D300 lightning

Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?
This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

--
Sosumi

That's pretty good Sosumi. I cannot see any blown or clipped highlights. All
things considered I think the camera did an excellent shot. I think active
D-lighting would have done better, but I think photoshop would do a better
and more controlled output than D-lighting.

Cheers
Ron


"Sosumi" wrote in message
...
Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing
went pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that
practically all pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun,
were much too dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless
compressed. The sky and clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more
"balanced"? Or do you have to use Active D-Lightning all the time with a
sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?
This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

--
Sosumi

What the camera is doing is adjusting for what would have been blown
highlights in the sky, that's what matrix metering does it gives you an
average over the entire image. If you want to expose for boats or seagulls
or whatever was in front of the sky, you need to spot meter on those things,
but then you will blow out the sky.

The camera has enough dynamic range to pull up the darker areas then you are
better to get it how you did, then pull the darks back up in photoshop or
capture or whatever.

Remember:

You can usually get something out of an underexposed image, but there is
nothing in a blown highlight.

Even better yet, try to shoot with the sun to your back, it will reduce the
blown sunlit areas

Keep shooting.

Mick Brown




On 10/12/07 10:19 PM, in article , "Sosumi"
wrote:

Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?
This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Sosumi wrote:
Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?
This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?


Download Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/) and run the original RAW
file through it.

"Sosumi" wrote:
Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?
This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Fascinating image. And great for all sorts of things to
learn too!

I would (with a D2x, before the D300/D3 models) have
used manual exposure, and I'd probably have purposely
allowed the sky to blow out a little in the upper right
of the image. As it is, you've just about nailed the
exposure perfectly to give maximum dynamic range. That
is, there are only a couple of spots, right up on the
top edge, that are right at maximum brightness, and
everything else is less.

The significance is that before the D300 and D3 models,
we perhaps didn't quite have the same dynamic range
(this is still open to debate as we see how well the 14
bit mode works). So while with a D2x I probably would
have sacrificed a little more of the sky to blown
highlights in order to get more out of the darker areas,
with a D300 and even more so with a D3 it is perhaps
best to shoot it *exactly* as you did.

Eveyone has a different work flow for processing images,
and I'm not really familiar with the software that you
use. The trick, whether you do it with the RAW
converter or with an editor afterwards, is to adjust the
gamma curve for both slope and linearity. With your
image (and this would probably be *much* better if not
being done with a JPEG intermediate file the way I
looked at it) can be adjusted to look very nice.

But let me suggest something you may not have considered
doing. I was trying to mask off different brightness
levels so that I could tell how much of the sky was
blown, and in the process noticed how nice that image
takes to such things as transforming it to a very high
contrast black and white image. If the threshold is set
just right, the waves on the water in the distance come
out, and it just simply looks neat!

Try posterizing it in color too. Perhaps different
software will make it look different, but with even
numbers of levels (4, 6, 8, 10) it really looked
interesting!

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Floyd L. Davidson" wrote in message
...
"Sosumi" wrote:
Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing
went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically
all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky
and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?

Both you and the camera did the right thing, producing a RAW image capturing
all the information needed to achieve the optimum final result with what you
shot. RAW is exactly that - a raw starting point, so don't expect it to be
perfect without further input on your part later.

I've taken to shooting with the RAW + JPEG option, which provides a useful
visual reference (i.e. the JPEG) to how the scene looked.

IMHO letting any highlights blow out defeats the whole point of shooting in
RAW - but others are welcome to feel differently, of course.

RM

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:19:52 -0000, "Sosumi" wrote:

Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?
This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

This is where learning to become a real photographer and taking control of your
camera becomes more important than raving about being a good snap-shooter and
buying cameras based on all their automatic POINT & SHOOT features.

You'll figure it out.

Someday.

Or not.

Your kind, the kind that buys a fully automated DSLR so you can brag about being
a good snap-shooter with an expensive P&S camera, rarely do figure it out.

I suggest you sign up for some community-education classes in basic photography
skills. Or switch to a better P&S camera with more capable automatic features
than that DSLR of yours. Since you don't know the first thing about photography
you clearly need help of some kind. You most certainly didn't get what you paid
for, that's clear.

"Walter Garver" wrote in message
...


http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

This is where learning to become a real photographer and taking control of
your
camera becomes more important than raving about being a good snap-shooter
and
buying cameras based on all their automatic POINT & SHOOT features.

You'll figure it out.

Someday.

Or not.

Your kind, the kind that buys a fully automated DSLR so you can brag about
being
a good snap-shooter with an expensive P&S camera, rarely do figure it out.

I suggest you sign up for some community-education classes in basic
photography
skills. Or switch to a better P&S camera with more capable automatic
features
than that DSLR of yours. Since you don't know the first thing about
photography
you clearly need help of some kind. You most certainly didn't get what you
paid
for, that's clear.


I really don't think he deserved this kind of abusive response; he was
simply asking for help and guidance in what ought to be the right place.
Others have been more generous in their reactions, and at least he asked...

Don't rise to him, Sosumi ;-)

RM

"Roger Moss" wrote:
"Floyd L. Davidson" wrote in message
...
"Sosumi" wrote:
Yesterday I was shooting some seagulls and boats in a harbor. Focusing
went
pretty good, although I'm still learning. But I noticed that practically
all
pictures I took with sky in it, specially against the sun, were much too
dark. I used Matrix metering and 14 bit RAW lossless compressed. The sky
and
clouds were OK, but shouldn't it be more "balanced"? Or do you have to use
Active D-Lightning all the time with a sky?
Maybe it's because of the new 14 bit RAW?

Both you and the camera did the right thing, producing a RAW image capturing
all the information needed to achieve the optimum final result with what you
shot. RAW is exactly that - a raw starting point, so don't expect it to be
perfect without further input on your part later.

I've taken to shooting with the RAW + JPEG option, which provides a useful
visual reference (i.e. the JPEG) to how the scene looked.

IMHO letting any highlights blow out defeats the whole point of shooting in
RAW - but others are welcome to feel differently, of course.

If the camera can record a 10.5 fstop dynamic range, and
a scene has a 14 fstop dynamic range (some times a
bright sunny outdoor scene can have 20 fstops), you can
take your pick of which end to lose, but the fact is you
*will* lose it.

It is of course often most useful to lose an fstop or so
in the highlights. That is very common with bright
cloudy skies, any light source such as an electric light
or a reflection.

By the same token there are times when the shadows
simply do not have information that contributes to a
good photograph, and the highlights do. Sunsets are the
most common example of that.

Another place where the dynamic range is so obviously
beyond that of a camera is either outside looking into a
house (where everything will be too dark), or inside
looking outside (where everything will be too bright).

The point of shooting in RAW is that you do have all of
the range the camera was able to record, whatever it was
and whichever way (up or down) it was biased. The JPEG
conversion process loses some of that range, but it does
*not* shift it up or down as such.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On 2007-12-10 03:19:52 -0800, "Sosumi" said:


This is without modification:

http://houses-in-portugal.com/Under1.JPG

Of course, after using NX Capture, you get beautiful pictures anyway, but
maybe I'm doing something wrong?

I take it that you did not use D-Lighting with this picture?

D-Lighting is supposed to preserve highlights and brighten shadows in
high contrast situations like this. If it was on, the boats should
appear to be exposed normally and there should be few, if any, blown
highlights in the sky. Capture NX also uses D-Lighting, which is why
the picture appears fine there -- the D-Lighting brings up the shadow
details while maintaining the highlights.

I don't think you can make a blanket statement and say that D-Lighting
should be used whenever there is a lot of sky in the picture. Sometimes
you want silhouettes or rim lighting on your subject and D-Lighting
would defeat those. D-Lighting is just one more tool for you to use as
you see fit.

Since you are the one with the D300, perhaps you could conduct some
experiments in similar situations, with the D-Lighting on and with it
off, so that you can what the difference was, and also post the results
so that we can see in what way it is different than the D-Lighting in
Capture NX.

When D-Lighting was first introduced in Capture it was not
well-received, as it tended to reduce contrast far too much. Besides,
D-Lighting did nothing that you could not replicate using Curves in
Photoshop and the whole concept reminded Photoshop users of the rather
heavy-handed shadow/highlights tools which were so universally panned
until the advent of CS3. However, later versions D-Lighting (and CS3's
shadow/highlight) are not so heavy-handed and I find that I actually
use it once in awhile and like the results. Some have questioned
whether it was necessary to build D-Lighting into the camera; I think
it is mostly useful for people who want D-Lighting but who do not want
to include Capture NX in their work flow.

I probably would not use D-Lighting both in-camera and in Capture NX.
Doubling the correction that way would probably reduce contrast
unacceptably. You might still want to make some tweaks with curves
after applying D-Lighting.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor