs or turn off noise reduction, you just have a very, very noisy picture.
If you open up that picture, you'll see it looks very much as if I took it with my cell phone. Except my cell phone doesn't let you change settings like this, so you can't screw up in quite this fashion.
[Edit: It would seem you can't see the noise itself very well, as the picture was downsized to 1600 pixels in width, which is about 1/3 of how big it was to begin with.]
Ahem.
I have 627 very, very noisy pictures using six more stops of ISO than was necessary, given the lighting conditions.
I had been wondering why it was that my camera seemed to be over-exposing things and using tiny, tiny apertures. "Gee, 1/4000th of a second is odd in this light..." is something I thought a number of times, but I never thought to check my ISO setting. As much as I want to say something like "Man, what an amateur mistake!" it would be entirely too accurate.
But as long as I learn from it, it's a good thing, right? Right! I mean, at least I've made this mistake during something that happens annually. Imagine this at a wedding!
Next time, I'll be sure to check my WB and ISO settings in addition to physical checks and cleaning.
So, here's today's lesson for everybody:
Well, 628 if you really want to be precise, but the bowl of peanut butter and jelly rice doesn't really relate to the rest of what happened today. Today was the parade for Gion Matsuri, and it's a pretty big affair. There's about a week of lead-up to it where random people from around town build the floats out of various bits of stuff. There are around 30 different floats, and the parade lasts from around 9AM to well after noon. The floats are pretty, if not exactly to my taste. And I'll admit I was a little creeped out by the plastic people mounted in all but the lead float. But! It's pretty neat as parades go and everybody takes lots and lots of pictures.
I'm still working on translating some stuff for my last class tomorrow, so I haven't had time to sort through the pictures, but I think I got some pretty good shots...
...
... at 3200 ISO.[seppuku noises (whatever those are)]
Here's the story of how it happened:
So last night I was demonstrating to Aaron what difference ISO makes and why it is that you would never want to take pictures you care about at 3200 ISO. The noise reduction required to get a vaguely decent picture completely drains all the color out of it, and all the detail is sort of smudgy. If you use RAWs or turn off noise reduction, you just have a very, very noisy picture.
If you open up that picture, you'll see it looks very much as if I took it with my cell phone. Except my cell phone doesn't let you change settings like this, so you can't screw up in quite this fashion.
[Edit: It would seem you can't see the noise itself very well, as the picture was downsized to 1600 pixels in width, which is about 1/3 of how big it was to begin with.]
Ahem.
I have 627 very, very noisy pictures using six more stops of ISO than was necessary, given the lighting conditions.
I had been wondering why it was that my camera seemed to be over-exposing things and using tiny, tiny apertures. "Gee, 1/4000th of a second is odd in this light..." is something I thought a number of times, but I never thought to check my ISO setting. As much as I want to say something like "Man, what an amateur mistake!" it would be entirely too accurate.
But as long as I learn from it, it's a good thing, right? Right! I mean, at least I've made this mistake during something that happens annually. Imagine this at a wedding!
Next time, I'll be sure to check my WB and ISO settings in addition to physical checks and cleaning.
So, here's today's lesson for everybody:
If you're going to show someone what not to do,
make sure to not do it yourself.
make sure to not do it yourself.
Labels: festivals, photography tips, pictures
posted by William at
7/17/2008 07:37:00 PM
8 Comments:
I have to smile, because it sounds like something I would do. In fact I keep forgetting to turn back to auto focus when I've had it on manual...a more quick and easy fix than what you are talking about, but still...
Oh, and sometimes when I use a setting without flash I forget to change it back...grrrrr.
I don't even know what I would do with changed ISO and all that yet. I NEED to read more of the camera manual. Your mistake shows at least you can use higher tech stuff in the first place...mine just show that I'm silly. :)
But it's a mistake that only someone with more reading than common sense would make.
Also, AF being off or the flash being off are both pretty noticable. You won't see the effects of what I did until you're looking on a bigger screen.
Furthermore, you don't need to read the manual. You already know all you need to take pictures, and anything more is a waste of time.
You don't really need to change ISO in general, as your camera takes care of it on its own. I never change mine except to demonstrate its effect or to show what differences in sensor size do.
Don't worry about it.
Well, now that's a change since you were after me to read that thing ...heheh.
I would like to be able to change things to do photos at night and such...like moonlight, sunsets, fireworks, and such things. I have been slowly figuring out some of that kind of stuff just by messing with the pre-set options on the dial. I love taking pictures, just not reading technical manuals. I don't even mind reading articles about tech things...just not the specific manuals. They make me crazy. Oh, wait...
Well, I walked you through all the basic stuff and that's really all there is to it.
After you buy an SLR, you realize that's just the tip of the massive piles of cash you will eventually spend on your hobby, I think. I'm looking at a $900 lens right now and a few hundred dollars of flash gear. I have no intention of purchasing either, but I can drool.
Yeah...I would love a lens to work with really close-up stuff, though usually the one I have works just fine. The other lens I want is something zooming. I know we talked about that before, but they are mighty pricey little gadgets. I probably have to keep waiting for now. I understand the drool thing, though I imagine you have more things that you want for yours since you have much more technical knowledge about the how to's and what for's of all of it.
Please see the response I posted, if you haven't.
So what's Gion Matsuri all about?
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