An experiment!

[Pippi]

Took this of my niece at a show her balletschool held. The problem was that we were seated so far away that none of the pics were actually good, not sharp enough and had to crop it aaaalot! So trying to use the noise and hiding the loss of sharp - this is my outcome, not very good maybe?

[Young Shooter]

Well my recommendation is to get a bigger lens, and then about the picture is its too edited, its like way to dark and way to bright on the child, it looks like an realy old picture b/c of the way u did it but it dosent do anything for me

[dadas115]

I like what you have done here. It sounds like you didn't have a lot to work with but I would say you certainly made the most out of it. This picture reminds me of the many shots hanging on the walls at my grandparents' house.

Greg

[Pippi]

Thank you for the comments and yes I have a bigger lens now - just waiting for the Canon 20D to be available "body only" ;) But for the time being, well.... For some reasons I like pictures with great contrast and especially black and white and here I had a good excuse to edit the photo in that way. I didn't think of the "old look" though but now I see ;) Just wanted to post the original to show you - maybe the it does have a lot of other potential, I just saw this way out!

[Pippi]

Thank you for the comments and yes I have a bigger lens now - just waiting for the Canon 20D to be available "body only" ;) For some reasons I like pictures with great contrast and especially black and white. I didn't think of the "old look" though but now I see ;) Just wanted to post the original to show you - maybe the it does have a lot of other potential, I just saw this way out!

[Chunk]

Thank you for the comments and yes I have a bigger lens now - just waiting for the Canon 20D to be available "body only" ;) For some reasons I like pictures with great contrast and especially black and white. I didn't think of the "old look" though but now I see ;) Just wanted to post the original to show you - maybe the it does have a lot of other potential, I just saw this way out!

Pippi I hope you don't mind my playing with your shot. I think your high contrast shot is great if that's the effect you are trying to get. I'll bet all the parents would like one of the color shots.
I split your color shot to RGB and then used the green channel and applied levels and curves adjustments. Because of the other comment about looking old I thought I'd colorize it a bit to enhance that.

When I split the color to RGB it seemed to me that the red channel was less in focus than the green channel. Does it look like that to anyone else? I thought modern lenses had pretty well worked out all the bugs like that.

[Pippi]

Wow - this is great. I don't mind at all that you use my shot - I am just very happy that you want to take the time to help me and it looks so much better I have to get a better grip of photoshop.

[another view]

First thing I looked at was the image, then read the post. At first I thought it was an old picture so if that's the effect you're going for then I guess it works!

The reason it looks that way to me is the high contrast - the shadows are all black with no detail and a lot of the whites are "blown out" (no detail either) as well.

To me, a crop that narrow and tall looks like you were doing what you did - cutting other people out. I've shot concerts before and never been happy with the results unless I was close. Walk up to the front and take a couple of shots, chances are nobody will bother you. Or talk to them beforehand and see if you can shoot from the sides of the stage, etc.

[Chunk]

Wow - this is great. I don't mind at all that you use my shot - I am just very happy that you want to take the time to help me and it looks so much better I have to get a better grip of photoshop.

I was just having fun, thanks for the opportunity. After I posted that I played some more copying the red channel as a layer into the green channel that I had manipulated. Reducing the opacity of the red channel layer (to around 35% I think, but play with it) allowed better tones (I think anyway) in some areas of the picture like the mouse ears and her skirt.