Here's the set up; it was night time and dark, my subject(s) were moving (certain parts faster than others), they weren't lit very well, I was about 60 feet from my subject(s), no tripod and an f3.5 to 6.3 lens. The lens was set at 130mm and f6 with a shutter speed of 1/40th of a second. The flash on the D300 was cranked all the way up but it still wasn't enough to make a difference.
This is the original photo as taken, only converted to a JPEG in photoshop.
The second image is after I tweaked it in the RAW converter changing the exposure, brightness, contrast and adding a little fill light, all adjustments in the RAW converter. Shooting in RAW saved an otherwise unuseable photo. I might mention that I tried to adjust the lighting of the first image in photoshop and not the RAW converter but it left a lot of grain in the photo that the adjustments in the RAW converter didn't.
Granted, this could have all been avoided by having something other than the on board flash, a faster lens and being a lot closer but I had to use what I had. Shooting in RAW isn't a bad thing.
You explained it well. The visual images supported the text perfectly for me! Now if I would just take the time to learn photo shop. Maybe someday..............
ReplyDeleteParker, the easiest way to learn is to just do (and ask Paul and Q).
ReplyDeleteI would start with a copy of "Elements" before I went to a full blown version of Photoshop. The newest version of Photoshop, CS5, is around $500-$700. Adobe just came out with a new version of Elements which is Elements 10. You can get a copy of Elements really, really cheap (like free) if you know somebody, hint, hint. LOL
Elements is a great program and isn't that hard to learn. Y0u can do just about anything you want in Elements and would probably never need the full blow version of photoshop.
Thanks for sharing. Nice photo too.
ReplyDeleteYou really saved this photo. It's amazing how this could even be the same photo. Dori knows more about photoshop than I do...we keep saying we are going to get photoshop. I know we will someday! =)
ReplyDeleteGood job there brother! There's another alternative to shoot in this low light is that dial to A mode, set to f/3.5, and ISO 1600 or more "if the noise level is acceptable on camera". Then you should get faster shutter speed than 1/40 sec.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in this situation, you want to slow down the shutter speed to capture the movements of the dancers by looking at the blurry grass skirt.
The blurry grass skirt, uh, yea, that's what I was looking at!! LOL
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I didn't even think about running the ISO up until after the luau was over. I still can't get use to being able to change that from my old film days when a roll was shot all the same.
I need to put a sticky note on my camera to remind me!
By the way, if you using flash to shoot anything further than 15', forget it, you just wasting your battery. Normally, the light from your flash will fall off around 15' according to Nikon manual.
ReplyDeleteYea, I knew that one but I thought I would try to get anything I could out there to help.
ReplyDeleteI love shooting in RAW, but even with jpegs, I always start manipulations with the RAW converter. Often that's all I need to do.
ReplyDeleteGood explanation and examples to go with! Thank you. I didn't know that shooting raw would reduce low light grain in the finished photo as opposed to shooting JPEG.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get my 36mp D800 I can set it to shoot RAW + JPEG fine. Should only take 60-70 mega-bites per picture... Let's see that would be what... 30 pictures on a 2 gig card?
I think you'll need to jump to some bigger memory cards Paul and get a spare hard drive and a new computer.... LOL
ReplyDeleteThe $3,000.00 D800 is starting to sound more like $5,000.00 by the time I get everything to go with! Now how am I ever going to "sell" this to the wife? LOL
ReplyDeleteRon what RAW converter do you find works best for you?
Paul, I've used the one that comes with Nikon's NX2 and the one that comes with Adobe Photoshop (and elements). I prefer the one in photoshop. It seems to have better adjustments to me than NX2.
ReplyDeleteI think Q uses the converter in NX2all the time though. I have looked at purchasing some of the dedicated RAW converter programs but I have never found the need. The one in photoshop works great for me.
I'll have to take some time and play with the RAW converter in Photoshop. Photoshop is already my editor of choice.
ReplyDeleteEvery year or so I try shooting RAW but each time I find it takes too much fiddling around just to see what you shot and go back to JPEG. For 90% of the pictures I take there is no advantage shooting RAW over JPEG. I guess it would be for the remaining 10% where shooting RAW would shine!
I was the same way Paul but once you start shooting in RAW I don't think you will ever go back to JPEG. I hate it now when I (or Cheryl) use the point and shoot and it only shoots in JPEG. That reminds me, I need to buy a new point and shoot that shoots RAW images. LOL
ReplyDeleteBeing able to adjust exposure, white balance, etc. in the photo itself before you make any fine tune ups in photoshop really makes a big difference.
You need to download the Nikon codec for viewing RAW images on your computer. If you don't you can't see the images like you do the JPEGs in thumbnails. Once you install the codec then the RAW thumbnails will appear just like the JPEG thumbnails. This makes it sooo much easier to work with the RAW images.
Here's the link to the codec.
ReplyDeletehttp://nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/
I think most of the camera manufacturers make their own codecs for this and I think Microsoft even has one that supports several different brands of cameras.
Thanks for the link I'll install this and give RAW another go around.
ReplyDelete