How can I improve my indoor shots

Lawrence

Senior Member
I have taken photos of musical groups indoors (no window light to speak of available) on a couple of occasions without using flash with my 35mm f1.8.

I have never been happy with the results when the ISO has been high.
Has anyone tested the D5100 for acceptable results indoors without flash?

​Or am I wasting my time entirely?
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I have taken photos of musical groups indoors (no window light to speak of available) on a couple of occasions without using flash with my 35mm f1.8.

I have never been happy with the results when the ISO has been high.
Has anyone tested the D5100 for acceptable results indoors without flash?

​Or am I wasting my time entirely?
What is it you're not happy with, the noise?

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Lawrence

Senior Member
What is it you're not happy with, the noise?

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Pretty much - they look great in camera and bleh on screen.

Big Brass Band full frontal.jpg
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Pretty much - they look great in camera and bleh on screen.

View attachment 129953



Your shot is suffering from significant clipping in the shadows so you're definitely losing a LOT detail, but even so all is not lost.
While the RAW file would be a lot more to work with I was still able to pull up quite a bit with a JPG. It still needs work, this is just a quick and dirty:
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Big Brass Band full frontal.jpg


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FastGlass

Senior Member
To bad they were using different lighting. Looks like florescents as the main and tungsten in those spots. The first thing I saw was an inconstant WB. No fault of yours. You can only do so much with out doing a little in post.
 

Lawrence

Senior Member
Those are pretty cool guys.

What did you do - just drop shadows or was it a lot more than just that?

And yes there was a bit of variety in the lighting.
 
I increased the shadow detail, raised the exposure, decreased the highlights just a bit and then carried it into photoshop and used Nik Collection "Viveza" to increase the structure a little. Give it more "Pop"
 

Lawrence

Senior Member
I increased the shadow detail, raised the exposure, decreased the highlights just a bit and then carried it into photoshop and used Nik Collection "Viveza" to increase the structure a little. Give it more "Pop"

Thanks Don - I don't have the Nik Collection yet. But I did manage to tweak it some more. I think subconsciously I was trying to hang on the the evening (darker) look.

Hamilton Big Band - with a lot of help from my Nikonite friends.jpg
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Those are pretty cool guys.

What did you do - just drop shadows or was it a lot more than just that?

And yes there was a bit of variety in the lighting.
Don's additional effort definitely shows! All I did was play with the white balance, Curves and Levels adjustment layers. I tried to sharpen a little but JPG's go from "just fine" to "hot mess" all too easily, so I let that go.

I concur with his assessment of NIK Tools... Essential is not a strong enough word.

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