Hello Tanya, Just shot my second wedding on the *istD yesterday. It seems that I got this one dialed in much better. Comments in-line.
Saturday, February 21, 2004, 8:20:02 PM, you wrote: TMP> Hey everyone! TMP> I do agree with Rob Studdert about the ease of deleting your entire memory TMP> card and have almost done this a number of times myself, and have also TMP> adopted Rob's strategy of never deleting in field to accomodate this. I also TMP> agree that removal of the CF card sucks, even with my tiny little fingers. TMP> I will be growing my fingernails slightly to counteract this! lol... I have always used this policy - just always have enough cards to do the job. It is not worth the time and bother. TMP> I had a major (well, minor really, but it generated alot more work for TMP> myself) catastrophe, when I arrived home after the first location shoot with TMP> the kids to discover that I'd had it set on manual white balance (rather TMP> than AUTO) the entire time - during which, I had shot in open shade, backlit TMP> situations, with full flash, with high speed flash, at sunset, with flash as TMP> daylight fill as well as a variety of other situations, and never having TMP> manually set the WB at all! This resulted in images with some pretty funky TMP> colour casts and lots of PS'ing on my behalf, but the following day, I set TMP> it back to Auto White Balance and the results were fine on the next shoot. So far, about the only time I change from auto WB is when shooting with my studio flashes - I find setting to flash does a better and more consistent job. Other than that, I leave it on auto and do minor corrections later if necessary. TMP> I have a couple of other grievances with the body that I am not sure are due TMP> to my inexperience with it or if they are manufacturing "let downs" - TMP> a) I have found that the preview shown on the LCD screen is not accurate TMP> and many shots that appear to be correctly exposed on previewing them are TMP> actually underexposed when I get them home. Likewise, those that appear to TMP> be overexposed or blownout are actually fine when I open them in PS. I am TMP> not sure if this is due to the brightness setting on the LCD or if it TMP> actually shows the image inaccurately, but even so, I am not relying on the TMP> LCD as a true "preview" of what the final image will look like. I believe that what you are experiencing is LCD brightness problem. I have noticed the same thing - but if you turn the brightness down you can more closely match your monitor. What I do, is while viewing the image, press the info button and take a quick look at the histogram to make sure nothing is blown out. TMP> b) Despite being set at ISO 400, I am having MAJOR exposure problems (both TMP> under and over)using the AF360fgz. This is a huge problem for me as one of TMP> the things I was excited about in purchasing the *istD was to have full TTL TMP> capabilities for flash exposure with it. Instead, I found that I needed to TMP> use the flash manually at all times to achieve the exposure that I needed TMP> for fill flash and slow sync flash etc when shooting the kids clothing. For this wedding I just did, all the outdoor shots were with the AF360FGZ with the mode switch on it set to HS (far right setting) and flash comp set to -1.0. ISO was set to 400. Weather was threatening to rain and we did have a few light sprinkles come down on us. I noticed no real problems with exposure. Are you sure that you set both the flash and body to HS? If not, you can have problems. TMP> c) It sucks that you can only use the high speed sync in P-TTL mode. If it TMP> was accurately outputting the flash in TTL mode, this wouldn't be a problem, TMP> but I am finding that I have to use it manually so can only sync up to TMP> 1/150th. See above. TMP> d) Too much noise on flat areas, even at ISO 400, using speeds no slower TMP> than 1/8th (however, admittedly, I forgot to turn the NR on). This is interesting. I have not noticed objectionable noise. This might be worth comparing with all owners - perhaps we all take a picture of the sky or something for comparison to see if there are differences with bodies or the expectations are different. TMP> I have been shooting with saturation and contrast levels reduced to preserve TMP> detail and then pumping them up in PS TMP> when I have needed to. The issue about images being soft hasn't affected me TMP> one bit, and I have been shooting with the sharpness set on normal. I find TMP> that for portraiture type stuff and fashion, such as the work that I do, it TMP> renders nice, flattering features on faces. Agreed. I keep all three at their middle settings (default). TMP> I also have a couple of questions - TMP> a) With the exposure compensation on the *istD, if I am using it with the TMP> AF360FGZ, how does it differ to the exposure compensation on the flash gun TMP> itself? Or is it exactly the same thing? For the indoor shots, I used an AF400T on a flash bracket in TTL mode with a Lumiquest Softbox on it. I found that dialing in -1.0 exposure comp on the body gave me just about the right exposure the entire night. ISO was set to 400 and shutter speed was 1/60. Aperture varied between 4 and 11 - mostly around 5.6. Exposure was just about the same as when I was shooting the 67II with TTL. This result was much better than the first wedding. TMP> b) In regards to the focal length multiplication thingy - it appears to me TMP> that when I look through a 50mm lens with the *istD, the subject does indeed TMP> look closer than if I look through the same lens on my MZ-6. Ryan seems to TMP> think that this shouldn't be the case and that it should simply be that it TMP> is a cropped version of what I see in the MZ-6 - I know that there has been TMP> discussions about this in the past, but I didn't see them, so I was just TMP> wondering what the general concensus of this is? I believe the difference here is that the viewfinder on the *istD is much bigger than normal (95%) which probably makes the image appear bigger. I think on the Nikon D100 and forthcoming D70 you would see it a bit more like a crop (smaller image in finder). This is one area where the *istD is ahead of the competition. TMP> c) I haven't shot in RAW as yet, as I have only just got the plug-in set up TMP> etc (and I haven't even bothered to install the Photo Lab software, I'd TMP> prefer to just stick with PS and Irfanview). BUT, I noticed that the files TMP> are HUGMUNGO (and TIFFS are even bigger) and with 512mb cards I can only fit TMP> 30 or so images on the card!! I was wanting to stay with 512mb cards just TMP> to get around the possibility of losing too many images should a card fail, TMP> but with only 30 or so images per card - this is totally impractical when TMP> shooting weddings etc. Just wondering what other wedding photographers are TMP> using? I saw that yesterday someone began to discuss this, claiming that TMP> most "Pros" shoot with JPEGs at their lowest compression. Wondering what TMP> kind of difference this makes in comparison to RAW, quality wise? I would TMP> need to be carrying around 8-10 512mb cards just for one wedding if I were TMP> to shoot RAW, or at least 5 and have to download images to my laptop a few TMP> times during the course of the day. On a practical level both of these TMP> options are a pain in the arse and it would suit me much better to just TMP> shoot JPG Large, if I could do it and preserve the quality that I need... At this stage, for me, I am shooting jpg fine. Storage and after the fact processing are bigger issues. Overall, for people oriented shots, it seems to me that the fine control requirements are not as high as shooting landscapes and such. As prices on cards come down and a really good raw converter that doesn't require me to buy Photoshop CS comes out, I may shoot raw. Another interesting thought, the photo rescue software that can find deleted images on cards (accidental loss, we hope) would have a much more difficult, if not impossible, time trying to indentify and restore raw images.
