D300 lightning

What I really find interesting is all the software available to make our
"SNAPS" look better. What ever happened to the knowledge behind the camera
and the camera itself.......any comments??????


"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

"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?


Sorry to not answer everyone personally, but thank you all for your nice
comments and advice.
I went out shooting today, this time a perfectly white church with crooked
walls. Now I understand, that the pictures are taken very good and when I
look in at the screen, all looks perfect (I had my glasses on). But when I
download them to the computer, all of them are much to dark. The white has
turned to dark beige and the blue sky has turned to nighttime !!
I've had the D40, D40x and the D80, but none had this problem. I called the
tech boys from Nikon UK and they were as much surprised as I was. So now I'm
going to upload a file or 2 so they can see what is right or wrong.
I also tried to download the pictures different with explorer and Adobe
Downloader, but nothing changes. Even JPG's are too dark.

So I'll keep you posted what happens.
Thanks again.

--
Sosumi

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:25:32 +0100, "Roger Moss"
wrote:


"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


Great, so you're all going to teach him how to become dependent on his automatic
P&S features of his overpriced POS camera instead of teaching him how to become
a real photographer one day.

It is YOU and all just like you that are disrespecting him and doing him a grave
disservice. Just teach him how to be a happy auto-snapshooter! That's all he'll
ever need if he buys a camera that can do it all for him! Right?

You people are total morons, without even a glimmer of knowing what it takes to
be a real photographer someday.

In article , Walter Garver
wrote:

You people are total morons, without even a glimmer of knowing what it takes to
be a real photographer someday.

Think again, ****tard.

"Sosumi" wrote
pictures with sky in it were much too dark
---
Sosumi, When I look at that picture, I see almost perfect 18% gray
exposure. It will look dark until you open it up and work with the
controls of your raw converter. And then you will start to see it come to
life. I have made similar photographs with 10 to 12 f/stops. I opened the
pictures several times with different settings in the raw converter and
made layered images. Then I selected out the properly exposed parts from
each layyer to mmake the final images. The results can be stunning - a
gorgeous sunset against a beautiful and active foreground, for example. We
would never have gotten these with film - there's just no way to create a
custom neutral density filter in real time. You will be delighted with the
camera. BTW, I am shooting RAW + small-fine-JPG settings now. I can give
clients the JPG for preview or FPO and tune the RAW image to perfection
once they have chosen their favorite picture. Happy Shooting, ~Ray

Sosumi, if you are interested, and post a raw image somewhere I would
like to see it and try processing it. You can email me a link at my
GMail address. ~Ray

"Sosumi" wrote in
:



"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?


Sorry to not answer everyone personally, but thank you all for your
nice comments and advice.
I went out shooting today, this time a perfectly white church with
crooked walls. Now I understand, that the pictures are taken very good
and when I look in at the screen, all looks perfect (I had my glasses
on). But when I download them to the computer, all of them are much to
dark. The white has turned to dark beige and the blue sky has turned
to nighttime !! I've had the D40, D40x and the D80, but none had this
problem. I called the tech boys from Nikon UK and they were as much
surprised as I was. So now I'm going to upload a file or 2 so they can
see what is right or wrong. I also tried to download the pictures
different with explorer and Adobe Downloader, but nothing changes.
Even JPG's are too dark.

So I'll keep you posted what happens.
Thanks again.

On Dec 10, 6:19 am, "Sosumi" wrote:
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?


Getting proper exposure with a bright overcast sky is always a
challenge.
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/81330919

BTW, what is this D-Lightning? Does the Lightning work in sunshine or
only on stormy days?

On Dec 11, 11:09 am, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:
Ray Paseur wrote:
Sosumi, if you are interested, and post a raw image somewhere I would
like to see it and try processing it. You can email me a link at my
GMail address. ~Ray

Heavens, post it publicly where others can play with it
too!

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

I just went to the original jpg and put it into my MS DIP 10 Pro image
editor and selected all below the skyline and lightened that area and
then did a bit of burning to the upper RH corner and some in the
lightened areas of the water and thus got a bit more contrasty image
whereas I felt the original lacked a bit of snap to the image and gave
amore dull effect than perhaps was needed. The gloomy dull effect was
not lost but it did have more detail in the shadows and the color
portions of the image appeared better to my eye.

you guys that work with RAW images and layers will likely make better
an more exciting results.

"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


Active matrix metering is the reason for the dark scene. The sensor does not
have enough dynamic range to capture a scene like this so when you meter for
it, you need to meter so the highlights are not blown away and post process
to lift the shadows. This is what Matrix metering does -- meters for the
highlights

The only issue with doing this is that as you "lift the shadows" you are
effectively increasing the ISO in dark areas and if you have to lift them
far enough, noise will be a serious issue and you'll damage the picture with
it.

It is an Ultra simple procedure in Photoshop afterwards to use the
"shadow/highlights" tool to fix that image. Even Photoshop elements 2.0 can
fix that scene with 3 mouse clicks using auto levels. No RAW capture needed.
In fact RAW capture is for those who can't use a camera properly.

In the "good old days" if you didn't get it right in the camera, you'd lost
it, Photographer's didn't need RAW. They instinctively knew what was needed
to capture a scene or learnt real quick. RAW capture when high quality JPEG
is available only allows you to get slack and use hit-and-miss methods of
photography that you may or may not be able to patch up later with software.

If you were to use "area average" metering the whole scene would be metered.
Some highlights might be blown and some shadows blocked but the average of
the scene would be reproduced and it would look OK (average).

This sort of scene is crying out for HDR (hi dynamic range) where three
photos are blended to get a correctly exposed scene. I might suggest for
those interested that a Fuji s5 (D200 with HDR sensor) can capture the
whole scene without the need for post processing. It must **** Adobe right
off that 90% of the use for Photoshop is done away with when you build a
camera with dual sensor sites!

The D300 is a very nice camera but it has a CCD sensor with only single
sensor sites and these are limited by the laws of physics in the range of
contrast they can read. As you become more familiar with your camera you
will discover the value of a histogram and possibly graduated neutral
density filters for such scenes.

Or maybe you'll be like 95% of the other DSLR users on the planet and forget
about photography in the belief Photoshop will always be there to catch you
when you fall.

Douglas

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?

Is "Matrix" metering the equivalent of Canon's "Evaluative" metering? In my
experience the latter isn't very good for backlit subjects because it gives
too much weight to the bright sky. "Centerweighted average" metering works
better, especially if fill-in flash isn't feasible. If Nikon has an equivalent
(and it probably does), I'd try that. (If you're not sure of the meanings of
the Canon terminology, download a 400D/XTi user guide from their site.)

Bob