1 sharp and great. 3 not so good. Why are the others less interesting?

[Fastfwd13]

I guess the others suffered from not having ISO 100, perfect light and very fast shutter values. But there is something about the crop I did in the first one that I really like and can't seem to find how to crop the other ones. Ideas?

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_K_iUZPPA1oI/SpW_YdjmjLI/AAAAAAAABEQ/zh3rBEwAS_A/dpp_IMG_0399.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_K_iUZPPA1oI/SpW_Zrhra_I/AAAAAAAABEY/7ms0PiDG6Ao/dpp_IMG_0648.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_K_iUZPPA1oI/SpW_ZPtQxiI/AAAAAAAABEU/2_LW5RaCr8o/dpp_IMG_0402.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_K_iUZPPA1oI/SpW_aceHg9I/AAAAAAAABEc/7PPvkH5cS38/dpp_IMG_0705.JPG

[silvrr]

I think you forgot the pics

[Fastfwd13]

Anyone else? I can see them just fine.

[amethyst dragon]

Nope. No pictures...

[Fastfwd13]

Trying from flickr instead of picasa:

Sharp one that I love:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2525/3859878943_47f95e350c_b.jpg

[Fastfwd13]

2 not so great
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2550/3860663212_e3ee3f9774_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2498/3860667218_5e84209ae4_b.jpg

[RRocket]

what lens and aperture?

[Clay Kerri]

I've found that 90 percent of photos can benefit from being sharpened a tiny bit in post production. If you were shooting in autofocus mode, then the second shot just barely missed. The other possibillity was that you had a really low aperture or shutter speed, making the images blur a bit.

I love that first shot though =D

[Fastfwd13]

what lens and aperture?

17-55mm f2.8; my only lens for now

The good one was f4 - ISO 100 - 1/400
The second one was f4 - ISO 100 - 1/50

The third was f2.8 - ISO 100 - 1/1000 exposure -1/3 as I was shooting in AEB mode by that time after noticing a large number of pics with overexposed areas.

All shot in Av mode which is almost the only setting I use on my camera.

[chopper5654]

beauty must be in the eyes of the beholder.

1 is underexposed to me. and the expression isnt doing much. (obv personal opinion)
2 is better than 1.
3 is still fine, but their right cheeks are a bit blown. the expressions are fabulous. i would crop tighter from the bottom, though, and get rid of some of the grass serving as dead space.

the exposures in 2 and 3 are better than 1, by far.

[Fastfwd13]

beauty must be in the eyes of the beholder.

1 is underexposed to me. and the expression isnt doing much. (obv personal opinion)
2 is better than 1.
3 is still fine, but their right cheeks are a bit blown. the expressions are fabulous. i would crop tighter from the bottom, though, and get rid of some of the grass serving as dead space.

the exposures in 2 and 3 are better than 1, by far.

Those are from raw files so I can correct exposure up to a certain point. I use a laptop screen so I try not to play around with this too much as I know that the screen is not very good.

#1 You mean that you would expose the subject more and blow up the background or would you try to selectively expose more of the subject with a selection?

thanks for the advice about #3 I was cropping from a 3:2 box and since this is not going to print anyway there is no reason why I can't just crop it "panorama" style in something closer to 4:2

[focus.pocus]

fill flash on the 1st one would have been great... looks like #2 & #3 have issues with the PP... just mho

[chopper5654]

if i had the software, i would fill it in a little without disturbing the b/g. but, since i dont, personally, i expose for the face and blow a little of the b/g most times. however, i am no stranger to fill flash, either. and, this, as mentioned, is a good candidate for fill.

i would play around in pp with it and see what different things look like. by that i mean bringing the brightness up a bit with levels adjustments first off. i want to see how delicate that playground equip is. i dont think you would blow much other than the sky.

[gonzogolf]

Those are from raw files so I can correct exposure up to a certain point. I use a laptop screen so I try not to play around with this too much as I know that the screen is not very good.



Dont rely on what you see on the screen, i know thats hard but with laptops angle of view can change things immensely. Use the histogram on your raw conversion program to get your highlights where they should be and then you will be in the ballpark.

[Fastfwd13]

Dont rely on what you see on the screen, i know thats hard but with laptops angle of view can change things immensely. Use the histogram on your raw conversion program to get your highlights where they should be and then you will be in the ballpark.

Adjusting exposure from the histogram is pretty easy and what my eyes tell me is the best usually matches with what DPP histograms tells me. I can also correct white balance up to a certain point when it's clearly off.

I don't understand how the histogram can tell me where to put highlights? Do you have a web tutorial link or can you write your own process?

[gonzogolf]

Its pretty simple, when you are adjusting exposure in DPP just make sure if there are any whites in the image that your adjustment makes the right side of the curve reach the edge of the histogram so that your highlights are not blown out, but are still white. After that you can always adjust on the lower end using contrast, levels, curves to adjust the midtones and shadows. What program are you editing with? I like ACR from photoshop better than DPP but its been a while since I used DPP.

[Fastfwd13]

...
What program are you editing with?

Right now I use DPP but have only been at it for one week. I have tried the demo of lightroom but I think I prefer DPP even without taking cost into the equation.

What I currently do is adjust white balance first, usually with the preset such as tungsten, flash, cloudy, ...

Then I adjust exposure to what looks good to me which usually ends up with the "mountain" part of the histogram being at 0.0 or very close

After that I move to the RGB panel and add contrast until it looks right to me which is often just at the point where I start losing very small parts of the histogram to the left and right.

Those pictures probably did not receive that exact treatment as I am still refining what I like by trial/error and I do use a laptop screen so what looks good to me right now may not look the best a an EIZO(sp?) screen.

I may consider getting a better screen in the future if I ever want to print a few of my best pictures. Right now I want to experiment with getting a small tablet and photoshop elements. And keep shooting a lot :)

I'm planning on going back to my bike training route the evening with camera+tripod and will be going to old Montreal's port tomorrow for the "ancient time" market weekend. I'll see what I can get out of that.

[chopper5654]

fastfwrd,

if you are looking for the very basics, i would recommend your ZoomBrowserEX software. it also came with your camera if DPP did.

under the "edit" tab, i will pull the drop menu down and click on "level adjustment." that will show a historgram with three slider arrows on it. the first is all the way to the left. there is one all the way to the right and one in the middle, too.

pull the one on the left so it almost touches the left side of where your histogram reaches the "ground." pull the right one to where the right side touches the ground. and, the one in the middle will darken the midtones if you slide it right, and lighten them if you slide it left.

that will get you the basics of adjusting the midtones of your photos. and, you will also rarely have to adjust brightness or contrast any further. once comfortable there, i would dive back into DPP and play around. but, i will always use ZoomBrowser for super fast tweaks when i shoot jpeg. it really cuts the processing time down for us hobbyists that dont want to get too involved with all the pp stuff.

[Fastfwd13]

if you are looking for the very basics, i would recommend your ZoomBrowserEX software. it also came with your camera if DPP did.

Thanks for the advice but...

I want to start from the basic but get to where I can consistently produce good results out of the camera and after PP. I already decided to shoot in RAW only after seeing what I can fix to white balance and exposure if I make a mistake.

I'll keep playing with DPP and trying to find any tutorial I can to give me hints.

[gonzogolf]

The levels fix that chopper is describing is a basic adjustment that most of us apply to every picture we process. I understand your desire to get it right in the camera, I shot film most of my career and I saw post processing as altering the shot when I started too. But the reality is if you arent doing levels and curve adjustments to your shots you are hampering yourself.

[chopper5654]

The levels fix that chopper is describing is a basic adjustment that most of us apply to every picture we process. I understand your desire to get it right in the camera, I shot film most of my career and I saw post processing as altering the shot when I started too. But the reality is if you arent doing levels and curve adjustments to your shots you are hampering yourself.

i was a film purist, too. i find HDR to be "cheating," but as i look at more shots, i see the need for it on occasion. try all you want to get things right "in camera," but there is always a little tweaking to be done. i only suggested the easiest and fastest way to both stay pure and cut the time. however, if people want to spend more time in pp than actually shooting the shots, so be it. (not that that is what OP was saying. its just that lots of people do WAY too much in pp and overcomplicate things.....slowing their growth curve.)

[Fastfwd13]

My phrasing was not quite right. I meant that I want to get the shot right in the camera as much as possible but I also want to learn PP and not just in a basic way.

Also since I shoot in RAW I believe that I have to use DPP or some other raw converter. As far as I know zoombrowser does not support RAW. I was wondering what do you guys look for in the histogram on DPP to know when your exposure, contrast, brightness and shadows are right.

[gonzogolf]

My phrasing was not quite right. I meant that I want to get the shot right in the camera as much as possible but I also want to learn PP and not just in a basic way.

Also since I shoot in RAW I believe that I have to use DPP or some other raw converter. As far as I know zoombrowser does not support RAW. I was wondering what do you guys look for in the histogram on DPP to know when your exposure, contrast, brightness and shadows are right.


You mentioned that hump of your histogram was right in the middle usually. That might not be such a good thing. It is if you have shots that have an very boring tonal range. Have you ever heard of the phrase expose to the right when shooting? It basically means when you check your exposure in the camera's histogram you want your highlights as close to the right side of the scale as possible. It keeps your highlights bright without any loss of detail. When you are adjusting your exposure via DPP do the same thing. Boost your exposure until the right edge of your hump bumps against the right side of your histogram. It keeps you from blowing out the highlights and its easier to adjust the mid and dark tones with a contrast or curves adjustment.