Shel. I think you are misreading me a bit. I don't think I am "relying too much on software to get good results". I did _not_ say: Don't worry about exposure, getting it right in the camera is for old farts. Let the super-duper-mega-auto functions in RSE do the job for you ;-)
My attitude is: Getting right exposure in the first place is better than tweaking later. No doubt about that, in my mind. Under difficult conditions I do use centre weighted or spot metering. Under regular conditions I tend to use the multi pattern system. I also study histogram closely when needed. After a while I have been quite good at predicting how the DS behaves under different conditions. As I have several times. I have shot a lot more than a couple of rolls of slides in my past. There I had no software to lean on, just centre weighted metering. I'm not pretending to be an expert, but I do have some experience. What I really had trouble with when going digital was to understand how to control the pictures when converting raw files. After changing to RSE/RSP my skills have improved. The auto functions gave me a baseline, something to start my experiments from. I'm not a master yet, but I am getting better. My point in my post to Rick was that the latitude (I called it headroom) raw gives, is very handy when the camera behaves unpredictable. As we all know it does now and then. Back to "relying too much on software". I would say that shooting jgp is exactly doing that. When leaving the job to the logarithms in the camera, you have very little control. This makes it harder to get to know the media and the tool. Are you with me on this, Shel? Tim Mostly harmless (just plain Norwegian) Never underestimate the power of stupidity in large crowds (Very freely after Arthur C. Clarke, or some other clever guy) > -----Original Message----- > From: Shel Belinkoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 20. mars 2006 15:09 > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: ist D exposure question > > A better way to be sure you get it right is to learn how to expose > properly > in the first place. The DS and the D offer spot metering. You could try > experimenting (and learning) with that. Shooting RAW may give you some > additional latitude, but there is no substitute for proper exposure. > > It sounds like you're relying too much on software to get good results. > It > may be difficult to return from working in that way. Learn the right > exposure in the beginning. You will have better photos forever. By > relying on software, you'll never learn how to expose. > > Shel > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Tim Øsleby > > > Whatever mode you used, my guess is that the camera went for the grey in > the > > sky behind the trees. It can be rather tricky to figure out what the > meter > > will think. Also in Av and Tv mode. So there is only one way to be sure > to > > get it right. Shooting raw. > > > > When I bought the camera (a DS), I had a lot of frustrations myself. > After a > > while I tried raw, but could not get on top of converting. Then I > downloaded > > Rawshooter Essential. This program has some auto correction features > that > > were just what I needed. All I had to do was using ALT + E, and the > program > > suggested a conversion. Often this is close to a good image, and it sure > was > > a good starting point, to play with the image. I have learned a lot in a > > matter of little time using this. > > > > Most likely you will end up using raw sooner or later. So what I am > saying > > is that _now_ might be the time to take that step. The general quality > is > > better, and it does give you more headroom when shooting. > > > > Now I have upgraded to RSP, the pay version of RSE. There I have levels, > > curves and cropping in the converter. So now I do most of the tweaking > in > > one program. The downside of this is that it makes me a bad > photoshooper. > > But for now, I can live with that. > >
