Battery management

[Elizabeth Schott]

Mike, I can't wait to see some of your people (young ladies) shots! Did you manipulate the flower images at all on your computer?

Even though I don't have the Nikon (jealous here), I agree with Marvin. Shoot your images RAW - mine does an automatic JPEG, you will be happy when you bring them into your image software. It is worth buying a new memory card with tons of megs, then you have an extra for added shots.

Are you excited with the camera? I am so anxious to hear how you like it, plus Marvin - how do you like yours?

[Marvin Mattelson]

Beth,

I've been very busy lately, finishing up the semester at SVA, preparing for my workshops, and getting it together to go tothe PSOA even. I'll be going over the manual with a fine tooth comb on the train ride from NY to Boston. I've played with it a little but I like to understand things inside out before I take them into battle. The myriad of adjustments seem to demand a degree in electrical engineering. I'm considering applying to MIT while I'm in Boston.

[Mike McCarty]

Beth,

The only thing I did was crop them way down then reduced to forum size. I didn't tamper with the color at all. Here's the original image of the red snapdragon.

Garth,

In reality one usually gains 25% more image number capacity, as the card fills up.

I assume that the camera is making some worst case judgments early on? Am I to assume that the number of images that it is giving me with an empty card, 129, will grow to 160+- by the time the card is almost filled to capacity? Is this a common phenomenon?

Marvin,

Tomorrow I'm going to go pretty much on auto pilot, I'll let you know how it turns out (mostly baby pictures at the local rose garden).

I don't think I could sneak this last image in anywhere else, my daughters last high school concert choir performance. With my new machine on auto pilot with pop up flash. Guess who's in the red dress?

[Elizabeth Schott]

Ha Mike... the all important question! Does your auto focus work in low light without a flash? Remember my frustration with this!

Marvin, I am glad I am not the only one, a bit different from my Sony, isn't it? Maybe you can be like David K. and take pictures of people on the train, especially if Tim M. is riding! Where has he been btw?

[Mike McCarty]

Does your auto focus work in low light without a flash? Remember my frustration with this!

When I was glancing through the tons of literature and gadgets that came in the box, I noticed a single page caveat regarding the auto focus. It had to do with focusing on a distant subject with a complex background, or, if like in a field of wheat, there is much sameness in tone and texture. Nothing about low light.

I didn't notice having any trouble at the concert. I used the camera without the flash on occasion. There are just some circumstances when you can't rely on auto focus, that's been my experience.

[Garth Herrick]

Really great pictures Mike!

Your D70 on autopilot seems to manage the image highlights perfectly. I don't see too much evidence of the dreaded white hole, as so much digital photography is prone to. You may find with a digital camera that you no longer can expect a correctly balance exposure by using a gray card like with film. You may blow out your highlights because a digital reacts to light differently than film.

Instead of the gray card:

The new rule is to 1: "Expose Right" (on the histogram, make sure the exposure fills NEARLY the full highlight range to the right), and 2: make sure you don't exceed the range to the right of the histogram, or you will get those blown white holes. 3: If you are in doubt, then manage your image exposure to conservatively preserve the highlights. This may mean adjusting your exposure compensation to - 0.3 (minus, not +), or more. If you can keep the exposure compensation at 0.0, all the better for the shadows. You will catch on!

In a nutshell what I am trying to say is:

Rather than expose for a middle value, like with film, you must now expose for the best management of the highlights, in digital photography.

Congratulations on some great pictures,

Garth

[Geary Wootten]

Thanks for posting Mike, Garth and Marvin on this thread. It's VERY timely for me. I think this has just caused me to sign for the D-70. I've been shopping for a year! This has GOT to be the best bang for the buck right now ....for awhile, I'm hoping.


So.....Garth.....are you saying that to ensure richness and balance you "stop it down", isn't that the same as film F-stops? Or am I hallucianting....or tired as it may be.

-Geary

[Michele Rushworth]

A simple way to be safe is to bracket all shots. That way you get some with good shadow data and some with good highlight data. My camera will take 3 bracketed shots in rapid succession without having to reset anything. Since it's two years old and was not particularly high end, I'm sure most of the newer more professional quality cameras will do this too.

As for RAW image format, I agree with what's been recommended here. My sister (the professional landscape photographer) shoots in RAW format and gave me a demo of some Photoshop color correction capabilities afterwards. We shot some intentionally bad photos - wrong exposure, wrong white balance - and the ones in RAW format retained enough color data that we could do some very nice color correction later. The ones that were in JPEG format could never be brought back into line, to give believable skintones. I imagine it was due to some data loss in color storage with the JPEG format, I guess, even though the original RAW and JPEG images looked the same.

[Jean Kelly]

I have two batteries, and three cards (256, 128, 128). The battery charger is fast so I always have a fresh battery with me. I don't have RAW but the TIF images are excellent for color. I can fit about 10 TIF or lots of JPEG (hundreds). But I have used up to three memory cards at concerts or festivals. I have some good images of Bob Dylan up by Minneapolis last summer. They could have been much better if I'd known more about the camera and photography in general. Being disabled has its benefits sometimes, I can always get really close to the stage!

This conversation has taught me something, after reading it earlier I actually learned how to use the manual controls (aperture and shutter) and took some pictures in low light of my dog that were clear and not under or over exposed! Eureka! Thank you.

Jean

[Mike McCarty]

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