General Photography Chat

[diskojoe]

Originally Posted by bulliver

Well, I've been saving up forever, and finally have enough for a d700. Now I cannot find one anywhere. Looks like I may be saving an extra $650 and getting a d800. Not sure just yet whether that makes me happy or sad.

i post on a couple photo forums too and the d700 just fly away so fast you wouldnt believe it. I saw one posted for about $2100 and it was gone that week.

adorama has the motor posted for $2199 currently. Used $1899.

[diskojoe]

http://blog.flickr.net/en/2012/03/06...ight-varlamov/

I was looking at this because it came up on my dashboard and whose name do I see that the guy mentions as inspiration? Non other then SSP's own Porter Yates or Okayyou if you dont know his real name.

[Okayyou]

^ Thanks diskojoe,
I think you are the only person I know that spotted that. I don't know any photographers in real life. In fact I don't physically know anyone else with a flickr account . You should check out Varlamov's work, he's been to heaps of places and captures a nice mix of life. His Madagascar set is pretty crazy. He says he enjoys architecture, wonder if he'd be interested posting here.

[ChiTownCity]

Question: How good is a lens with an f2.8 aperture in lowlight compared to one with an f3.5? It has the fixed aperture from 20-40mm, would it be a good kit lens replacement? Or should I just stick with saving for a 20mm f1.8 lens?

[ue]

1.8 yields much more options, unless there is a huge price gap in the particular lens you're going for, I'd stick with saving for that.

[ChiTownCity]

well the 20mm f1.8 is $630. The 20-40mm f2.8 is $150...

[flar]

ChiTown, I don't know what camera you're using, but 20-40 isn't much of a zoom range. If this will be your first/only lens, I suspect that you'd find having a decent zoom range more useful than having an extra one and a third f stops (difference between 2.8 and 1.8). f/2.8 is pretty fast, you won't find zooms faster than that.

[mr.John]

wouldn't mind getting my hands on this little beauty and slapping a Zeiss lens in front




http://www.lozeau.com/en-CA/catalog/...x-7-body-only/

[diskojoe]

Originally Posted by ChiTownCity

well the 20mm f1.8 is $630. The 20-40mm f2.8 is $150...

You could get a sigma 17-50mm f2.8 for about $600. The 20-40 seems like an odd size and you have not mentioned a brand so I would be weary about it.

[diskojoe]

Originally Posted by mr.John

wouldn't mind getting my hands on this little beauty and slapping a Zeiss lens in front




http://www.lozeau.com/en-CA/catalog/...x-7-body-only/

That nex-7 is a beast. Pair it with a zeiss sonnar 24mm f2 and you have a combo that could take on the best of leica offerings for half the price. Correction - quarter of the price.

[diskojoe]

Originally Posted by Okayyou

^ Thanks diskojoe,
I think you are the only person I know that spotted that. I don't know any photographers in real life. In fact I don't physically know anyone else with a flickr account . You should check out Varlamov's work, he's been to heaps of places and captures a nice mix of life. His Madagascar set is pretty crazy. He says he enjoys architecture, wonder if he'd be interested posting here.

Invite him to join. I did checkout his work. It was okay. Nice colors but nothing that really stood out to me. But he does have a nice body of work. Just thought it was cool that you got mentioned in the flickr blog. That is really nice free exposure.

[ChiTownCity]

Okay, I have another question lol.

I don't know if I just suck at taking pictures or if I'm just unlucky, but this is the third dslr I got and I'm still seeing the same problem. I have a Nikon D80 and a D5100 (which is the second one I got since the first one's liveview was faulty).

The same thing I'm continuously seeing from all three camera's is underexposure. Of course I can get better exposed shots if I just sit the camera on a tripod, but right now I have too many time constraints to sit around waiting to get a single shot (at least for the simple point & shoot crap I'm doing at the moment).

My first question is, should I just keep the camera and download Photoshop CS5 and practice editing my shots better? And is there something really simple I may Not be doing that someone can explain to me? Or should I just return this one and hope the next one doesn't have the same problem?

(Oh, and it also overexposes the sky making it hard to capture details in the clouds and on the street at the same time.)

[Okayyou]

The way you've worded your problem is a little confusing. Let me see if I follow. Primarily, you think your shots are being under exposed. Additionally, the camera is also over exposing the sky. Essentially your darks are too dark and your lights are too light. This sounds like an issue related to contrast rather than one related to exposure. If you stop down your exposure and underexpose the darks, the lights should be properly exposed and vice versa. Looking at your photo threads I can see what you are talking about.

Are these images straight from the camera? They look like they have been processesed using a strong contrast filter. A few questions to try and rule out the camera being faulty. Have you adjusted your camera creative settings, adjusting the contrast or saturation? Do you shoot in raw or jpeg? If you are shooting in raw do you make any adjustments when you save as a jpeg? Odd you have seen this problem in three cameras. Other things to check

What metering are you using? Spot? Center Average?
What mode are you shooting in? Manual?
What iso settings are you using? If your iso is low, you could experience a slow shutter speed bu that would lead to blur, not under exposed areas.

Something is up w/ your contrast. Check that first and then look into the other details.

[ChiTownCity]

Sorry for the vagueness. I use the JPEG Fine Setting for Image Quality and the Exposure setting is set to 1/3 by default (it calls it an EV step so I'm not sure if thats the same thing). The ISO is always set on Auto because I'm shooting in Auto mode the majority of the time. I don't know what metering I'm using because I don't see it listed in the camera menu or on the flickr exif data.

For example, with the unedited pics below you can see how the shadows are very dark even though its a clear day:

ISO 100


ISO 200





And when its completely overcast the sky just goes completely white even though I can clearly see variation with my eyes. And if I focus it more on the sky then I just get a dark shadowed silhouette of the building(s).

ISO 800


ISO 800


So right now I just throw a quick crappy contrast preset over my pics so I can try to bring some of the details out (I really don't like spending too much time editing just one pic when I have a thousand more waiting). I'd much rather the pics come straight out of the camera well balanced.

And of course this also means indoor shots aren't an option unless I want a high ISO with noise in it or, god forbid, using the built-in flash. The only option right now is the f1.8 lenses, but I don't have a wide angle prime yet.

I'm really hoping I'm just doing everything wrong...

[Okayyou]

The camera is working properly. You are just running into the limit of the dynamic range of the sensor. When you have a scene with bright whites (clouds) and dark shadows, the camera cannot capture the broad range of contrast. Your eyes have a greater dynamic range which is why you can make out details but the camera can't.

There are a few things you can do:

• Shoot in RAW. A lot of data in the image gets tossed out when it is converted to JPEG. If you are going to post process the images and try and bring out the shadows and recover some highlights you should be using RAW files.
• Stop using the contrast filter, at least until you get a hang of exposing the image. If you like the results it produces than never mind, but doing so makes the shadows darker and the highlight brighter. If the image isn't exposed properly then the filter is going to make it worse. You could try a reverse contrast filter that lightens the shadows and darkens the highlights. However you need to make sure the image isn't heavily over or under exposed for this to work.
• Understand the image histogram. You can see how an image is under or over exposed by viewing the histogram in playback mode. Good explanation here.
• Find an image editor that allows you to adjust curves and/or use fill-light. Blown highlights are harder to recover than dark shadows. Because of this I would recommend setting your camera to -1/3 to -1 depending on the scene. The images will look crappy and dark on the camera but the highlights and sky won't be blown out. If you are shooting on a low iso with little noise you can then bring out the shadows using the computer. It's time consuming but really the only way to achieve what you are looking for. This is where you should now apply the contrast filter. Once the shadows and highlights have been neutralized, I'll add a contrast filter to give the image a kick. Lightroom isn't too expensive and has all the features you are looking for. I think you could find some free software that does nearly the same things as light room.
• Finally, when the dynamic range is really high, you can take three or more shots of the same scene at different exposures. This is called bracketing and your camera has it as a built in feature. The three shots would then be merged into one image using the properly exposed sections of the bracketed shots. This gets pretty complex and time consuming so I wouldn't recommend you do this on every shot. Try it here and there and see if you can get the hang of it. Look up tutorials on DRI and HDR. I think you need photoshop or an image editing program with layering capability.

Hope that helps.

[bulliver]

And when its completely overcast the sky just goes completely white even though I can clearly see variation with my eyes.

As Okayyou has mentioned, your camera is fine. Technology is great, but there is still no camera sensor as good at adapting to changing/varying light conditions as the human eye.

[mr.John]

Anyone having problems with quickr pickr? original and large files don't display, the largest image that you can download is only 640 medium,it's been like that for about a week

[Okayyou]

^ yeah, I thought I was having issues but now it sounds like a bug. You can circumvent it by using excel or word or notepad, anything with "find a replace". Ctrl + h on a PC. If you replace ".jpg" with "_b.jpg" you change all the images to their large size. You'll have to double check the image code on flickr but I got it to work.

[Robert Pence]

Originally Posted by ChiTownCity

Sorry for the vagueness. I use the JPEG Fine Setting for Image Quality and the Exposure setting is set to 1/3 by default (it calls it an EV step so I'm not sure if thats the same thing). The ISO is always set on Auto because I'm shooting in Auto mode the majority of the time. I don't know what metering I'm using because I don't see it listed in the camera menu or on the flickr exif data ...

I'd like to add one more comment to the responses above. Have you looked at your photos on another monitor besides the one you customarily use? If your monitor isn't properly calibrated, or a CRT that's old and tired, you could be getting a distorted view of what your photos look like on a properly calibrated monitor.

Before I built my present setup, I was working with a CRT monitor that was top-of-the-line when I bought it, but by the time I replaced it it was six years old. When I got my new monitor, I realized I had to rework a bunch of stuff that looked OK to me on my old monitor, but had exposure and contrast way out of whack on monitors that gave an accurate view.

[ChiTownCity]

Originally Posted by Okayyou

The camera is working properly. You are just running into the limit of the dynamic range of the sensor. When you have a scene with bright whites (clouds) and dark shadows, the camera cannot capture the broad range of contrast. Your eyes have a greater dynamic range which is why you can make out details but the camera can't.

There are a few things you can do:

• Shoot in RAW. A lot of data in the image gets tossed out when it is converted to JPEG. If you are going to post process the images and try and bring out the shadows and recover some highlights you should be using RAW files.
• Stop using the contrast filter, at least until you get a hang of exposing the image. If you like the results it produces than never mind, but doing so makes the shadows darker and the highlight brighter. If the image isn't exposed properly then the filter is going to make it worse. You could try a reverse contrast filter that lightens the shadows and darkens the highlights. However you need to make sure the image isn't heavily over or under exposed for this to work.
• Understand the image histogram. You can see how an image is under or over exposed by viewing the histogram in playback mode. Good explanation here.
• Find an image editor that allows you to adjust curves and/or use fill-light. Blown highlights are harder to recover than dark shadows. Because of this I would recommend setting your camera to -1/3 to -1 depending on the scene. The images will look crappy and dark on the camera but the highlights and sky won't be blown out. If you are shooting on a low iso with little noise you can then bring out the shadows using the computer. It's time consuming but really the only way to achieve what you are looking for. This is where you should now apply the contrast filter. Once the shadows and highlights have been neutralized, I'll add a contrast filter to give the image a kick. Lightroom isn't too expensive and has all the features you are looking for. I think you could find some free software that does nearly the same things as light room.
• Finally, when the dynamic range is really high, you can take three or more shots of the same scene at different exposures. This is called bracketing and your camera has it as a built in feature. The three shots would then be merged into one image using the properly exposed sections of the bracketed shots. This gets pretty complex and time consuming so I wouldn't recommend you do this on every shot. Try it here and there and see if you can get the hang of it. Look up tutorials on DRI and HDR. I think you need photoshop or an image editing program with layering capability.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for the detailed response! I'll definitely give everything a try. The pictures I posted here are only of shots during the afternoon when the sun is the highest so I'm sure you can imagine how dark or grainy the pictures can get when the sun is still rising or setting.

Right now I have Lightroom and I have tried to just adjust the brightness/exposure with the brush tool and then re-darken the blacks, but that hasn't worked out (It actually softens the image). So I'll get Photoshop CS5 and see if I can get better editing quality.

Just to give you an idea of what I'm looking for you can view any one of Sabotai, Sekkle, or KingOfTheHill's photo threads (Lol I'm not going to bother naming you, hydro, or anyone with a $1000+ camera or lens for obvious reasons). I don't know if they edit their pictures, but whatever they do it doesn't look like they have to do much of anything at all.