A Few Basic Questions>

cliffrouse11baseball · July 22, 2004

I received my camera today and I am excited. I have 2 questins. I want to play with taking pictures the manual way, can somebody explain the all the manual features and when to select what. I hope this isnt a confusing question, but there are so many settings and I dont know what any of them mean. Also, at what quality does everyone take their pictures at. I heard raw is the way to go. If so what program do yall use to convert them from raw to another format. Thanks sorry so many questions...

cletus · July 23, 2004

Cliff,

Congrats on your new camera

I'll try to get you some answers to your manual control questions, but right now I have to get to work!

In the meantime, the image quality question is one that gets asked a lot around here. I use RAW for all my stuff. The main reason I use RAW is that I love working with Photoshop, and RAW mode files give me the most flexibility in my Photoshop work.

Those who don't use RAW almost always use JPEG Fine. The other JPEG settings produce slightly smaller files, but storage isn't that big of a deal these days. Also, I have yet to hear a good reason to shoot TIFF.

I bet if you do a search on RAW and/or JPEG Fine you'll find all kinds of info around here.

For converting RAW files, I use the converter that is built into Photoshop CS. If you don't have PSCS, your camera should have come with Nikon View. I've used Nikon View to convert RAW images from a D100 and I've been happy with the results.

wxwax · July 23, 2004

Cliff, I'd say it might be best if you started by using the highest jpeg setting. You can always mess with RAW after you've become comfortable with your camera. It adds a step to the computer processing of an image. The advantage is you can fix mistakes like bad exposiure and bad white balance. The disadvantage is that the extra processing is unavoidable, and both complicates and really slows things down.

Manually, you should have three settings:

* Aperature priority, which controls how wide open the lens is when you pull the trigger. You pick the aperature size, and the camera picks the shutter speed required to create what the camera think will be a good image.

* Shutter priority, which controls how long the shutter is open. You pick the shutter speed, and the camera picks an aperature that it thinks will create a good shot.

* And full manual, in which you control both.

A wider aperature will let in more light, so you tend to get faster shutter speeds. It will also give a more narrow depth of field - things in front of and behind whatever's in focus, might be blurry. However, consumer cameras don't actually have a very narrow depth of field, so this benefit is largely lost. A lot of folks shoot in aperature priority. The primary benefit is that it allows them to control the depth of field. But it also lets them adjust shutter speed without having to switch to shutter priority; they simply change the size of the aperature and the camera automagically adjusts the shutter speed to match. The downside is that you're at the camera's mercy for determining what is a good shot. As a test, try setting your camera to Aperature priority. Pick f5. Point it at the sky, half push the trigger, then aim at what you want to shoot and pull the trigger. Now point the camera so that there is no sky whatever in the shot, half depress the trigger, reframe and shoot. You'll see a dramatic difference in how the shot is exposed, because the camera's automatically compensating for the different light levels. But if you tried the same thing in full manual, you'd get an identically exposed image both times, because you'd be controlling both aperature and shutter settings on the camera (assuming you weren't on auto ISO

)

A faster shutter speed lets in less light. Unless you're in bright sunlight, a faster shutter speed will force the camera to open-up the aperture, so that the sensor gets enough light. A slower shutter speed lets in more light and will force the camera to create a smaller aperature, which puts more of the shot in focus. Fast shutter speed can be used to crisply capture a fast moving object, and a slow shutter can be used to deliberately blur the same.

Full manual lets you have complete control. But then you have to make sure your shot is properly exposed! The camera ain't helping anymore. I use the histogram to help me figure out if the shot's going to work. Do not, do not rely on the image you see in the camera's playback mode - that image is almost always brighter than the shot actually is, because of the brightness setting on the screen.

One last thing - ISO controls how sensitive is the camera's sensor to the light you let in. Most consumer cameras have an auto ISO setting. If you leave your camera in auto ISO, it can mess with your full manual exposure by suddenly deciding to make your "film" more sensitive to light.

DJ-S1 · July 23, 2004

That's a good description, Sid. How about clearing up one more thing for me: what's the difference between full auto mode and "P" mode?

Also, on my S1 in full manual, when I half-press the shutter on occasion I will get a red "-1" or "+2/3", etc in the upper left corner. I assume this is the camera telling me how far from the proper exposure it thinks I am?

patch29 · July 23, 2004

DJ-S1 wrote:

That's a good description, Sid. How about clearing up one more thing for me: what's the difference between full auto mode and "P" mode?

Also, on my S1 in full manual, when I half-press the shutter on occasion I will get a red "-1" or "+2/3", etc in the upper left corner. I assume this is the camera telling me how far from the proper exposure it thinks I am?

P mode typically still allows you to control certain setting, flash on/off, ISO, etc. Full Auto does everything for you, without any user input.

wxwax · July 23, 2004

DJ-S1 wrote:

Also, on my S1 in full manual, when I half-press the shutter on occasion I will get a red "-1" or "+2/3", etc in the upper left corner. I assume this is the camera telling me how far from the proper exposure it thinks I am?

Yes, I believe that's correct. I think it's giving you feedback in f-stops, so -1 would be one stop too dark.

DoctorIt · July 23, 2004

DJ-S1 wrote:

That's a good description, Sid. How about clearing up one more thing for me: what's the difference between full auto mode and "P" mode?

Also, on my S1 in full manual, when I half-press the shutter on occasion I will get a red "-1" or "+2/3", etc in the upper left corner. I assume this is the camera telling me how far from the proper exposure it thinks I am?

Careful with Canon's P mode... from what I've heard, their settings are a little atypical of what "Program" mode is known to be. All I know is that it sets aperture based on the closest and most distant object - basically, defaults to a pretty big depth of field. I never use it. Just use Av if you need a little help.

patch29 · July 23, 2004

DoctorIt wrote:

Careful with Canon's P mode... from what I've heard, their settings are a little atypical of what "Program" mode is known to be. All I know is that it sets aperture based on the closest and most distant object - basically, defaults to a pretty big depth of field. I never use it. Just use Av if you need a little help.

Just P mode should pick aperture and shutter speed. The mode you are talking about is DEP (not sure how it is written) which some cameras have and do not have. It is depth of field mode.

DJ-S1 · July 23, 2004

Thanks guys. I have been trying to force myself not to use auto settings much so that I can get all this stuff straight in my head.

Recently I have been staying with ISO50 for less noise and trying to keep f5 or so as long as the shutter speed seems reasonable. I read somewhere that f5 is the sweet spot for my lens as far as sharpness goes.

So I'm trying these settings to try to get crisper images.

But after reading some threads here, I think that a good bit of it may just be the JPEG compression anyway (I don't have RAW), and I need to learn USM and LAB curves to really get what I want...

DoctorIt · July 23, 2004

patch29 wrote:

Just P mode should pick aperture and shutter speed. The mode you are talking about is DEP (not sure how it is written) which some cameras have and do not have. It is depth of field mode.

Duh, you can see how rarely (read: never) I use either of those settings.

mercphoto · July 23, 2004

Tips

DJ-S1 wrote:

Recently I have been staying with ISO50 for less noise and trying to keep f5 or so as long as the shutter speed seems reasonable. I read somewhere that f5 is the sweet spot for my lens as far as sharpness goes. So I'm trying these settings to try to get crisper images.

But after reading some threads here, I think that a good bit of it may just be the JPEG compression anyway (I don't have RAW), and I need to learn USM and LAB curves to really get what I want...

While f5 might be the sweet spot for that lens, whether that gives you the crispest image or not is more dependant on WHAT you are trying to photograph. f5 will have a certain depth of field (which changes with the focal length and imager size). So if what you are trying to capture is deeper than your DOF then you will need to move away from the sweet spot of the lens to get a crisp image.

What in particular is "wrong" that you are tring to get more crisp?

I also need some help with the acronyms. What does USM mean? (I assume you are not talking about ultrasonic magnetic focusing lenses from Canon) and LAB curves?

cletus · July 23, 2004

mercphoto wrote:

I also need some help with the acronyms. What does USM mean? (I assume you are not talking about ultrasonic magnetic focusing lenses from Canon) and LAB curves?

USM - UnSharp Mask

LAB curves - Using the Curves adjustment while in LAB ([font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Luminance, A &

Color Mode
[/font]

DJ-S1 · July 23, 2004

mercphoto wrote:

While f5 might be the sweet spot for that lens, whether that gives you the crispest image or not is more dependant on WHAT you are trying to photograph. f5 will have a certain depth of field (which changes with the focal length and imager size). So if what you are trying to capture is deeper than your DOF then you will need to move away from the sweet spot of the lens to get a crisp image.

What in particular is "wrong" that you are tring to get more crisp?

I also need some help with the acronyms. What does USM mean? (I assume you are not talking about ultrasonic magnetic focusing lenses from Canon) and LAB curves?

Bill, it's hard for me to explain what I'm looking for. I see the shots here and they pop, they are very clean images. I know that I'm comparing my 3mp camera to 8mp dSLRs, but still; some of what I get straight off the camera is much "softer" than I want. I don't think it's a dof thing, I think I understand that part.

In following the threads here, I've learned a lot and one of those things is post-processing (photoshop) is very important. Unsharp mask in particular seems to be used a great deal and can produce the change from original shot to crisp print that I am trying to accomplish.

Didn't mean to hijack the thread with my questions, but Sid's post was great and struck a chord with me.

patch29 · July 23, 2004

DJ-S1 wrote:

Bill, it's hard for me to explain what I'm looking for. I see the shots here and they pop, they are very clean images. I know that I'm comparing my 3mp camera to 8mp dSLRs, but still; some of what I get straight off the camera is much "softer" than I want. I don't think it's a dof thing, I think I understand that part.

In following the threads here, I've learned a lot and one of those things is post-processing (photoshop) is very important. Unsharp mask in particular seems to be used a great deal and can produce the change from original shot to crisp print that I am trying to accomplish.

Didn't mean to hijack the thread with my questions, but Sid's post was great and struck a chord with me.

What settings are you using on your S1 for jpg size, etc?

wxwax · July 23, 2004

DJ-S1 wrote:

Bill, it's hard for me to explain what I'm looking for. I see the shots here and they pop, they are very clean images. I know that I'm comparing my 3mp camera to 8mp dSLRs, but still; some of what I get straight off the camera is much "softer" than I want. I don't think it's a dof thing, I think I understand that part.

A simple change in contrast during post-processing can really make an image pop. After adjusting the brightness levels, Contrast is always the next thing I play with. It really does make a huge difference.

DJ-S1 · July 23, 2004

patch29 wrote:

What settings are you using on your S1 for jpg size, etc?

Off the top of my head (I'm at work w/o the camera), superfine-large. It's the largest file size, whatever they call the settings.

What I don't know is what I have set for on-camera sharpening, saturation and contrast. I guess those are at default, since I didn't realize they were there until recently.

Some shots, especially full sunlight shots, have come out pretty sharp straight off the camera. This one isn't bad:

They are the minority though. Prolly mostly bad technique on my part, and not knowing how to 'shop it properly yet. I appreciate the support, ideas and answers I get here while I try to get better.

cmr164 · July 23, 2004

DJ-S1 wrote:

Bill, it's hard for me to explain what I'm looking for. I see the shots here and they pop, they are very clean images. I know that I'm comparing my 3mp camera to 8mp dSLRs, but still; some of what I get straight off the camera is much "softer" than I want. I don't think it's a dof thing, I think I understand that part.

In following the threads here, I've learned a lot and one of those things is post-processing (photoshop) is very important. Unsharp mask in particular seems to be used a great deal and can produce the change from original shot to crisp print that I am trying to accomplish.

Didn't mean to hijack the thread with my questions, but Sid's post was great and struck a chord with me.

3mp is plenty if you are not doing a lot of cropping. Most of the images I have on here (until 1 month ago) are from either a 2mp 1998 model dSLR or a 2mp pocket size consumer digicam.

Here is an example:

cliffrouse11baseball · July 24, 2004

Another quick question. Somebody said they use the histogram to shoot their pictures. What is the histogram supposed to look like. I mean is it supposed to be level throughout the whole picture or what....

patch29 · July 24, 2004

cliffrouse11baseball wrote:

Another quick question. Somebody said they use the histogram to shoot their pictures. What is the histogram supposed to look like. I mean is it supposed to be level throughout the whole picture or what....

It will look different with different subject. There is a very good description with photos that can be found at the Luminous-Landscape, here.

A Few Basic Questions>

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