Nikon D80.. (.NEF plug-in and other stuff...)

On 2007-08-07 10:42:34 -0400, maya said:


first of all, I don't know if everyone who was hanging out here last
February is still here, but I want to thank everyone who helped me with
my new Nikon D80 when I was in India last February.. I had been on a
Nikon F2AS for about 30 years, so transition to digital has been a bit
challenging, to say the least... I have lots of questions about the
D80, have been putting together a list (example: why does camera have a
hard time focusing when I switch to P shooting mode? (which I need to
do sometimes when I need to do exposure compensation... why does
exposure compensation work only in P mode? why can't I set White
Balance in most modes? don't remember which ones right now (am at
work, don't have camera with me now), but in most shooting modes White
Balance is grayed out in menu..)

main question I have now is: Photoshop CS2 won't open RAW (.NEF)
files.. even after I installed plug-in
(http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...01&fileID=2537)
followed instructions in PDF, put plug-in in right place...

as promised back in February, my photos can be seen here,
www.francesdelrio.com (although STILL have not posted all photos from
India trip.. I just purchased a new machine, and just ordered my copy
of PS.. was not able to do much PS-stuff on old machine..)
http://www.francesdelrio.com/

thank you very much...
Photoshp CS2 RAW works fine will all Nikon Cameras. Do you have Nikon
Capture or Nikon Catpure NX installed?


Jim
--
Jim

According to gowanoh :
1. Autofocus is the same regardless of shooting mode (P,M, A, S etc.).
However it is easy to misunderstand how to use the multiple autofocus
controls or to accidentally change them. Some lenses also have to be set
correctly.

One thing to look for on this matter is that the D80 (if it is
like the D70 which I have) *does* change AF mode between Auto and
Program. In particular, in Auto mode it selects the zone over the
closest part of the area being photographed. In Program mode, however,
depending on menu selections, it will either do the same auto-select, or
it will simply keep the same zone as last used. In the D70, it is
Menu selection 03 in the menu with the pencil icon and is called "

"AF-area mode"

which has the following selections:

1) Single Area
2) Dynamic Area
3) Closest Subject

The D70 has five zones -- arranged like this (use a fixed pitch font to
avoid distortion):


[ ]

[ ] [ ] [ ]

[ ]

and it can be moved around by the "poker chip" control -- unless you
have the switch below it labeled "L" set to the "L" position. This
means that bumping the poker chip will move the zone, and you need to
look into the viewfinder (after half-pressing the shutter relase) to see
which zone it is in. If it happens to be on a zone away from your
subject of interest, it will focus incorrectly. Whenever you
half-press the shutter release, the selected zone should flash red for a
moment -- perhaps depending on some menu settings which I haven't
re-visited since the camera was new. :-)

Note that the D80 may have more zones (since it is a newer
camera, but the basic principle should remain the same.

Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

thank you all very much for your responses.. so I guess bottom line is
I need to try Lightroom, Picture Project, or some other imaging sw of
that sort.. I have been using PS exclusively as an image-processing
program for about 12 years now, and I'm not sure how easily I would
"adapt" to some other programs, but am definitely looking into it (yes,
I do know image processing quite well...) I already have Lightroom
installed, and have been slowly delving into it.. it's so different from
what I'm used to (you can't just OPEN images, you have to import them..
etc.. I hate the levels thing in Lightroom.. and for some odd reason
am having a hard time with 'undo' function, history feature doesn't work
like in Photoshop..)

so you don't need to set White-Balance with RAW format (how does camera
know what lighting situation you're in? particularly indoor lighting?)
and what other advantages are there to shooting RAW? b/c the images are
very large and well, this thing that I can't open them with Photoshop is
a bit of a pain... (one poster suggested recording to "Adobe RGB", but
I can't find where you set this in menu..)

thank you very much....


DoN. Nichols wrote:
According to gowanoh :
1. Autofocus is the same regardless of shooting mode (P,M, A, S etc.).
However it is easy to misunderstand how to use the multiple autofocus
controls or to accidentally change them. Some lenses also have to be set
correctly.

One thing to look for on this matter is that the D80 (if it is
like the D70 which I have) *does* change AF mode between Auto and
Program. In particular, in Auto mode it selects the zone over the
closest part of the area being photographed. In Program mode, however,
depending on menu selections, it will either do the same auto-select, or
it will simply keep the same zone as last used. In the D70, it is
Menu selection 03 in the menu with the pencil icon and is called "

"AF-area mode"

which has the following selections:

1) Single Area
2) Dynamic Area
3) Closest Subject

The D70 has five zones -- arranged like this (use a fixed pitch font to
avoid distortion):


[ ]

[ ] [ ] [ ]

[ ]

and it can be moved around by the "poker chip" control -- unless you
have the switch below it labeled "L" set to the "L" position. This
means that bumping the poker chip will move the zone, and you need to
look into the viewfinder (after half-pressing the shutter relase) to see
which zone it is in. If it happens to be on a zone away from your
subject of interest, it will focus incorrectly. Whenever you
half-press the shutter release, the selected zone should flash red for a
moment -- perhaps depending on some menu settings which I haven't
re-visited since the camera was new. :-)

Note that the D80 may have more zones (since it is a newer
camera, but the basic principle should remain the same.

Good Luck,
DoN.

gowanoh wrote:

The D80, like every other dSLR I have seen, has too many options and menus
for any human being to remember and mastering the basics can be frustrating,
particularly since the manual is not always crystal clear.

The OP talked about using various modes... I simply shoot in Aperture
priority mode, then I know what I'm getting. The OP is used to film
cameras and can presumably handle this approach just fine.


--
Paul Furman Photography
http://edgehill.net
Bay Natives Nursery
http://www.baynatives.com

maya wrote:

thank you all very much for your responses.. so I guess bottom line is
I need to try Lightroom, Picture Project, or some other imaging sw of
that sort.. I have been using PS exclusively as an image-processing
program for about 12 years now, and I'm not sure how easily I would
"adapt" to some other programs, but am definitely looking into it (yes,
I do know image processing quite well...) I already have Lightroom
installed, and have been slowly delving into it.. it's so different from
what I'm used to (you can't just OPEN images, you have to import them..
etc.. I hate the levels thing in Lightroom.. and for some odd reason
am having a hard time with 'undo' function, history feature doesn't work
like in Photoshop..)

You said you've ordered CS3, that'll work. I open raw D200 files with
CS3 but it takes some fiddling with versions & DNG conversions, anyways
you are all set with CS3.

so you don't need to set White-Balance with RAW format (how does camera
know what lighting situation you're in? particularly indoor lighting?)
and what other advantages are there to shooting RAW?

White balance is easily changed with raw files, but you can do a custom
white balance on the D200 pretty easy with a little study of the manual
shooting a white card. The auto WB is pretty good and if not raw files
make it easy to apply a new WB to a whole set of images.

b/c the images are
very large and well, this thing that I can't open them with Photoshop is
a bit of a pain... (one poster suggested recording to "Adobe RGB", but
I can't find where you set this in menu..)

Again, this doesn't matter with raw files. Download a pdf version of the
manual so you can search by keyword. It's called color mode as I recall.

--
Paul Furman Photography
http://edgehill.net
Bay Natives Nursery
http://www.baynatives.com

Paul Furman wrote:
maya wrote:

thank you all very much for your responses.. so I guess bottom line
is I need to try Lightroom, Picture Project, or some other imaging sw
of that sort.. I have been using PS exclusively as an
image-processing program for about 12 years now, and I'm not sure how
easily I would "adapt" to some other programs, but am definitely
looking into it (yes, I do know image processing quite well...) I
already have Lightroom installed, and have been slowly delving into
it.. it's so different from what I'm used to (you can't just OPEN
images, you have to import them.. etc.. I hate the levels thing in
Lightroom.. and for some odd reason am having a hard time with 'undo'
function, history feature doesn't work like in Photoshop..)

You said you've ordered CS3, that'll work. I open raw D200 files with
CS3 but it takes some fiddling with versions & DNG conversions, anyways
you are all set with CS3.

so you don't need to set White-Balance with RAW format (how does
camera know what lighting situation you're in? particularly indoor
lighting?) and what other advantages are there to shooting RAW?

White balance is easily changed with raw files, but you can do a custom
white balance on the D200 pretty easy with a little study of the manual
shooting a white card. The auto WB is pretty good and if not raw files
make it easy to apply a new WB to a whole set of images.

b/c the images are very large and well, this thing that I can't open
them with Photoshop is a bit of a pain... (one poster suggested
recording to "Adobe RGB", but I can't find where you set this in menu..)

Again, this doesn't matter with raw files. Download a pdf version of the
manual so you can search by keyword. It's called color mode as I recall.


thank you very much.. what's url for the manual? I've seen it in this
ng before, I saved it once (by emailing it to myself, but have not been
able to successfully retrieve email profile from other machine..)

thank you..

maya wrote:

Paul Furman wrote:

Again, this doesn't matter with raw files. Download a pdf version of
the manual so you can search by keyword. It's called color mode as I
recall.


thank you very much.. what's url for the manual? I've seen it in this
ng before, I saved it once (by emailing it to myself, but have not been
able to successfully retrieve email profile from other machine..)

http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/...80_noprint.pdf

--
Paul Furman Photography
http://edgehill.net
Bay Natives Nursery
http://www.baynatives.com

According to maya :

thank you all very much for your responses.. so I guess bottom line is
I need to try Lightroom, Picture Project, or some other imaging sw of
that sort.. I have been using PS exclusively as an image-processing
program for about 12 years now, and I'm not sure how easily I would
"adapt" to some other programs

Since I use unix based systems, I have no experience in either
CS3 or Lightroom, so I'll skip over that.

[ ... ]


so you don't need to set White-Balance with RAW format (how does camera
know what lighting situation you're in? particularly indoor lighting?)

It analyzes what it sees and makes an educated guess if you have
it in auto white balance. (But this only has an effect on the JPEGs
anyway -- there is *no* white balance correction in the RAW -- that is
all up to what you do with your computer software.) Though in some
systems it is possible to pick up what the camera *would* have used for
white balance -- which is stored somewhere in the image file.

However -- I mentioned that it makes an educated guess?
Sometimes that guess can be very wrong -- if there is a strong color
cast to object -- the camera will try to "correct" it to something
closer to white.

and what other advantages are there to shooting RAW?

Retaining *all* of the information that the camera sensor saw.
Conversion to JPEG throws away information -- both dynamic range and
fine detail. You still have to make similar conversions before
printing, but you can control what gets thrown away -- and that can
sometimes make very big difference in the quality of the image. Also,
you can use something other than JPEG (which uses a lossy compression),
so you keep more of the fine detail. (To see just how bad JPEG can be,
take a B&W photo of detailed line drawings, convert it to JPEG, and then
zoom into the image looking at where lines meet at other than 90 degree
angles. (This includes tiny print, such as can be found in manuals for
machine tools showing an exploded view.)

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"maya" wrote in message ...

(example: why does camera have a hard time focusing when I switch to P
shooting mode? (which I need to do sometimes when I need to do exposure
compensation...

Sorry, don't know, I generally just use manual or aperture priority,
however, I've used some exposure compensation in M mode just fine, and A too
I thought.

why does exposure compensation work only in P mode?

No idea, I've used it in M (and I think A) well enough.

why can't I set White Balance in most modes?

Sorry, also don't know, I actually don't shoot JPG any longer, just NEF/RAW
so I don't really worry too much about it.

don't remember which ones right now (am at work, don't have
camera with me now), but in most shooting modes White Balance is grayed
out in menu..)

There is a button on the camera for changing white balance, rather easier
than trying to do it through the menus. Just push it, and look in the LCD
screen for the icon. Unless, of course, you are setting a specific temp of
white balance.


main question I have now is: Photoshop CS2 won't open RAW (.NEF) files..
even after I installed plug-in
(http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...01&fileID=2537)
followed instructions in PDF, put plug-in in right place...

Maybe you need a newer version of camera RAW, there should be a "check for
updates" somewhere in PS so it can check and download and install the newest
version. When I installed PS2, it just found the updates and installed
them. So far everything has been working great with the files from my D80.

On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:19:30 -0400, maya wrote:

the_niner_nation wrote:
"maya" wrote in message ...
the_niner_nation wrote:
"maya" wrote in message
...
first of all, I don't know if everyone who was hanging out here last
February is still here, but I want to thank everyone who helped me with
my new Nikon D80 when I was in India last February.. I had been on a
Nikon F2AS for about 30 years, so transition to digital has been a bit
challenging, to say the least... I have lots of questions about the
D80, have been putting together a list (example: why does camera have a
hard time focusing when I switch to P shooting mode? (which I need to do
sometimes when I need to do exposure compensation... why does exposure
compensation work only in P mode? why can't I set White Balance in most
modes? don't remember which ones right now (am at work, don't have
camera with me now), but in most shooting modes White Balance is grayed
out in menu..)

main question I have now is: Photoshop CS2 won't open RAW (.NEF)
files.. even after I installed plug-in
(http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...01&fileID=2537)
followed instructions in PDF, put plug-in in right place...

as promised back in February, my photos can be seen here,
www.francesdelrio.com (although STILL have not posted all photos from
India trip.. I just purchased a new machine, and just ordered my copy of
PS.. was not able to do much PS-stuff on old machine..)
http://www.francesdelrio.com/

thank you very much...

get a canon eos 400d ;-)
oh really? so Photoshop cannot open photos taken in format RAW with a
Nikon camera??????...





as far as i know, my neighbour has a nikon d80 and his adobe raw has no
problems opening the nef files...im not sure, but maybe you need the adobe
raw plug-in for it to work with cs2?

did you upload any of your india pics when you visited? love to see them..i
went this february..amazing place to take pictures.

yes, I did, as I mention in my OP.. www.francesdelrio.com... you also
went in February? what part(s) of India did you visit?

some of my India-photos didn't come out too good (too dark, not in
focus, etc.. since I was literally inaugurating the camera when I was
there and had never used a digital camera before.. so had to do a lot fo
adj's in Photoshop..)

as far as plug-in for .NEF: I did install plug-in at Adobe
(http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...01&fileID=2537)
I followed instructions in .pdf that comes with the plug-in, but .NEF
photos still won't open....

well, am at work, at home don't have PS yet, as am on brand-new machine,
ordered CS3 today, I hope this will solve problem (or it could make it
worse.....

thank you...



There is absolutely no problem opening and processing D80 NEF files
with CS2 and the proper ACR. I have processed thousands of them using
exactly that. Look elsewhere for the solution of the problem.