[Rufus]

Your experience required.

[matthew]

That'd be me: I've been using an F828 for a year or so; it's even sitting beside me right now. I may even know where my manual is, but that's pushing it. What can I help with?

[Rufus]

I have an interesting wedding job on.
50+ Sony 828 RAW files which have been taken by a "pro" who didnt know his **** from his elbow.
Problems:
NOISE
CA
BLUR
Has anyone any particular, 828 related tips on post processing to share, please.... Mathew...........??? :/

Ps
ALL exif shows "Program normal", yet no aperture smaller than f4 EVER occurs, and f2.2 is most common. I guess this is portrait mode. Am I correct????

TIA

[shuttertalk]

Well P is almost like auto isn't it? The camera might just be choosing the fastest aperture to increase the shutter speed and avoid camera shake...

[Rufus]

Well P is almost like auto isn't it? The camera might just be choosing the fastest aperture to increase the shutter speed and avoid camera shake...

Odd thing is, we get inconsistent exif. For example: 100th @f2.2, then, in similar conditions, 30th@f2.2
Everything grey is purple too!!! :o

I jus' wondered things like.....Is there an issue with PSCS and .srf files?
Are all Sony cameras this bad?
Does anyone have any 828 specific trick in post pro?
Has the photographer been lynched? :o

[matthew]

The F828's a great little camera, but it needs photographers to play to its strengths, not weaknesses. It has a particularly hard time with high-contrast blown highlights when wide open, and high-ISO noise. 'High', in its case, being anything over 100.

There are two shooting modes that share "Normal Program" in the exif data, the others (S, A, M, Scenes) report individually. The two Normal modes are Program/Program Shift, and "Green Camera", aka Idiot Mode. You may have your reasons for thinking he was in Idiot Mode, but I suspect it because it will automatically shift the ISO between 64-200. That would explain your inconsistent EXIF data. At ISO200, the F828's noise gets bad; 400 is severe and 800 is just savage.

The F828 has an aperture range of f2-2.8 to f8, so topping out at f4 isn't too surprising. (Those little sensors have great DOF.) An f2.2 setting is wide open between 35-70mm focal length. Was the wedding was indoors? Unless he had a decent external flash (and Sony makes a reasonable one) he shouldn't have been using this camera. It's not a bad camera, but nobody's going to mistake it for a pro SLR. (Well, maybe one person...)

And, as far as I know, there's no incompatibility between CS and .srf files. I use PSE3, and if the ACR can handle them in that, then CS should be fine. Sony's own converter is useless.

None of this helps you so far, I know.... but here's what I do, or have heard elsewhere:

- Purple Fringing: there's an article on the F828, including some tips on how to remove PF, here: Outback Photo. Do a search on "12/29/2003" to find it on the page. (I've never resorted to this technique myself.)

- PF pt2: all I've ever done is try to select the bad areas with the magic wand, and created a H/S adjustment layer until the tone balances with the surroundings. Usually desturating it and lightening works, but it's time consuming and a little silly. I'd try the methods above for a global fix.

- Noise: I've heard good things about Noise Ninja and Neatimage being able to improve the F828's results. I've also seen reviews that I trust that mention that it's not particularly visible in prints.

- Noise pt2: I've never felt the need for NR software, never liked the look of it in PSE, and have only ever printed a few photos. What I may do is convert the entire image to monochrome, or just desaturate the noise. (Duplicate layer, Gaussian blur until the noise is no longer visible, and set the blend mode to "color".)

- Blur sucks. That's just bad photography; there's no F828-specific fault or fix for it.

I was facing the prospect (fortunately avoided) of photographing a wedding. If I had, then my F828 would have its place as a backup to my SLR and be particularly useful for candids. With the external flashgun, it would be suitable for portraits in dim lighting IF the room was small enough for flash bounce, or when using the flash off-camera with a softbox. (The Sony flash includes a 12" long sync cable and bracket.) In daylight or overcast conditions, it's an awesome camera, with some significant advantages provided that the photographer knows how to use it. I also can't think of another camera that can get exact focus and framing in ZERO light -- I mean, NONE -- and then fire a TTL-metered flash for the exposure. That would have been handy for my brothers' wedding when the power failed...

But, as with everything, specific tools have specific strengths and specific uses. The rest is up to the user.
I've also asked my peeps for any tips or tricks, so hopefully there'll be more advice soon.

And, if you can post any specific examples, I can give them particular attention. If you don't want to post them publicly, you could send my a PM with a link to a host like TinyPic.

I hope that helps...

[Rufus]

BRILLIANT!!

Thank V much. This is more useful than you may realise...

More soon, must go to church now.

TTFN.

[Rufus]

I must post a small version of one of these images, then you ca be horrified as I was!

[matthew]

I'm glad to be useful.

I've gotten some more leads from my peeps: another endorsement for NeatImage or Noise Ninja; and a comment that there's a downloadable action at Fred Miranda's to take care of the Purple Fringing. The blur's a killer, though: if USM won't bring it back, then try to make it art. "Diffuse Glow" apparently works well, but again, I haven't tried any of this myself.

[Rufus]

OK Matthew, many thanks.
Here's a 100% crop, so you can see some of the issues I'm faced with:

[shuttertalk]

Far out.... he's glowing! I think it's .... THE FORCE!

[matthew]

That pitter-patter sound you hear is me running away....

It looks like he was using slow-sync flash; the photo's badly over-exposed and there's a clear double-image, but not movement blur. I can get some of the PF under control, and a B&W conversion can be balanced to even out the tones, but that just emphasizes the double-image. And it's still over-exposed.

I'll keep working on it, and see if I can come up with a suitable salvage. Can you get a better exposure out of the RAW image? That would go a long way to simplifying the problem.

and do you mind if I repost this image elsewhere?

I can completely understand your horror at the thought of a Sony camera. Trust me when I say that this is the WORST image I have ever seen (from any camera!) and is way beyond what I was anticipating. I wouldn't blame the camera. Is the photographer someone you would miss?

Here's a more, well, typical "problem" image that I took with the F828.

This is 25% of the original size, roughly equal to a 250dpi print resolution. The indicated areas haven't been treated; the rest of the image has had a 10 pixel gaussian blur applied and then the blend mode set to colour. No other editing has been done. (A fully treated version is on my website.)



The top section at 100%, no editing:



The same section with the blur treatment:



The lower section at 100%, no editing:



The same section with the blur treatment:



The same section, with Neat Image on default settings:




updated I was so traumatized by the children of the strobe that I forgot to give details on my sample. It was just about worst-case (I thought!) with me shooting indoors, into shadows, with a bright sky silhouetting the steelwork. This was taken at ISO400, which is as high as I'll ever go (I actually forgot that the camera could reach 800) at 1/160s and Cloudy WB.

[matthew]

Okay, here's what I've come up with. You don't need to see the original again, so here's my first stage:



I wanted to get the overexposure under control; there would be more latitude with the original raw file, which may be vital since so much of the boy's face is blown out. My version has had a 'multiply' layer blend mode at 35% opacity, and then a second 'multiply' layer of just the brightest sections at 100%.



This step was reducing the Purple Fringing. PF is actually almost pure blue, so I selected the areas with a small brush and created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Blue saturation was set to -100%, and the lightness was tweaked to get a good blend. That was merged into the visible layer, that layer was duplicated, and I used the gaussian blur and 'color' blend mode to knock the PF down a little more. I didn't select it carefully enough; you can see a spot I missed on the lower left of his cuff. Consider it a before & after illustration.



And this was just an effort to colour balance the final image. I desaturated red and magenta by 15%, darkened magenta by 15%, and darkened red by 30%. This is all just a 'best guess' edit, since I don't have any colour reference and am just guessing that nobody was fluorescent. Finally, I actually added noise to the highlights to add a sense of texture to the blown out areas.

I hope that helps. If you want to send me an SRF file, I can have a look at it as well: robertsonphoto@bluebottle.com. (Include the code "(1205)" in the subject to avoid an anti-spam verification step.)