nikonian help needed

Andy

got this in a pm from a new user:

n00b wrote:

Hi Again ..Bet yu thought Thank Goad that one didn;t get back to me ..Buty Hey I have a hectic life and probably would hae forgotten that I wrote to you ...except today I received a nmessage from the forum wishing me a Happy Birthday ! SO here I am again ...Lucky You ...

SO as for the budget ...say a couple of hundred..that is about it ..I have now been using the D70 as well as the N80 ..and with the Nikon 70 -300 auto lens ..I have been able to get soem great shots as tehe lens becomes more like a 540 and that is not bad...BUT I now have a real problen for you ...Depite having a recommended flash made for the D70 ..My indoor pictures always seem darker than what I expect and the church pictures ( not that I take these football guys pictures in church...but when they get married ..I show up camera in hand ) They are yellow tinted and I think it is a white balance problem ..but bnot sure how to correct it ! Soemtimes I sawitch to the potrait mode or indoor mode and still teh camera does not correct this yellow darkness ..I have my GOdchilds wedding this Friday ...so I kinda need your help like Yesterday ..Thanks again ..I do appreciate whatever advise you can offer ..

please help here, and i'll direct her to this thread. thanks in advance.

wholenewlight

andy wrote:

got this in a pm from a new user:

QUOTE]

Others may want to chime but here are my thoughts:

Dark pics and yellow pics - on both Nikon's? (I'm not sure about problems with the N70 camera). Is the person using the camera's built in flash on the D70?

Probably just underexposure. The D70 built in flash seems to underexpose a little bit. If the person is trying to shoot in a big room/high ceilings/etc, even more potential underexposure. And with those previous conditions plus that 70-300 lens, waay big underexposure problem potential with the built-in flash.

I'm guessing that the yellow prints are not a white balance problem (unless they are yellow inside/daylight/flash/non-flash) - but are also underexposure problems but maybe picking up some ambient existing light.

I don't think the D70 grossly underexposes with built-in flash pics but it does have a slight tendency to do so. If the problem is only on flash pics, you can do a slight exposure compensation for the flash only (check the manual or I can provide more info if needed).

The person mentions a budget, "SO as for the budget ...say a couple of hundred". Are they looking for a new flash? The Nikon SB600 is a great choice. $179 for the import at B&H - here's the link. SB800 flash is a real beauty (got two of them) but it's quite a bit more. Nikon's iTTL flash mode with either of these flash models makes it hard to mess up (but I suppose you could still get underexposed shots in a big room with high ceilings and a long tele lens!).

Hoping this helps

bfjr

I really want to help but pretty sure I'd need to see a sample of the image.

so many items come to mind:
White balance seems to come up 1st.
have you tried WB set to Auto?

Can you post a sample ?

Harryb

The WB problem can be taken care of easily if she is shooting in RAW. I would also suggest getting to the wedding site early and doing some test shots at different settings. There are so many variables with indoor shooting and lighting that there's is no "one size fits all" answer.

Matthew Saville

Harryb wrote:

The WB problem can be taken care of easily if she is shooting in RAW. I would also suggest getting to the wedding site early and doing some test shots at different settings. There are so many variables with indoor shooting and lighting that there's is no "one size fits all" answer.

Shooting in RAW is no solution unless the proper software is available to get back all those "in camera" controls. I'd say, it's FAR more important to get to know your D70 well enough to be able to shoot JPG if you want to, and get beautiful results.

First off, the D70 to me does have issues with white balance in man-made lighting, as well as under-exposure problems. I did extensive testing and to combat this I've decided that:

Knowledge and use of custom white balance is absolutely necessary, you should almost ALWAYS be shooting in a WB setting other than "auto" if the lighting is tricky, and preferably the "pre" setting, if you have easy access to something with which to calibrate from. However, just plain getting to know the different color temperatures and +/- compensation that is available is very useful. Every time I go to an event, I'll shoot a photo of something and tweak the WB until I'm satisfied, with no flash. Remember this setting, and then put the flash up and tweak WB again until it looks right. Remember this setting as well. Then you can easily switch between flash and no-flash photography under man-made lighting.

Some would reccomend checking your LCD every now and then and "fine tuning" your WB again, but I'd advise against this; it's more important to keep your color temperature settings constant so that you can run an "action" in photoshop afterwards with a set enhancement, and changing your WB right in the middle of everything can throw that off in my experience. Of course if you find that you're VERY off, re- fine tune your WB...

If you do have Adobe Photoshop though, namely the latest version Photoshop CS2, I can highly reccomend shooting in RAW if you have enough memory card space to do so. Because with Adobe Camera RAW, you can effortlessly synchronize the WB of EACH photo, or groups of photos separately, or whatever you prefer... Achieving far finer color fidelity than you can "guess" at by looking at that little LCD screen...


As far as dealing with the underexposure problem is concerned, I can only reccomend shooting in "manual" mode, and maybe even spot metering. The D70's matrix meter is very prone to NOT giving you a true 18% grey, instead it loves "preserving" highlights, which translates to noisy shadows most of the time. So, either shoot the way you usually do and just add 1/2 or 2/3 EV over-exposure compensation, or switch to spot metering in manual mode if you're brave. With spot metering, you have to point your selected AF point at something (anything) in your photo and dail your exposure so that thing is "where it should be" in your exposure, which usually means you find something in your photo that is neutral grey and dial your exposure so that it's at 0 EV. I however prefer to point my spot meter at the brigtest spot in my photo and dial that until it's 2.5 or so EV's over-exposed. That way I'll know that I'm just barely "blowing" my highlights, which is what I like to do. Or you can point your spot meter at both the brightest part and the darkest part, and then dial your exposure to be exactly in between, and trust that your D70 has enough dyanmic range to hold highlights and shadows...

Good luck and happy trails,
-Matt-

Duppypog

D70 Resource
I'm a new D70 user, too. My friend gave me a copy of Thom Hogan's D70 ebook and it's been a big help. On page 144 he says, "One thing that catches novices by surprise is that the D70's matrix meter tries to preserve highlight detail over shadow detail in high contrast situations. That's because a highlight, once overexposed, is unrecoverable on a digital camera." So I guess Nikon's theory is better to underexpose than overexpose.

The other knowledgeable folks who responded certainly know better than I. I just thought I'd point you to a good resource, http://www.bythom.com/d70guide.htm

Lynnette

andy wrote:

got this in a pm from a new user:

please help here, and i'll direct her to this thread. thanks in advance.