Do you NEED to master camera settings????

[Manfred M]

Does the discussion of fluorescent lights pertain to compact fluorescent bulbs that are screwed into light sockets that are also compatible with incandescent bulbs?



Not your color balance. You forgot about filters. Not your ISO. You forgot that the film processing could be pushed and pulled.

Agreed Mike; the point I was trying to make is that a decade or perhaps a bit more a ago we were creating great images by controling just a handful of variables and now these portable computers we call DSLRs have rather complicated the issue. I still feel that for most shooting, selecting an appropriate ISO setting and either shooting for specific DoF or motion effect (shutter speed) is going to handle most shooting situations. Lighting something correctly is still what makes or breaks an image.

When push processing, you are effectively still pre-setting the ISO, as your would push process the whole roll of film; and of course, push processing only worked for B&W and colour reversal films. Try it with colour negative film and you would get a real mess that could not be corrected in the printing stage.

Filters are a bit more complicated and yes, in theory you could use tungsten film in daylight settings or daylight film under tungsten; but these tended to be general one size fits all solutions, and yes, we could also use warming or cooling filters too. The options when shooting B&W were quite interesting. Frankly, because of the cost, few people had more than a handful of filters (with UV and polarizers still being the most common) and I appreciated that the camera club I was a member of had a good selection that the members could borrow.

[Mike Buckley]

Manfred,

If I had known that my quips about ISO and color balance would distract you from answering my question pertaining to compact fluorescent bulbs, I wouldn't have posted them.

[Manfred M]

Manfred,

If I had known that my quips about ISO and color balance would distract you from answering my question pertaining to compact fluorescent bulbs, I wouldn't have posted them.

Mike - CFs are really just fluorescent bulbs that have been twisted into interesting shapes; they still use the same basic technology as the standard tubes that have been around for decades. They are equipped with cheap, built-in electronic ballasts (and in my experience, these are the parts of the bulb that fails most often). They don't seem to come in all the various choices of the standard tubes, but colour temperatures do seem vary from brand to brand. I have some that seem to have a rather cool colour while others seem to try to emulate the light from a tungsten bulb. They defintely do not have the same colour light output as an incandescent bulb; the physics involved in these light sources are totally different.

I think my previous warning still applies; "shoot with caution".

[Shadowman]

Do you really need to master camera settings?? Decide for yourself!!

I shot this inside a “super market” under very difficult lighting conditions.

I set up my camera to ISO1000, white balance “Pre Set” on a white plastic shopping bag, Aperture wide open (Aperture Priority). Lift and shoot. Non stabalised Nikkor lens at 1/40sec.

SOOC Jpeg. Should I rather be shooting RAW?????

You didn't tell us what your goal was in taking the photo. Was it to capture a quality image, a sharp image (reasonably or exceptionally), test the lens, test capability of SOOC, or something else.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks for the explanation, Manfred. I have been using compact fluorescent bulbs in my makeshift studio as a substitute for hot lights. I haven't had the issue pertaining to the recycling times because I have always had to use relatively long exposures for other reasons. I also haven't experienced the color issues you're referring to, perhaps because all of the bulbs are rated at 5500K or perhaps because the subjects I have been shooting haven't made those issues apparent. Considering that they're rated to last 60,000 hours (or is it 6000?), either way, I sure do hope I don't experience those issues.

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi Andre,

I feel it depends on the personal choice of the individual photog.

Cheers..............

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the explanation, Manfred. I have been using compact fluorescent bulbs in my makeshift studio as a substitute for hot lights. I haven't had the issue pertaining to the recycling times because I have always had to use relatively long exposures for other reasons. I also haven't experienced the color issues you're referring to, perhaps because all of the bulbs are rated at 5500K or perhaps because the subjects I have been shooting haven't made those issues apparent. Considering that they're rated to last 60,000 hours (or is it 6000?), either way, I sure do hope I don't experience those issues.

Mike - I was thinking about the off-the-shelf lights; if you are using the specially manufactured photo ones, that might be a different story. I have no experience with those.

One other thing to consider with any fluorescents, is that they have a fairly drastic light output drop over time. This may not make any difference to you, as you are looking at a fairly short duty cycle, but I know that the maintenance schedule in some facilities that I work with is a facility wide relamping every 3 years to ensure that the light levels are up to code because of this issue. These lights run 12-16 hours a day, 5 days a week.

[AB26]

A great big THANK YOU for each and every response.

Thank you Colin for the edit. You are a master of sharpening and it is a skill I need to learn.

I enjoy all the different opinions and comments.

Thank you, the learning curve is getting steeper all the time.

[Rob Ekins]

Thanks for the explanation, Manfred. I have been using compact fluorescent bulbs in my makeshift studio as a substitute for hot lights. I haven't had the issue pertaining to the recycling times because I have always had to use relatively long exposures for other reasons. I also haven't experienced the color issues you're referring to, perhaps because all of the bulbs are rated at 5500K or perhaps because the subjects I have been shooting haven't made those issues apparent. Considering that they're rated to last 60,000 hours (or is it 6000?), either way, I sure do hope I don't experience those issues.

Mike,

I suspect that the lamps you are using are all from the same batch so there would be very little difference between the lamps in your setup.

However if you lost one tomorrow and had to replace it from another batch you may find that there is a discernible difference.

6,000 or 60,000?.... Nothing made of glass is safe at your place....


Robbie.

[Mike Buckley]

That's interesting, Robbie. I actually do have one bulb that is made by a different manufacturer rated at 5000K rather than 5500K and I haven't detected any difference. However, I don't think my eyes are capable of being so discriminating. To take matters even more out of my control, I have read that Kelvin ratings, like all manufacturing specifications, have a range of tolerance.

6,000 or 60,000?.... Nothing made of glass is safe at your place....

Silly me. I hadn't thought of that.

[Colin Southern]

Thank you Colin for the edit. You are a master of sharpening and it is a skill I need to learn.

Not really Andre - all you really need to do is apply 0.3px @ 50% as the next step after you down-sample every image - and if it's not sharp enough, just do it again. Other sharpening can be tricky, but output sharpening for internet display is pretty much "one size fits all".

[AB26]

Not really Andre - all you really need to do is apply 0.3px @ 50% as the next step after you down-sample every image - and if it's not sharp enough, just do it again. Other sharpening can be tricky, but output sharpening for internet display is pretty much "one size fits all".

Thanks Colin I have been applying sharpening before down sizing. No wonder my images seem to "degrade" after posting.

Thanks, will apply in future!

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Colin I have been applying sharpening before down sizing. No wonder my images seem to "degrade" after posting.

Thanks, will apply in future!

Content/Creative sharpening is applied to the full resolution image (ie before down-sampling) (ex 40% @ 4px), but output sharpening is always done after the image has been down-sampled.

Looking forward to seeing those super-sharp images now

[xpatUSA]

. . I have been applying sharpening before down sizing. No wonder my images seem to "degrade" after posting.

Thanks, will apply in future!

André, my personal view is that sharpening should be "as required" and should not necessarily include all of the three steps mentioned in this CiC tutorial:

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...sharpening.htm

1) I have personally trained my cameras to only restore capture sharpness to a nice 'S' shaped edge response with no over- or under-shooting. For the SD9 or SD10 that means a sharpness setting of -0.8 in SPP and for the GH1 a sharpness setting of -2 in-camera (JPEG).

2) Because all my images are down-sized for monitor viewing, I rarely sharpen before down-sizing. Much reading and many tests have shown me the mere act of downsizing sharpens an image, sometimes even more than desired - depending on content, of course.

3) Because images of the order of 640-1024px wide are viewed at 100% on my monitor, I am not a great lover of visible halos - so Colin's 0.3px is quite wide enough for most of my humble shots.

I did a QuickMTF test on a slant edge target using my SD10 and a pedestrian 17-70mm Sigma APS-C lens. The results were predictable for that combination:

Out of SPP as a TIFF, the slant edge 10-90% response was 1.96px and the MTF50 was at 0.25 cycles/px (Nyquist is 0.5 cy/px). On the SD10, 0.25 cycles/px represents 27 lp/mm at the image plane. No overshoots were observed, neither in the MTF curve nor in the edge response.

After intermediate sharpening (40%, 4px) the MTF gained a portion of it's curve at greater than 100%! Not really kosher but, undaunted, I worked on.

After downsizing from 2268px to 1134 px to 800px wide and applying a final sharpening of 50%, 0.3px, the lower part of the MTF curve peaked at a whopping 130% and the 10-90% edge response fell to 0.92px and had a huge overshoot. Not to mention that the MTF50 was at the Nyquist frequency of 0.5 cy/px - that's a 50% contrast ratio at the onset of moiré (does that roof really have diagonal tiles, Daddy?).

Admittedly, the sharpening workflow was by CiC rote, so to speak, and an artificial scene was used.

BTW, the same workflow applied to any image captured with the SD10/17-70mm would produce the same contrast distortion, visible in the output or not.