Thanks to all who have so patiently tried to answer my questions concerning various aspects of digital photography. Contrary to how it may appear, I actually did learn something from the discourse.
A lot of it is still over my head, but I believe, as surely and timely as the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon, that it will all fall together someday. I never realized how hard it is to draw a straight line until I tried to do it with a computer, nor how hard it is to take a picture until I tried it with a digital camera. You guys have the ball half way down the field while I'm still trying to figure out what page you're on! Bob Nicholson __________________________________________ --- In [email protected], Simon Parent <sparen...@...> wrote: > > Yes Bob, I do use the histogram when post processing my images. I found > sometime the computer screen fool you on the image clarity and brightness > and when you get it print, it is too dark. My screens are calibrated now so > it is not as bad. I started to use the "show" clipping when adjusting the > tones, it help to adjust the HDR in images with high contrast. Often the > case when photographing trains. > > I rarely over expose high contrast images now with the HDR function in my > camera. First I was, most of the time, manually reducing the exposure by > 0.03 or 0.07 stops, then after many experiment, I now shoot with auto HDR > where the camera will under expose automatically images with high contrast. > Now the nice thing about this is RAW images do not get affected by the auto > HDR, only jpegs (the camera's jpeg engine will automatically adjust the > tones and deliver usually a nice image). However, I still prefer to adjust > them myself from the RAW file in Lightroom 3. Until recently, this > technique to under expose were showing digital noise in the dark area when > lighted up but our days, most recent prosumer and professional cameras have > an incredible noise control (and it keeps improving), combined with the > noise reduction algorithm from Adobe's Lightroom and Photoshop CS5, it is > possible in my opinion to get very nice high contrast images with single > shots. > > Simon > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Bob Werre > Sent: October-25-10 11:24 AM > To: [email protected] > Cc: shabbona_rr > Subject: Re: {S-Scale List} Re: Cameras > > Roger, Bob, Peter, Simon and anybody who is still interested! > > First off the histogram is one of the most important things to check > when shooting. It is basically a digital map of that image showing the > range of shadows and highlites. It comes in real handy when determining > what will show properly. For instance if your shooting a dark Pennsy > GG-1 near a dark building but you pose a bride dressed in white next to > those items you'll want to know what will reproduce in the shot, what > will be lost and what will be saved. The usual thing to do is say--Wow > that's dark scene, I'll open up a stop or two and shoot--which is what > your camera's meter is liable to do. If you do that, you will likely > overexposure the bride and the bride's father won't pay you for the > shot. The histogram would show a 'spike' where the white would be and a > low level of information in the shadows. If you 'open up' too much the > brides dress and it's corresponding spike will go beyond the > graph--meaning you've lot detail. If you overexpose with digital you'll > never recover the image--the color negative that you probably shot back > in film days was designed to accept a lot of overexposure and still be > printable. With digital, if it's over exposed, better luck next time. > > When it comes to RAW and working with it, I did a whole day seminar that > solved tons of problems, so it does take some learning time and practice > time to really understand how it works. One of the advantages of using > the Adobe system (Adobe is somewhat like MS--considered pretty close to > God himself) is that you do a DNG conversion first--that Digital > Negative is becoming the standard of the industry. The Digital Negative > Converter is a free download from Adobe I believe. Once you have the > negative it goes into the RAW converter. This is where a lot magic > happens! You can make adjustments to the RAW file without destroying > the original data--impossible in the past! For instance you can crop an > image creative a JEPG and email it. A week later you can pick up that > same DNG, put in back into the RAW converter create a high end color > image in TIFF format to be used for a large poster. So its very much > like making several trips to the darkroom or photo lab. So keeping the > RAW file or DNG is just like storing a piece of film that can be used > over and over again without throwing away data. Peter is incorrect in > stating that editing in TIFF retains all the data. If you have to make > a radical color change or if you try to save a poor exposed image you > will notice a unfortunate change in the histogram (there it is again). > Often times when you have to make these changes the histogram will look > like a comb. It will have spikes of detail next of open areas; and the > slang term is called combing. The open areas contain no data, because > you threw it away often resulting in posterization of the image. Now he > is correct in stating that you can save the image many times without > loss of quality however. > > My recent updating of computers hopefully will keep me in the loop in > processing many large files in rapid fire time span. We did things like > arrange hard drives into a RAID, we will take some more and put them > into a Drobro. This new box has 'time machine' built into the Snow > Leopard--man we come a long way from Mac and cheese! > > Bob Werre > BobWphoto.com > > > > On 10/22/10 7:38 PM, shabbona_rr wrote: > > > > That's one reason I haven't succumbed to DCC. It's one more digitized > > headache I can live without, and I would rather use my obviously > > limited brain capacity on more productive pursuits. > > > > Knowing how much time I spend on electronic nincompoopery anyway, I > > don't know how some of these people get so much done, yet, I know they > > do, because we see the results of their efforts every day. > > > > The other day, on some website, someone was raving about the value of > > histograms in improving photographs, so I looked it up. I might as > > well have been up against a ten foot thick glass wall. I could > > visually see people happily applying information from histograms to > > improve their pictures, but I had no idea what they were doing, or how > > they got to the other side of that glass wall! > > > > On the other hand, I FNF for the day was installing a microswitch to > > kill the North Yard storage tracks at Terminal District when the > > switch is lined against them. It worked and I feel great. Life is good! > > > > "S"tring Bob > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
