D300 lightning

"Sosumi" <sosumi DeleteThis @home.nl> 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 DeleteThis @apaflo.com
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:19:52 -0000, "Sosumi" <sosumi.TakeThisOut@home.nl> 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.
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

On 2007-12-10 03:19:52 -0800, "Sosumi" <sosumi.RemoveThis@home.nl> 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
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

"Roger Moss" <roger.moss(BINTHISBIT)@tiscali.fr> wrote:
>"Floyd L. Davidson" <floyd RemoveThis @apaflo.com> wrote in message
>news:87mysi3exi.fld@apaflo.com...
>> "Sosumi" <sosumi RemoveThis @home.nl> 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) floyd RemoveThis @apaflo.com
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

"Floyd L. Davidson" <floyd.TakeThisOut@apaflo.com> wrote in message
news:87mysi3exi.fld@apaflo.com...
> "Sosumi" <sosumi.TakeThisOut@home.nl> 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
 >> Stay informed about: 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" <sosumi.TakeThisOut@home.nl> wrote in message
news:QuudnehqV71HvcDaRVnygQA@novis.pt...
> 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
>
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

"Sosumi" <sosumi.RemoveThis@home.nl> wrote in message
news:QuudnehqV71HvcDaRVnygQA@novis.pt...
> 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
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

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" <sosumi.RemoveThis@home.nl> wrote in message
news:QuudnehqV71HvcDaRVnygQA@novis.pt...
> 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
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

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 QuudnehqV71HvcDaRVnygQA.RemoveThis@novis.pt, "Sosumi"
<sosumi.RemoveThis@home.nl> 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?
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

On Dec 10, 6:19 am, "Sosumi" <sos....RemoveThis@home.nl> 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?
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

Ray Paseur <Ray.Paseur.TakeThisOut@SometimesUsesGMail.com> 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) floyd.TakeThisOut@apaflo.com
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

"Sosumi" <sosumi.DeleteThis@home.nl> 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
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning 

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" <sosumi.RemoveThis@home.nl> wrote in
news:VuudnfxkyabG5sDanZ2dnUVZ8uGdnZ2d@novis.pt:

>
>
> "Sosumi" <sosumi.RemoveThis@home.nl> wrote in message
> news:QuudnehqV71HvcDaRVnygQA@novis.pt...
>> 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.
>
 >> Stay informed about: D300 lightning