Took some pictures today...

I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image filtering
through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look "normal" to
me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a little?
Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new Nikon D70
and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came out real dark
for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very bright. Heck, the
snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera didn't seem to pick
it up.

http://www.photopiks.com/pics/

Ah yes the D70, oversaturated by default, Photoshop is your friend or adjust
in camera, snow is always a problem, take a few testers then try manual.

wrote in message
...
I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image filtering
through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look "normal" to
me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a little?
Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new Nikon D70
and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came out real dark
for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very bright. Heck,
the snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera didn't seem to
pick it up.

http://www.photopiks.com/pics/

Ya know, I selected VIVID which maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have
just let it be at default. I have Photoshop version 7 and several other
image editing software. Photoshop being the most powerful. I've always used
Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, since it has always been easy to use and doesn't take
as many resources.

When I was taking the pictures today, the glare off the LCD screen was
ridiculous. Picture re-viewing couldn't happen...so I never knew what kind
of images were being captured. I guess a professional would have known
without looking.


"Pete D" wrote in message
...
Ah yes the D70, oversaturated by default, Photoshop is your friend or
adjust in camera, snow is always a problem, take a few testers then try
manual.

wrote in message
...
I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image
filtering through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look
"normal" to me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a
little? Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new
Nikon D70 and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came
out real dark for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very
bright. Heck, the snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera
didn't seem to pick it up.

http://www.photopiks.com/pics/

I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image
filtering
through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look "normal" to
me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a little?

If you're capturing them RAW, then you should be able to do the color
correction, sharpening, etc. in your image editing program - don't rely on
the camera's preset modes to accomplish the task.

Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new Nikon
D70
and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came out real
dark
for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very bright. Heck,
the
snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera didn't seem to pick
it up.

Shooting snowy scenes with automatic metering tends to do that. Here's
why:

The automatic metering in a camera tends to look at the high, lows, and
mids of a scene, and try to balance for everything. They'll usually try to
make the sum of highs, mids, and lows add up to an even, moderate gray.
When your scene is snowy and brightly lit, nearly everything is very
bright - and in an attempt to make everything add up to a moderate gray, the
camera will usually underexpose most of the scene. Even if your camera is a
bit more intelligent, in a bright, snowy scene, a great deal of the scene
gets "blown out", and the camera will assume that it's overexposing - or at
leat try to keep from blowing so much out.

You can use levels or curves to correct the balance, and make the picture
look relatively decent. Of course, that DOES cut into your dynamic range:
So while it works, and will produce a relatively acceptable photo, it's not
ideal. If you're in a hurry and/or the photo isn't destined for the art
gallery, fix it later. If you're trying to get the best shot possible (or
just have the time), use manual mode or exposure compensation to increase
the exposure by a little bit.

steve

wrote:
Ya know, I selected VIVID which maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have
just let it be at default. I have Photoshop version 7 and several other
image editing software. Photoshop being the most powerful. I've always used
Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, since it has always been easy to use and doesn't take
as many resources.

When I was taking the pictures today, the glare off the LCD screen was
ridiculous. Picture re-viewing couldn't happen...so I never knew what kind
of images were being captured. I guess a professional would have known
without looking.

I don't know for sure with D70s as I own a Canon 10D, but the whole
point of capturing in raw is that all the processing of the image is
done AFTERWARDS. In other words, the settings you used on camera have
absolutely no bearing on the RAW file itself. You didn't say what
program you used to process the RAW files but I'm assuming you used
Photoshop's RAW plugin. That uses the camera's settings by default but
it gives you full control over whether you want to overide what was set
by the camera, or not.

My point is, when you're capturing with RAW, the settings (aside from
exposure settings like aperture, ISO and shutter speed, obviously) have
nothing to do with what is captured in the RAW file. You can make a
photo look however you want it to look using the RAW processor.

"Ubiquitous" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Ya know, I selected VIVID which maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should
have just let it be at default. I have Photoshop version 7 and several
other image editing software. Photoshop being the most powerful. I've
always used Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, since it has always been easy to use
and doesn't take as many resources.

When I was taking the pictures today, the glare off the LCD screen was
ridiculous. Picture re-viewing couldn't happen...so I never knew what
kind of images were being captured. I guess a professional would have
known without looking.

I don't know for sure with D70s as I own a Canon 10D, but the whole point
of capturing in raw is that all the processing of the image is done
AFTERWARDS. In other words, the settings you used on camera have
absolutely no bearing on the RAW file itself. You didn't say what program
you used to process the RAW files but I'm assuming you used Photoshop's
RAW plugin. That uses the camera's settings by default but it gives you
full control over whether you want to overide what was set by the camera,
or not.

My point is, when you're capturing with RAW, the settings (aside from
exposure settings like aperture, ISO and shutter speed, obviously) have
nothing to do with what is captured in the RAW file. You can make a photo
look however you want it to look using the RAW processor.

Of course you are correct, as I said though manual is your friend and as
another poster said, exposure compensation should help.

On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 02:45:33 -0500, wrote:

I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image filtering
through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look "normal" to
me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a little?
Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new Nikon D70
and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came out real dark
for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very bright. Heck, the
snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera didn't seem to pick
it up.

http://www.photopiks.com/pics/


Things like saturation, white point, sharpening,
etc can be changed and "fixed up" in the RAW
converter... but of course the original exposure
must be pretty much correct, ie., no pixels off-
scale at either end.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

wrote:
I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image filtering
through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look "normal" to
me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a little?
Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new Nikon D70
and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came out real dark
for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very bright. Heck, the
snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera didn't seem to pick
it up.

http://www.photopiks.com/pics/



Bright snow, and bright sun can give automatic metering trouble. It
appears that you need to switch to spot metering for this type of picture.


--
Ron Hunter

My mistake for sure. I used Nikon's own "PictureIt" to export all the images
to JPG format. I didn't use Photoshop this time yet. Since I used Nikon's
own software, I would assume the images were exported with the camera
setting, "vivid". Next time, and there will be many...I will use Photoshop
to make the images look visually better. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder...but when some thing just looks bad a lot of people agree.

"Ubiquitous" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Ya know, I selected VIVID which maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should
have just let it be at default. I have Photoshop version 7 and several
other image editing software. Photoshop being the most powerful. I've
always used Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, since it has always been easy to use
and doesn't take as many resources.

When I was taking the pictures today, the glare off the LCD screen was
ridiculous. Picture re-viewing couldn't happen...so I never knew what
kind of images were being captured. I guess a professional would have
known without looking.

I don't know for sure with D70s as I own a Canon 10D, but the whole point
of capturing in raw is that all the processing of the image is done
AFTERWARDS. In other words, the settings you used on camera have
absolutely no bearing on the RAW file itself. You didn't say what program
you used to process the RAW files but I'm assuming you used Photoshop's
RAW plugin. That uses the camera's settings by default but it gives you
full control over whether you want to overide what was set by the camera,
or not.

My point is, when you're capturing with RAW, the settings (aside from
exposure settings like aperture, ISO and shutter speed, obviously) have
nothing to do with what is captured in the RAW file. You can make a photo
look however you want it to look using the RAW processor.

I went back out to take some pictures with the snow in them and I did use
exposure compensation which worked quite well. Just a few adjustments with
it brightened up the whole image.

"Ron Hunter" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I took some pictures today. Captured them in RAW format then had to of
course compress them to put them online. I selected "vivid" image
filtering
through the camera's settings. Well, some just don't look "normal" to
me...almost too sharp. Maybe I should have softened them up a little?
Anyway...let me have the bad news please. I need it. I have a new Nikon
D70
and shot them in P mode making minor changes. The last 6 came out real
dark
for some reason, even though my eyes indicated it was very bright. Heck,
the
snow itself was reflecting some thing...but the camera didn't seem to
pick
it up.

http://www.photopiks.com/pics/



Bright snow, and bright sun can give automatic metering trouble. It
appears that you need to switch to spot metering for this type of picture.


--
Ron Hunter