updated:new year's eve portraits-jupiter 85mm

[rbelyell]

had our yearly new year's eve party for family and friends. i am delighted with my new canon 5d, as it did very well with very difficult lighting conditions, at iso 800 and either 2.0 or 2.8. also, i would never have been able to get usable pictures w an 85mm focal length with a crop cam like my sigma. as always, please click on each photo for best resolution, and C&C welcome!

UPDATE: as there was some discussion over the quality of the upload system, i have put in links for the last 2 pictures to the same posted in my snapixel account. these were uploaded from the exact same files about 10 minutes before i uploaded onto the forum. i think all will agree there is a pretty big qualitative difference.




as it was the culminating social event of the decade, tongues were wagging!



SNAPIXEL URL: http://www.snapixel.com/image/rbelyell/set_1511/117247



SNAPIXEL URL: http://www.snapixel.com/image/rbelyell/set_1511/117248

[poilu]

great portraits! the bokeh of the jup is all the money!

[heartcat]

Wonderfully natural looking skin tones!

I am curious as to why the photos look blurry as posted, but fine when you click on them?

Did you do something special when you posted them or are all posted photos on this site 'clickable' like that?

I've noticed from posting photos on other sites in the past that they often don't look as sharp when I post them someplace as they do on my monitor or when printed.

Are there tricks to posting photos?

Enjoy your new camera!

[rbelyell]

thank you both! i am starting to love this lens and am thinking it may become my m42 lens of choice, though the mir 35mm 2.0 is giving it a run, and the helios 58mm isnt bad either...

heartcat: ive had that problem on this site since the beginning, with whatever camera i use. that is why i always put in the 'click on photo for best resolution' reminder. i honestly dont know why that happens, and i cant understand why the site can run hd video but cant get the best out of posted photos--its honestly a mystery to me. all i know is if the photos look to me on my monitor as they do when posted, i would trash them!

[heartcat]

That is interesting that that would be the case, rbelyell.

At least there is a way to view them more accurately.

[Rolf]

I have written to Attila few weeks ago a PM about this phenomenon. Seems that he is still investigating.

Try to make an additional last slight sharpening before upload.

[rbelyell]

thanks rolf, and happy new year to you! hope you had a great holiday, and i am looking forward to seeing some great images from you in 2010!

not to go offtopic, but its not just the sharpness that is lacking; its also the contrast and saturation--its all off. yet if you click on the photos, they are spot on, at least as i see them.

[scsambrook]

When I click on photos, contrast and saturation improve somewhat but they still seem unsharp. Strange.

[rbelyell]

stephen: the shots were taken wide open (2.0) in difficult indoor lighting, so the DOF is pretty shallow. i think each photo has a shallow target that is pretty sharp for a lens that probably performs best at 5.6. for eg, when i click on the last photo i see a totally different IQ where my nieces image seems much much sharper, even though the focus was not on her.

[ManualFocus-G]

I love the expressions, and photos of your nearest and dearest just "being themselves" are the ones you will treasure forever, I'm sure

I would suggest that the 85/2 is a difficult lens to use indoors in low light without flash though...looks like there's some camera shake present (not surprising given the difficult lighting), I can just about make do with a Pentacon 50/1.8 (equivalent 80/1.8 on crop cam) but really only get consistantly sharp images at ISO 1600 - 3200. I'm currently using my Planar 50/1.4 at ISO 1250 - ISO 1600 which seems to give good results.

Everyone is different however, and some have steadier hands than others!

Here's a shot of my little sis at Christmas which I would consider OK (Planar 50/1.4, ISO 1250, 1/160/sec):

[rbelyell]

graham, thanks as always. i know youre right, and w the 5d i couldve shot above iso 800 and gotten good results. it was really my first time using the jupiter 85mm indoors; i was just excited to be able to once again use an 85 inside and wanted to see what it could do at the lowest possible iso.

i think my results--and yours as well--are more than acceptable given the circumstances. i think on mine, there was some camera shake (actually you would be surprised at the low shutter speeds on these--i think down to 1/20th), and also a shallow DOF as i was shooting wide open. so on shots w 2 people, only one of them is going to be in ideal focus.

[ManualFocus-G]

That's actually my biggest bug bear...I love shooting wide open, or near to wide open, for the fabulous bokeh these lenses produce, but as you say it only ever seems possible to get one person in focus I guess experience will tell us to stop the lens down in order to maximise the depth of field, and up the ISO to cope with it all. One day I might just listen to myself

BTW, I have friends who swear by the 5D and have no probs at ISO 1600, in fact the results I've seen have been very good indeed, so you're onto a winner there I reckon

[rbelyell]

yeah, ive shot some at 1600 and been really impressed, honestly no noise at all and very sharp...and btw, what is it about portraits that sets peoples tongues a wagging?

[Carlsson]

Nice set!

[scsambrook]

[ManualFocus-G]

Oooh I forgot about the image quality on screen - they don't look much different on my screen to be honest. But I stopped uploading directly to MF as I lost sharpness...I think the images got resized a couple of times in the upload process.

One thing I definately know - saving JPGs with an sRGB profile rather than an Adobe colour profile certainly seems to improve rendering through most web browsers - took me ages to suss that one out!!

[rbelyell]

carlsson: thank you so much, glad you like them!

stephen: not the slightest offense taken at all!!! i have learned a lot from the critiques of forum members, so i welcome C&C, really. i just wanted to put the shots in perspective. as for your monitor, try the snapixel links and tell me what you think. really appreciate your comments!

[Carlsson]

There is a huge difference between here and the images at snapixel (loss of contrast, small artefacts).
Strange. Which version is closer to the original?

Like Shrek said, make sure you export the image in sRGB color space.


EDIT: got it, I have saved your images and checked them in Photoshop, the first images are sRGB, #3 and 4 are in ProPhoto RGB color space.

EDIT #2: not, it was my fault messed up my color space in Photoshop, sorry

[rbelyell]

oh interesting; i will make sure they are sRGB in the future, but my old posts for my sigma were always in sRGB and had the same problem!

btw carlsson, i dont get any artifacts or anything untoward in the sanpixel renderings; i find them very close to what i see, though of course theyre downsized significantly from the raw files.