This week, I received a call from a client asking if I could go to a set of shows in Lakeland and get some ring shots of their Rottie that was showing in Best Of Breed. Once I said "yes", I received 4 more requests both from Rottie owners and a Toy Poodle owner.

The shows were held in a new venue where I had never shot anything before so I went with meager expectations that, once I arrived, seemed overly optimistic. The shows are held in 3 hangars at a municipal airport. The lighting during the day is skylights, turned yellow over time, augmented by open hanger doors at either end and on the sides and some very weak fluorescent lighting overhead which provides virtually no illumination during the day. Dim does not quite describe the conditions. Or my attitude once I saw the rings. The Rotties, being black dogs, were naturally being shown in inside rings with the least amount of illumination. At least my black Toy Poodles were in an outside ring illuminated by an open hangar door.

My setup for the 40D was ISO 1600, F2.8 and let the shutter float to proper exposure. For the Toys, I was able to lower ISO to 800. Here are some of the shots. My disclaimer is that these are only demonstrations that you can get something if you try even under these conditions but they are not meant to illustrate works of art or even imges that should be used in advertising. They *could* be used if necessary and, I guess, that's the key.

First 3 shots are of Blue (Ch West Wind's Excellent Blue Boy) who took Breed and a Group 3. Blue was Cassidy's "husband" for her most recent litter. First shot, ISO 1600, F2.8, 1/250.



Second shot, ISO 1600, F2.8, 1/125.



And the third one, a moving shot, ISO 1600, F2.8, 1/500.



And, finally, for comparison purposes, a shot of one of the Toy Poodles at ISO 800, F2.8, 1/200. No noise reduction.



I did not use high-ISO, in-camera noise reduction but did use Noise Ninja judiciously on the ISO 1600 shots. With black dogs, noise shows up as chroma rather than luminescence and you have to be careful when applying noise reduction because if you do it too aggressively, it removes all the detail in the fur. So, I opt for a bit of noise and graininess in lieu of total removal and plastic-looking dogs.

Michelle, these are the things you'll have to pay attention to when you shoot your labs in low-light environments.

Jim

I have found what you see on the computer monitor noise wise, doesn't show up in print nearly as bad

Julie,
yes, I agree. That's why I use very mild noise-reduction in order to preserve some detail in the fur. I'll try the in-camera, high-ISO noise reduction but it has a major impact on the buffer depth for bursts so we'll see how that plays out. Looks like we'll be going to Louisville in March so I'll get a chance to try everything out there.

Jim

"I have found what you see on the computer monitor noise wise, doesn't show up in print nearly as bad "

That has been my experience as well. Prints at 1600 with my 40d were very usable for weddings, etc. I just used the 5d ii (as the 2nd body to my 40d) at my first wedding this weekend and wound up taking some shots at ISO 6400. Much of my work was taken at 3200. We shall see how those come out.

James

I bet they come out great James. Unless there is significant blue and red noise in the blacks, you rarely see it in print. I have printed some stuff that looked pretty darn noisy on the screen, but, looked fine on paper.

Jim, I don't see any noise at all in the blacks in these photos.

I'll have to test out the difference between print and screen on the noise issue. I've never really dealt with it too much in the past, but now that I've done a few events, it starts to become a factor in crappy lighting.

The APDT Rally Obedience trial I did this weekend was really bad for light. Multiple color temps from four different sodium vapor lights and I was shooting up to ISO 6400 with my 85mm f1.4 wide open pretty much all the time.

Once I learned the patterns I managed to concentrate on a few brighter spots and got down to ISO 2200 and managed to move up to f2

Julie,
I used Noise Ninja but faded it down to about 40% trying to maintain some detail in the fur. As you said in an earlier post, I doubt the noise will show up in prints. And, frankly, I don't see it on-screen until I view at 100% so maybe I'm just overly sensitive to the fact that the light was so poor.

Jim, I shot in Louisville last March and the light was so poor that I was at ISO 3200 and F2 on the 135 and I still couldn't freeze paw movement when Rowdy was going around. You do what you can do and hope for the best. I usually tell my clients that I'll only shoot moving shots for advertising outdoors. Otherwise, there's no way to guarantee that you'll get anything usable.

Jim

I hear ya. I've found that at this particular facility it is better to go high with the ISO than to have to bring up the shadows after the fact. I suppose that fits right in with "expose to the right"

This is cropped from 4256x2832 to 1316x1977 and then re-sized to 600 on the tall side. No sharpening and no noise reduction.

At the original resolution, the noise on the walls an floor is pretty evident, but easy to remove.



The darker dogs didn't fair quite as well (especially when moving pretty quickly like over the jump. Plus, if I didn't get the eyes right over the bar (my focus point was the sign) the images are pretty much trash.





I was aiming for a lot of the "pauses" during the runs, but I did get a few decent action shots as well.

I actually bumped up to ISO 4500 and f4 on the 85 a bit for these and most of day two now that I look at the stats in Lightroom.