Event Shooting: Camera Picture Style Setting

[RAKAMRAK]

Hello All,

I have to shoot a group event next week. It will be organized completely indoors. And it is unpaid (In any case I am not a pro photographer). I am the sole member of the group who has some enthusiasm in photography (read who has two cameras and a couple of flashes), so the duty has fallen upon me. It is not a lifetime event for anyone (that is it is not a wedding, or engagement or anything as such).

I do not want to spend a lot of time on post processing (in fact it will be best if I do not have to spend any) in front of my computer. So I am planning to take the photos in Large/Fine JPEG format (will enable me to take a lot of "snaps" with my current cards). Unfortunately, I have never done this - that is never taken photos in JPEG format. Even before I bought my first (digital) camera, I was reading about photography and so the first photo taken by me with my first camera was a in RAW format.

I am looking for your help in deciding which picture style should I choose to shoot? Standard or Portrait or Landscape or Neutral or Faithful? If I go for User Defined styles then what should I choose as values of the four things that we can choose inside each of the photo styles. I shall use a 40D and a 50D (with a 12-24 Tokina, and an old EF 22-55mm Canon lens, may be a a few with 50mm 1.8 II).

Thank you for your time and help.

[Ryan708]

I would use standard picture style, depending on the type of event. Portrait would end up being kinda soft and warmer than you may like. Canon's have trouble getting indoor light temperature right, so this may be a bigger concern. Indoor light is often too warm looking on a canon in Jpeg. So I would set the temperature to tungston right off and give it a looksee. Matching your flash might be important. I would proably Gel my flash's to match the indoor color temp. Jpeg isnt too bad. The in-camera rendering of noise and colors is pretty impressive.

[Nathaniel Weir]

Definitely, definitely, definitely, picture style neutral.  According to Canon, PS neutral is best for rendering accurate colors under indoor and tough light. Standard would most likely render skin tones too red and suffers from color distortion.  Also make sure to shoot raw, because canon noise reduction setting destroys colors and raw gives you the ability to shift color temperatures.

[RAKAMRAK]

Definitely, definitely, definitely, picture style neutral.  According to Canon, PS neutral is best for rendering accurate colors under indoor and tough light. Standard would most likely render skin tones too red and suffers from color distortion.  Also make sure to shoot raw, because canon noise reduction setting destroys colors and raw gives you the ability to shift color temperatures.

Thank you for the suggestion, but, I do not want to shoot in raw (reason is explained in my original post - do not want to put any time in post processing). If I shoot in RAW (which I otherwise always do) I wouldn't need to use the picture styles. I want JPEG  (which I have hardly ever used), that is why I asked the question.

[RAKAMRAK]

I would use standard picture style, depending on the type of event. Portrait would end up being kinda soft and warmer than you may like. Canon's have trouble getting indoor light temperature right, so this may be a bigger concern. Indoor light is often too warm looking on a canon in Jpeg. So I would set the temperature to tungston right off and give it a looksee. Matching your flash might be important. I would proably Gel my flash's to match the indoor color temp. Jpeg isnt too bad. The in-camera rendering of noise and colors is pretty impressive.

Thanks for reminding the gelling-the-flash part. Yes that will be important. And yes, I will definitely do some test WB shots before the crowd gathers.

[rpt]

Definitely, definitely, definitely, picture style neutral.  According to Canon, PS neutral is best for rendering accurate colors under indoor and tough light. Standard would most likely render skin tones too red and suffers from color distortion.  Also make sure to shoot raw, because canon noise reduction setting destroys colors and raw gives you the ability to shift color temperatures.

Thank you for the suggestion, but, I do not want to shoot in raw (reason is explained in my original post - do not want to put any time in post processing). If I shoot in RAW (which I otherwise always do) I wouldn't need to use the picture styles. I want JPEG  (which I have hardly ever used), that is why I asked the question.

I know you don't want to but just shoot RAW+JPEG and tinker with the raw and see for yourself. After shooting jpegs for over a decade and essentially being lazy, I have switched to shooting just raw and doing PP. I'll only go back to shooting only jpeg if I am shooting daylight outdoor shots and no tricky lighting AND I don't have time for PP. Btw if you pp in LR, there is a way to work one image and apply that to others. Saves time. Specially if you have mixed fluorescent lighting, colors just go for a toss!

[Act444]

Definitely, definitely, definitely, picture style neutral.  According to Canon, PS neutral is best for rendering accurate colors under indoor and tough light. Standard would most likely render skin tones too red and suffers from color distortion.  Also make sure to shoot raw, because canon noise reduction setting destroys colors and raw gives you the ability to shift color temperatures.

Thank you for the suggestion, but, I do not want to shoot in raw (reason is explained in my original post - do not want to put any time in post processing). If I shoot in RAW (which I otherwise always do) I wouldn't need to use the picture styles. I want JPEG  (which I have hardly ever used), that is why I asked the question.

Have you thought about shooting both? You'd still have the JPGs for easy distribution, but should anything need (significant) fixing or tweaking, the original raw file would be present. Although, from my experience when shooting events, a lot of times the JPGs were good enough (being the picky shooter that I am, though, I fixed all the RAWs anyway)

[RAKAMRAK]

@rpt.... as I have written, I know RAW as I always shoot RAW (like you). what I do not know is JPEG. About the mixed lighting part, yes there will be horrible lighting. There will be some fluorescent and may be some halogen type lights as well (not sure). Most of that I plan to eliminate by flash. For the distant crowd photos where I cannot use flash that effectively, I am not that much concerned with lighting or color accuracy. As long as humans look like humans, it will do. I need to know about what should I put as value for sharpness setting, contrast setting etc.

@Act444.... No I am not going to shoot both. That basically defeats the purpose of shooting in JPEG. If I have the RAWs I will tweak them anyways, so I do not want to have the RAWs. I should not need any significant fixing, if any photo needs significant fixing that goes out of the window, period. I am not going to shoot both also because then I can cram zillions of photos in a single card.

[RLPhoto]

Hello All,

I have to shoot a group event next week. It will be organized completely indoors. And it is unpaid (In any case I am not a pro photographer). I am the sole member of the group who has some enthusiasm in photography (read who has two cameras and a couple of flashes), so the duty has fallen upon me. It is not a lifetime event for anyone (that is it is not a wedding, or engagement or anything as such).

I do not want to spend a lot of time on post processing (in fact it will be best if I do not have to spend any) in front of my computer. So I am planning to take the photos in Large/Fine JPEG format (will enable me to take a lot of "snaps" with my current cards). Unfortunately, I have never done this - that is never taken photos in JPEG format. Even before I bought my first (digital) camera, I was reading about photography and so the first photo taken by me with my first camera was a in RAW format.

I am looking for your help in deciding which picture style should I choose to shoot? Standard or Portrait or Landscape or Neutral or Faithful? If I go for User Defined styles then what should I choose as values of the four things that we can choose inside each of the photo styles. I shall use a 40D and a 50D (with a 12-24 Tokina, and an old EF 22-55mm Canon lens, may be a a few with 50mm 1.8 II).

Thank you for your time and help.

Shoot flat, low contrast neutral JPEGs. If you do decide to post process later, you'll have some latitude.

[rpt]

@rpt.... as I have written, I know RAW as I always shoot RAW (like you). what I do not know is JPEG.

Sorry, I misunderstood.

About the mixed lighting part, yes there will be horrible lighting. There will be some fluorescent and may be some halogen type lights as well (not sure). Most of that I plan to eliminate by flash.

That will work. I couldn't and had to fix in PP. But that was easily done.

For the distant crowd photos where I cannot use flash that effectively, I am not that much concerned with lighting or color accuracy. As long as humans look like humans, it will do.

[MK5GTI]

didn't read the comments above, but check out Kevin Wang's picture style, i think he master in this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevin32832/collections/72157619857091156/