More Low Light

I was able to take the 5D Mk II to the evening ministry for the college and career at our church Sunday night. The event is in a really dark hall that just is all wrong photographically. I had previously taken some shots here a couple of months back but used a pair of 580 EX II flash speed lights.

Both of these photos were taken with the 5D Mk II and an EF 24-105 mm f/4L IS USM lens mounted to it. This first image specs are at 1/2 sec, f/4.0, ISO 4000 at 24 mm. The light you see illuminating the ceiling in the foreground is from a large monitor to the camera right. Other than that only the stage lighting (for what it's worth) is providing the rest of the room illumination.

In this image I was standing behind the last row of seats to the right of the crowd. You can see the lens is racked out to its full 105 capability. Keep in mind here there was absolutely no front lighting on Joe while he was giving the message. The specs on this image are 1/60 sec, f/4.0 ISO 12800 at 105 mm. Thats right ISO 12800 or what Canon calls H1 for some weird reason. Yes there was some noise in this photo and I did work it a little. Here is the full disclosure:

• First I popped it into Noise Ninja and used the default analyzed settings. That did a real nice job on attaching the noise. I did not do any sharpening as it was for this post on the web. If I would have I probably would have tried the high pass filter to sharpen a copy layer and set the blending mode to overlay. Yes I could use smart sharpen, unsharp mask, or in full PS gone to LAB or channels and sharpened their. But I didn't.
  
• Where the image needed some help was on the right bongo. There were a number of specular spots on the wood and it detracted so judicious use of the spot healing tool was in order.
• The people in the Gathering image being put up on the screen was way washed out. A simple tracing and color fill made them look a little more natural.

Just those three things and this is what remains. Not too bad in a pinch.

Cya tomorrow... Doug