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Anthony Lound
{K:6661} 8/18/2005
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Thank you very much Paul. THIS kind of sage advice is what I look for in this site, aside from the sheer pleasure of seeing magnificent photography! I shot this pic the very night I bought the cam in Dallas and as you say I should've ramped the ISO absent tripod :) I must say I'm finding it a bit hard to master the controls of the D70 even now. I wish it had a simple legacy screen mode showing an big analogue plus and minus template with a moving needle, like my old Nikkormat :)
Best,
Anthony
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Paul Lara
{K:88111} 8/18/2005
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Yes, as a matter of routine, I underexpose my digital shots by 1/3 to 1/2 stop, then bring it back via levels adjustment in PS.
Unless you're shooting raw, overexposed = unrecoverable detail in digital photography, as the data is clipped in a jpeg.
In this case, i would have boosted the speed greatly (to 1600) in order to have a faster shutter speed. Though you end up with more noise in the shot, you can remove that with software (I use Neat Image) but you cannot really undo camera blur, as you have so slightly in this shot, Anthony.
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Ellen Smith
{K:14418} 8/17/2005
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Oh well it may remain a mystery....
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Anthony Lound
{K:6661} 8/17/2005
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BUT (hehe) I CAN understand why the D70's deliberate UNDER-exposure off-cam can allow one to get more detail from otherwise over-exposed highlights. I think I'm gonna go crazy... WOO :)
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Anthony Lound
{K:6661} 8/17/2005
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I *know* - it's that LAST thing I'd have thought of to bring out more detail because you and I know that raising contrast usually DESTROYS detail. Adunno - maybe someone can explain.
Anthony
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Ellen Smith
{K:14418} 8/17/2005
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Oh yeah that is a dramatic difference. Contrast you say (shaking my head)? I would never have touched that. I haven't had much experience doing night shots and when I do they are awful. One day I'll get the OMG shot.
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Ellen Smith
{K:14418} 8/16/2005
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Oh gosh yes that made great sense and it helps to explain a lot. Had my cam for about 2 months, I mash buttons take a ridicules number of shots read the book and go shot some more. It's forces me to make mistakes and then learn from them. It's slow but the lessons stay put. Thanks a bunch Anthony.
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Anthony Lound
{K:6661} 8/16/2005
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Um...continued: so following Kay McIntire's dead useful advice and practical demonstration - see my earlier pic called Dallas TX), I went back to my original shot of Dallas in Photoshop and found that by raising contrast (of all things) all this extra detail appeared! I also rotated the image by 1 degree anti-clockwise hehe.
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Anthony Lound
{K:6661} 8/16/2005
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Hallo again Ellen. Well, the consensus is that the D70 was deliberately designed by Nikon to underexpose by maybe a third of a stop in order to prevent irrecoverable washed out highlights. So when one looks at the pics straight from the camera (off-cam, no post-processing) they invariably look underexposed unsaturated, lacking contrast and flat. I can certainly vouch for that appearance pre-processing. BUT - this was deliberate in order to allow more data into the file for processing in PS etc because there's more data in the highlights to work with, and from which more detail can be extracted. Having said all that, I'm not entirely sure why UNDER-exposure should allow one to recover detail that's not visible in the D70's pics straight off-cam (ie no post-processing). Gosh, I hope this makes some sense!
Anthony
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Ellen Smith
{K:14418} 8/16/2005
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I have a D70 and I'm still new to it, can you give me a little bit more information on what you did and what you mean by data off-cam. Excellent shot it's just loaded with details.
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Jose Ignacio (Nacho) Garcia Barcia
{K:96391} 8/16/2005
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wonderful tones. beautiful composition.
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