D300 Setting Questions...what did I do wrong?

Fogcity

Hi everyone,

Wow, I had a great weekend shooting soccer & baseball with my D300 and new 80-200 2.8 :ivar
Thanks for all your advice in the previous thread!

So my question is--I shot a soccer game on Saturday with similar settings on my D300 as a baseball game on Sunday and had a lot less PP work to do after the soccer than baseball. Actually, the baseball pics looked fine on the camera but when I opened them up on my computer I almost had a stroke at how washed out and overexposed (?) everything seemed. Granted, soccer was in full sun and baseball was overcast at times but??? I shot the soccer with my 70-300 at 5.6 and baseball on my 80-200 2.8 then changed my lens 1/2 way through to my 55-200 4.5 or so. Some examples of my pre and post pics (thankfully I was able to recover most of the color/detail in the PP, even if they are a little oversaturated now, I always seem to do that...).

Basically all the baseball pics came out with the same issues, no matter which lens, so it must have been a settings issue. I was shooting on manual, the ap was at 5.6 when using the 55-200 (2.8 on the 80-200). I varied the shutter speed from 1/1000 to 1/1600 and I let the iso float and usually it was anywhere from 400-1000. The focus seemed right on after PP, it was just the washout that took some correction (reduced exposure, took out all the highlights, increased shadows/contrast)--what did I do wrong?

Thanks for any help!!!!

Erbeman

I shoot in full manual mode and I always adjust my setting to underexpose a little from what the camera tells me is a perfect exposure. It works for me.

Fogcity

Erbeman wrote:

I shoot in full manual mode and I always adjust my setting to underexpose a little from what the camera tells me is a perfect exposure. It works for me.

Thanks! So do you think if I had set the exposure at -0.3 it would have made a difference? Is that how to underexpose a little or would you do more? Excuse my total lack of knowledge about adjusting the exposure--is that how you do it?

Forgot to mention I am doing matrix metering, used the active D lighting (on high) and shoot in RAW.

Erbeman

Fogcity wrote:

Thanks! So do you think if I had set the exposure at -0.3 it would have made a difference? Is that how to underexpose a little or would you do more? Excuse my total lack of knowledge about adjusting the exposure--is that how you do it?

Forgot to mention I am doing matrix metering, used the active D lighting (on high) and shoot in RAW.

Shooting in manual mode you can't set the over/under expose. It will not work. Those only work if you use the other program modes like Sports mode, Portrait mode, etc..

To underexpose in manual mode just point your camera at whatever you are wanting to take a pic of and push the button halfway down as if to focus. While looking through the viewfinder, you will see a scale at the bottom of the screen in the viewfinder. That is called metering. Your camera will shade in on that scale where your current setting will put your exposure. To under expose a bit, simply reach up and turn the dial to speed up the shutter, or turn the other dial to close in your aperature a stop or two. You will then see the shaded area on the graph move towards the - as opposed to the +. There is no perfect setting because every situations lighting is different and switching lenses will change how the camera views it as well. It's like every other good photographer on here says, the best way that you will get better is to try different things, remember when you did them or do something like take a picture of your hand holding up a 1 when you change a setting and write down what 1 means on a pad, later try another setting and take a pic of your hand holding up 2 fingers and write down on your pad what 2 means. Then when you download the pics, when you see the pic of your hand with different numbers, the pics afterwards will show you how changing that setting effected the exposure. Eventually you'll just memorize what does what and it will come second nature to you and you can change your settings on the fly to match the situation you are in and your pics will continually be close to the same exposure.

Mitchell

I tend to shoot sports either in manual mode (as suggested) exposing properly for the face or with center weighted metering keeping the focus area on the face.

If the lighting is consistent, manual mode is your friend once you get set up. I wonder if you "fooled" you meter with those dark uniforms.

Fogcity

Erbeman wrote:

Shooting in manual mode you can't set the over/under expose. It will not work. Those only work if you use the other program modes like Sports mode, Portrait mode, etc..

To underexpose in manual mode just point your camera at whatever you are wanting to take a pic of and push the button halfway down as if to focus. While looking through the viewfinder, you will see a scale at the bottom of the screen in the viewfinder. That is called metering. Your camera will shade in on that scale where your current setting will put your exposure. To under expose a bit, simply reach up and turn the dial to speed up the shutter, or turn the other dial to close in your aperature a stop or two. You will then see the shaded area on the graph move towards the - as opposed to the +. There is no perfect setting because every situations lighting is different and switching lenses will change how the camera views it as well. It's like every other good photographer on here says, the best way that you will get better is to try different things, remember when you did them or do something like take a picture of your hand holding up a 1 when you change a setting and write down what 1 means on a pad, later try another setting and take a pic of your hand holding up 2 fingers and write down on your pad what 2 means. Then when you download the pics, when you see the pic of your hand with different numbers, the pics afterwards will show you how changing that setting effected the exposure. Eventually you'll just memorize what does what and it will come second nature to you and you can change your settings on the fly to match the situation you are in and your pics will continually be close to the same exposure.

Thanks so much, I can't wait to try that! All of those suggestions were great. I am really anxious to cut down on my PP time, hopefully that will help! I did learn one huge thing...I read on someone's forum that shooting outdoors it was more than okay to shoot JPEG fine and not RAW. Can I just say NO WAY! I could immediately tell in my soccer pics when I stopped shooting in RAW to save space on my card--the pictures came out this twisted hue of green (their jersey colors) and almost impossible to fix. Ugh.

I say yes to shooting more pictures and learning what works!

Fogcity

Mitchell wrote:

I tend to shoot sports either in manual mode (as suggested) exposing properly for the face or with center weighted metering keeping the focus area on the face.

If the lighting is consistent, manual mode is your friend once you get set up. I wonder if you "fooled" you meter with those dark uniforms.

Thanks! Do you set the ISO when shooting manual? I've read that letting the camera choose the iso can be a mistake too?

Erbeman

Fogcity wrote:

Thanks so much, I can't wait to try that! All of those suggestions were great. I am really anxious to cut down on my PP time, hopefully that will help! I did learn one huge thing...I read on someone's forum that shooting outdoors it was more than okay to shoot JPEG fine and not RAW. Can I just say NO WAY! I could immediately tell in my soccer pics when I stopped shooting in RAW to save space on my card--the pictures came out this twisted hue of green (their jersey colors) and almost impossible to fix. Ugh.

I say yes to shooting more pictures and learning what works!

I shot my very first MX race in Raw and I've not touched it again since then. It takes way too much time to PP 800-1000 pics that are in Raw format. I guess if you are just learning and haven't mastered setting up your camera yet, then shooting Raw leaves you an outlet to save your pictures better than you could in Jpeg. The next time I shoot in Raw will be when I go do a photoshoot with my kids, when the number of pics is easily manageable. The last time I took pics of them, I forgot to change anything in my camera which was setup to shoot outdoor MX. So, the skin color came out a little red. Other than small photoshoots though, you generally won't find a sports photog who shoots in RAW. It's just too much work.

Erbeman

Fogcity wrote:

Thanks! Do you set the ISO when shooting manual? I've read that letting the camera choose the iso can be a mistake too?

the only auto thing that I let my camera set for me is white balance. ISO is a very strong tool to use if you are trying to get a particular effect that needs a particular aperature/shutter speed. Adjusting ISO will alow you to find the window that you are looking for. However, always try to stay at the lowest possible ISO that you can.

WingsOfLovePhoto

Fogcity wrote:

Thanks! Do you set the ISO when shooting manual? I've read that letting the camera choose the iso can be a mistake too?

I wouldn't auto iso on the D300. If the exposure isn't correct then you are likely to get noise if the iso goes as high as 1000, plus I also noticed when I used the D300 that ISO's that were in the inbetween.. ie 640 were more likely to get noise then even at 800. Not sure though. I would set your exposure about 400 and change the fstop and ss to compensate. The D300 also does tend to overexpose just a bit on matrix metering. Though I don't know it all, I just keep trying things and find what works for me. But I agree with Mitchell, focus for the face

Erbeman

Mitchell wrote:

I tend to shoot sports either in manual mode (as suggested) exposing properly for the face or with center weighted metering keeping the focus area on the face.

If the lighting is consistent, manual mode is your friend once you get set up. I wonder if you "fooled" you meter with those dark uniforms.

This always is a chore when you get clashing colors. Like when I shoot a Football game and our team is wearing black uniforms and the opposing team is wearing white uniforms and it's night time. It's not really possible to expose both uniforms evenly in this situation and there is not a whole lot that you can do about it. Metering of the face is a decent neutral color though. Getting players to stand still long enough for you to meter isn't always an easy thing to do though. Haha

Gringriff

Fogcity wrote:

Actually, the baseball pics looked fine on the camera but when I opened them up on my computer I almost had a stroke at how washed out and overexposed (?) everything seemed.

In addition to the lens change to a higher AV for the baseball the almost white dirt always seems to make it tougher to expose correctly compared to the green grass of the soccer field.

Fogcity

You must be right, because I am spending waaaayyyyyy to much time PP (just ask my husband or son!). At first it's kind of fun, but 600 pictures later, not so fun. Fortunately I can do a lot of my changes in bulk but if I could just get those camera settings right and learn to use them correctly in different situations, things would be a lot better..... In the meantime I really rely on that RAW format to save my butt!

Erbeman wrote:

I shot my very first MX race in Raw and I've not touched it again since then. It takes way too much time to PP 800-1000 pics that are in Raw format. I guess if you are just learning and haven't mastered setting up your camera yet, then shooting Raw leaves you an outlet to save your pictures better than you could in Jpeg. The next time I shoot in Raw will be when I go do a photoshoot with my kids, when the number of pics is easily manageable. The last time I took pics of them, I forgot to change anything in my camera which was setup to shoot outdoor MX. So, the skin color came out a little red. Other than small photoshoots though, you generally won't find a sports photog who shoots in RAW. It's just too much work.

Fogcity

I'll definitely give that a try, but if I shoot much higher than 5.6 (which most of the pics were at) do you think I'll loose some of bokeh in the background? Trying to get some softness behind my subjects....

Gringriff wrote:

In addition to the lens change to a higher AV for the baseball the almost white dirt always seems to make it tougher to expose correctly compared to the green grass of the soccer field.

johng

Fogcity wrote:

You must be right, because I am spending waaaayyyyyy to much time PP (just ask my husband or son!). At first it's kind of fun, but 600 pictures later, not so fun. !

A couple pieces of advice:

1) you need to be more judicious in what you throw in the trash. Cull things down to less than 200 shots per game before you process anything. And the only way I keep that many shots before processing is if I'm covering the whole team.

2) Get used to and adjust if necessary your LCD. The LCDs on todays cameras are a Godsend. You need to get used to yours so you can look at images in the field and adjust your exposure ongoing. And you need to check it frequently. At the start of every 1/2 inning or about every 15 minutes for field sports or every time you change position - you need to take some test shots and review exposure.

3) Leave as little to the camera as possible. I use Auto White balance but prefer manual exposure as has been noted. That's provided lighting is constant. If sun is moving in and out of clouds then go to Aperture Priority. And, as mentioned, FACES are what matters. So expose for them. Get used to how lighting affects faces - especially in baseball/football/lax where there are helmets. Change positions and you could see drastic 1 or 2 stop swings in proper exposure because of the direction of light.

Again, keep practicing and make those frequent adjustments / checks of your exposure and you'll see your PP time decrease. And, above all, throw out more images. No one wants to look at 600 images and most photographers aren't going to capture 600 quality images from 1 or 2 games. So, throw out more and get it down to <200 per game for full team coverage or <100 if you're not selling prints to the full team.

Fogcity

johng wrote:

A couple pieces of advice:

1) you need to be more judicious in what you throw in the trash. Cull things down to less than 200 shots per game before you process anything. And the only way I keep that many shots before processing is if I'm covering the whole team.

2) Get used to and adjust if necessary your LCD. The LCDs on todays cameras are a Godsend. You need to get used to yours so you can look at images in the field and adjust your exposure ongoing. And you need to check it frequently. At the start of every 1/2 inning or about every 15 minutes for field sports or every time you change position - you need to take some test shots and review exposure.

3) Leave as little to the camera as possible. I use Auto White balance but prefer manual exposure as has been noted. That's provided lighting is constant. If sun is moving in and out of clouds then go to Aperture Priority. And, as mentioned, FACES are what matters. So expose for them. Get used to how lighting affects faces - especially in baseball/football/lax where there are helmets. Change positions and you could see drastic 1 or 2 stop swings in proper exposure because of the direction of light.

Again, keep practicing and make those frequent adjustments / checks of your exposure and you'll see your PP time decrease. And, above all, throw out more images. No one wants to look at 600 images and most photographers aren't going to capture 600 quality images from 1 or 2 games. So, throw out more and get it down to <200 per game for full team coverage or <100 if you're not selling prints to the full team.

Great advice, I appreciate it! I start out with about 300-350 images per game, and whittle it down to around 200 or less that I actually PP (I am shooting for the entire team). I'm working on getting better at trashing things right off the camera when I know they are OOF or just bad right when I'm shooting. (I mentioned 600 pics above because I had shot a couple of games this weekend and had to skim those down--took forever).

I guess I'm not understanding how to adjust the exposure for faces, I'll need to practice that. And by adjusting the LCD I'm assuming you mean adjust the brightness? So maybe if my LCD was a little brighter and I was zooming in I could have seen this exposure problem earlier on and been able to correct it? Because it looked fine when I was shooting, so you're right, something was off there. And thanks for the tip on the metering adjustments in the viewfinder, just tried that out and I get it now, makes perfect sense

johng

Fogcity wrote:

I guess I'm not understanding how to adjust the exposure for faces, I'll need to practice that. And by adjusting the LCD I'm assuming you mean adjust the brightness? So maybe if my LCD was a little brighter and I was zooming in I could have seen this exposure problem earlier on and been able to correct it? Because it looked fine when I was shooting, so you're right, something was off there. And thanks for the tip on the metering adjustments in the viewfinder, just tried that out and I get it now, makes perfect sense

As to adjusting exposure for faces - what I mean by that is you need to judge "correct" exposure by looking at faces in an image. A perfect example is two players in bright sun. One has white uniform and the other dark blue. Bboth have same skin tone. If they're standing side by side and you do full body shots of them, my argument is - the "correct" exposure is the exposure where the faces look good. Leave it up to the camera and you'll probably see a 2 stop difference in the exposure the camera chooses because the UNIFORM is influencing the camera. Similarly the SKY can influence the camera. So, don't worry about blown skies or uniforms - worry about skin. And, of course - when that skin is in shadow (batting helmet, football helmet, etc...) you have to overexpose the whole shot to get the face looking good. Which, in bright light, leads to more blown highlights in uniform or sky.

As to the LCD - yes I mean adjust the brightness so that you can look at it and get an accurate reading of whether the FACES are exposed properly. That way you recognize it right off the bat, and instead of hundreds of poorly exposed images you have a handful.

Fogcity

johng wrote:

As to adjusting exposure for faces - what I mean by that is you need to judge "correct" exposure by looking at faces in an image. A perfect example is two players in bright sun. One has white uniform and the other dark blue. Bboth have same skin tone. If they're standing side by side and you do full body shots of them, my argument is - the "correct" exposure is the exposure where the faces look good. Leave it up to the camera and you'll probably see a 2 stop difference in the exposure the camera chooses because the UNIFORM is influencing the camera. Similarly the SKY can influence the camera. So, don't worry about blown skies or uniforms - worry about skin. And, of course - when that skin is in shadow (batting helmet, football helmet, etc...) you have to overexpose the whole shot to get the face looking good. Which, in bright light, leads to more blown highlights in uniform or sky.

Okay so if I'm understanding you, had I set my exposure more correctly, then both of these boys would have come out looking more like the PP picture next to it the FIRST time around, and would not have been so blown out on the bottom? Could I have avoided the PP in this picture (maybe by adjusting the AP to underexpose a bit more?) or was overexposing and PP the only way I would have gotten their skin tone right (I adjusted the exposure, contrast and highlights/shadows to get more depth in the color)?

Thank for for spending so much time tutoring me on this, I truly appreciate it!

johng

I can't say that if you used a different exposure your results would be the same as the PP shot. The reality is: sometimes colors ARE washed out in real life. You may always decide you want to PP in those situations to add contrast. But what we as photographers think "looks good" in a photo isn't necessarily the way the scene occured. So there is no way to set your camera up to get that great punchy image with perfect contrast/color.

All I'm saying is the most important part is the face. In your first shot there the face is a bit overexposed. For something like soccer I prefer a bit underexposed to over - specifically for the washed out colors. And by that I mean, maybe 1/3 stop or so - nothing dramatic or there are too many shadows. But, with a slight underexposure I can use a dodge tool to lighten the face a bit and I'm done. With helmets and such I usually err on the side of maybe a little overexposed. The reason being if you underexpose with a helmet the shadows can be so deep that recovering detail isn't possible.

But that's personal taste. In the end, if you get the faces correctly exposed in-camera you could leave the rest of the leveling unchanged and people will still enjoy the photos - they are naturally drawn to the faces. But if the face is too dark or too light then the photo doesn't work as well.

johng

Here's an example I like to use because it's about the worst conditions you can shoot in - white uniform and bright sunlight. The only thing worse is African-American skin which is almost impossible to expose correctly in these conditions. Now, the highlights in the pants are completely blown - as a photographer, that drives me nuts (as does the purple fringing that goes along with it). But, the facial tones are good - you can see the eyes, and the eyes, IMO, make the shot more compelling. Most clients don't even notice the blown highlights but they notice those faces. The cameras of today don't have the dynamic range to get both exposed properly. This shot was cropped and sharpened but no levels or other exposure adjustments done. Note, however, my exposure settings if play was moving in the opposite direction would be completely differentt as the sun would have been in the face rather than behind (as you can see by the light on the runner's arm).

Fogcity

Ahhhh--I get it! A picture is worth a thousand words I have that problem with blown highlights all the time with uniforms so I see where you're coming from there completely. I have a really hard time in PP making the picture presentable when that happens, and still keeping the detail/color on the face right. I find myself dodging out faces a lot to get pics right too (especially with helmets on). But I'd really like to get to the the point you're at--a stunning shot with little PP.

So bottom line, just keep rechecking and adjust accordingly, and don't ever think one setting is going to get me through an entire game. Much food for thought, you have gone above and beyond and I appreciate your words of wisdom! Now to get out there and put some of this good advice to work!

HoofClix

Fogcity wrote:

Forgot to mention ... used the active D lighting (on high) and shoot in RAW.

I personally think that the active D lighting is why you have these overexposed images. From the looks of the first image, you got the face fairly nicely exposed, but as it seems to be almost side or back-lit you get the rest of the image overexposed. It makes no difference if you are using matrix, center, or spot metering, a correctly exposed face is a correctly exposed face. So your choice between applying the d-lighting in the camera or in the PP.

So, I would expose in Aperture at what ever f-stop gives you the dof you want, and adjust the ISO up or down to achieve the shutter speed you want. If you have no clouds in the sky, then Manual will work, but if you have rolling clouds, manual will have you kicking yourself all day long. The other factor is where the sun is, and how many varying angles from the sun you are shooting during the game. I'd say the 3rd baseman and left fielder are dirrectly lit from your shooting angle. That would require a different exposure from the home plate angle. You'll be adjusting a lot on Manual..

If you get the settings correct, for this type of shooting you should have no need to shoot in raw..

Erbeman wrote:

Shooting in manual mode you can't set the over/under expose. It will not work. Those only work if you use the other program modes like Sports mode, Portrait mode, etc..

I don't think this is correct. Exposure compensation applies to any mode, be it M, P, A, or S. You just have to be careful as to what part of the exposure equation that the camera is fooling with to compensate. I am not positive, but I think it messes with the ISO.

Fogcity

HoofClix wrote:

I personally think that the active D lighting is why you have these overexposed images. From the looks of the first image, you got the face fairly nicely exposed, but as it seems to be almost side or back-lit you get the rest of the image overexposed. It makes no difference if you are using matrix, center, or spot metering, a correctly exposed face is a correctly exposed face. So your choice between applying the d-lighting in the camera or in the PP.

I wondered if the Active D lighting was part of the problem. I thinking I'm going to shoot a game with it on only part of the time, adjust accordingly, and see what happens.

HoofClix wrote:

So, I would expose in Aperture at what ever f-stop gives you the dof you want, and adjust the ISO up or down to achieve the shutter speed you want. If you have no clouds in the sky, then Manual will work, but if you have rolling clouds, manual will have you kicking yourself all day long. The other factor is where the sun is, and how many varying angles from the sun you are shooting during the game. I'd say the 3rd baseman and left fielder are dirrectly lit from your shooting angle. That would require a different exposure from the home plate angle. You'll be adjusting a lot on Manual..

This also makes a LOT of sense, as there were rolling clouds during the baseball game that was horribly exposed, every shot needed adjustment to some degree--but not all to the same degree. And I wasn't adjusting for it at all while I was shooting, I assumed letting the iso float where it wanted to be in manual would take care of that for me?

It looks like I have a lot of practicing and a lot to learn. Good thing I enjoy doing it so much, and get great back up and advice from this forum.

Gringriff

HoofClix wrote:

I don't think this is correct. Exposure compensation applies to any mode, be it M, P, A, or S. You just have to be careful as to what part of the exposure equation that the camera is fooling with to compensate. I am not positive, but I think it messes with the ISO.

HoofClix,

On my Canons the exposure compensation does work in AV and TV modes but not M (haven't tried it in P). So it will make the adjustment as long as you don't take full control with M mode.

HoofClix

Just did a little test, and indeed, exposure compensation in manual mode made no visual difference on a D300, even though the exif says that I compensated. It did, however, work as expected in both Shutter and Aperture priority. I didn't do Program mode.....

SUMGUY

Hey guys, I'm new here. As HoofClix said,the D-lighting will make a massive difference in over exposing your image. I shoot fights (D300) in some very ordinary lighting and tried playing around with it. There is some good clips on youtube to show the difference with it off and set to high.

Great thread (and site) to have a read of. I have found the LCD to be a little over exposed, so when you get home and up load the images they look a little darker than on your camera. As this is my first camera I researched a lot and it seems to be quite common on the D300??? I don't count on my screen to be spot on. Try putting your camera next to your computer and setting the LCD to match the computer screen (same pic) for a more accurate image. I have set mine -1.

Fogcity

SUMGUY wrote:

Hey guys, I'm new here. As HoofClix said,the D-lighting will make a massive difference in over exposing your image. I shoot fights (D300) in some very ordinary lighting and tried playing around with it. There is some good clips on youtube to show the difference with it off and set to high.

Great thread (and site) to have a read of. I have found the LCD to be a little over exposed, so when you get home and up load the images they look a little darker than on your camera. As this is my first camera I researched a lot and it seems to be quite common on the D300??? I don't count on my screen to be spot on. Try putting your camera next to your computer and setting the LCD to match the computer screen (same pic) for a more accurate image. I have set mine -1.

Thanks! I will definitely check out you tube and I think that's a great idea to put the LCD next to the computer and adjust accordingly. Appreciate it!

time2smile

SUMGUY wrote:

Hey guys, I'm new here. As HoofClix said,the D-lighting will make a massive difference in over exposing your image. I shoot fights (D300) in some very ordinary lighting and tried playing around with it. There is some good clips on youtube to show the difference with it off and set to high.

Great thread (and site) to have a read of. I have found the LCD to be a little over exposed, so when you get home and up load the images they look a little darker than on your camera. As this is my first camera I researched a lot and it seems to be quite common on the D300??? I don't count on my screen to be spot on. Try putting your camera next to your computer and setting the LCD to match the computer screen (same pic) for a more accurate image. I have set mine -1.

welcome, SUMGUY
and I agree Active D is the cause...set on low or off and take some test shots...

Erbeman

HoofClix wrote:

Just did a little test, and indeed, exposure compensation in manual mode made no visual difference on a D300, even though the exif says that I compensated. It did, however, work as expected in both Shutter and Aperture priority. I didn't do Program mode.....

Shame shame on you for doubting me. Haha

HoofClix

Erbeman wrote:

Shame shame on you for doubting me. Haha

Yes, I am a bit daft at times.....

Erbeman

HoofClix wrote:

Yes, I am a bit daft at times.....

Haha, I only knew this because I spent about an hour one night at the MX track trying to figure out why I couldn't get exposure compensation to work. I only shoot in Manual and I had never heard that it didn't work. So, I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I finally came to the conclusion that since you are not giving the camera any control in Manual mode, it has no way to compensate exposure one way or the other. After all, that is the whole purpose of Manual mode. You are in charge of everything to get the exposure that you are looking for. If you want to underexpose slightly, simply shut down your apperature a stop or two, or speed up your shutter of lower your ISO.