Exposure Compensation?

[Shadowman]

You guys nailed it! I have the camera set to AF-S not AF-C and my focus point was off which compounded my exposure issue

I usually avoid shooting things that move and didn't even think of switching the focus mode - lesson officially learned

John...why the quotations?



Wouldn't you call this street photography?

I went out today and did some tests with different metering modes for different scenes as well (no moving subjects) as I want to nail down how that impacts the image and also get a better understanding on how my camera handles the highlights. So all and all a great conversation and I appreciate each of you for your kind suggestions and guidance.

Hi Shane,

I would call it street photography but I wasn't sure if you knew these guys and were just capturing them in a given moment. If you did know these guys and they were totally aware of your presence then this particularly image would perhaps fall under the category of "candid photography", the differences between the two genres are slight but if this were "candid photography" I would have the impression that you had more time to setup the shot, had or planned to take multiple images in various poses, and could in some circumstances do a reshoot. With "street photography" part of the difficulty is that images are taken at the spur of the moment and you usually only have one chance at capturing the image; and for these reasons some leniency is given on the quality of the images; however I think every street photographer tries their best to capture the best quality image possible and doing so is the challenge we enjoy in practicing the genre.

[ShaneS]

Thanks for the clarification John. It was definitely street photography as I don't know these guys! My girlfriend loves street photography so I humored her and we sat on a corner where the was an all way crosswalk and we just captured what went by and what caught our eye. I can see the attraction and challenges in this type of photography and it is a whole new world to me as I usually shoot more static subjects.

I have some fun stuff but got a but sidetracked by the issue in the thread so I'm going to process some of them today. I'll try to post a couple in a different thread.

[Shadowman]

Thanks for the clarification John. It was definitely street photography as I don't know these guys! My girlfriend loves street photography so I humored her and we sat on a corner where the was an all way crosswalk and we just captured what went by and what caught our eye. I can see the attraction and challenges in this type of photography and it is a whole new world to me as I usually shoot more static subjects.

I have some fun stuff but got a but sidetracked by the issue in the thread so I'm going to process some of them today. I'll try to post a couple in a different thread.

One exercise I like to undertake is making street photography look candid, I know it should be the other way around, but I enjoy making what looks like a portrait shot from a quickly captured image.

[Inkanyezi]

There is a Nikon feature that you might like to use when the dynamic range of the scene is large.

The metering system can be set to save highlight by Active D-Lighting. I think there might be a few different values to set for ADL, and I don't know whether they apply only to shadows or also to highlights. The ADL setting pulls exposure down for highlights and also, in the in-camera conversion to jpeg, it brightens the shadows.

When using ADL, you generally should not use compensation.

You could try it out to see, whether ADL might be simpler than using compensation. When there are no bright highlights, exposure will work just as with matrix metering, but when there are highlights to save the ADL setting exposes less than the normal matrix metering. When developing RAW, you decide yourself what to do with the shadows, and the camera jpegs can have varying degrees of boosting shadows according to setting.

When using ADL, you should generally not set compensation.

[ajohnw]

There is a Nikon feature that you might like to use when the dynamic range of the scene is large.

The metering system can be set to save highlight by Active D-Lighting. I think there might be a few different values to set for ADL, and I don't know whether they apply only to shadows or also to highlights. The ADL setting pulls exposure down for highlights and also, in the in-camera conversion to jpeg, it brightens the shadows.

When using ADL, you generally should not use compensation.

You could try it out to see, whether ADL might be simpler than using compensation. When there are no bright highlights, exposure will work just as with matrix metering, but when there are highlights to save the ADL setting exposes less than the normal matrix metering. When developing RAW, you decide yourself what to do with the shadows, and the camera jpegs can have varying degrees of boosting shadows according to setting.

When using ADL, you should generally not set compensation.

This feature is in the NX that comes with the camera. It's very effective for lifting shadows, best I have seen and just via a slider. Oddly it doesn't seem to be in the NX replacement.

I'd guess it some how boosts contrast locally as the dark areas are lifted. A bit like brushing a curve on but a lot less trouble.

John
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[Inkanyezi]

This feature is in the NX that comes with the camera. It's very effective for lifting shadows, best I have seen and just via a slider. Oddly it doesn't seem to be in the NX replacement.

I'd guess it some how boosts contrast locally as the dark areas are lifted. A bit like brushing a curve on but a lot less trouble.

John
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It does not boost locally, but it lifts shadows in exactly the same way as when you lift the curve by setting a handle a bit from the far left and lift. Hence it actually decreases contrast, just as the curve tool would do. So in essence, D-Lighting - without Active - is the curve alteration. As anyone can understand, it is only a way of processing the RAW file. Active D-Lighting is something different.

Early Nikon models only had D-Lighting, not Active D-lighting. The "Active" part of it is coupled to the light meter and pulls down exposure to save highlights that are identified by the matrix metering. Hence, when there are highlights to save, "Active" reduces exposure, just as you would do with compensation, in order to save the highlights from clipping. The image then evidently becomes darker, which is what "D-Lighting" later will fix. So there are two different approaches in one setting: Avoid clipping by pulling back exposure, and in processing the jpeg, to lift shadows. Evidently only the "Active" component will influence the raw file.

So we should try not to confuse D-Lighting with Active D-Lighting. The former is part of the latter. Active D-Lighting automagically sets exposure compensation. When there are no bright highlights in the scene, exposure compensation will not be applied.

When D-Lighting has been used, metadata informs Nikon's raw converters, and they default to apply the D-Lighting values that are set in the camera. This can be overridden by the user.

[Polar01]

John you have Active D-lighting on your D7000, in case you did not know it.

Cheers: Allan

[ajohnw]

It does not boost locally, but it lifts shadows in exactly the same way as when you lift the curve by setting a handle a bit from the far left and lift. Hence it actually decreases contrast, just as the curve tool would do. So in essence, D-Lighting - without Active - is the curve alteration. As anyone can understand, it is only a way of processing the RAW file. Active D-Lighting is something different.

Early Nikon models only had D-Lighting, not Active D-lighting. The "Active" part of it is coupled to the light meter and pulls down exposure to save highlights that are identified by the matrix metering. Hence, when there are highlights to save, "Active" reduces exposure, just as you would do with compensation, in order to save the highlights from clipping. The image then evidently becomes darker, which is what "D-Lighting" later will fix. So there are two different approaches in one setting: Avoid clipping by pulling back exposure, and in processing the jpeg, to lift shadows. Evidently only the "Active" component will influence the raw file.

So we should try not to confuse D-Lighting with Active D-Lighting. The former is part of the latter. Active D-Lighting automagically sets exposure compensation. When there are no bright highlights in the scene, exposure compensation will not be applied.

When D-Lighting has been used, metadata informs Nikon's raw converters, and they default to apply the D-Lighting values that are set in the camera. This can be overridden by the user.

So my D7000 must have come with something entirely different to what you have used. If some one brushes a curve to lift shadows and maintain contrast it is done by increasing the slope of the curve which in turn increases contrast. The black point can also be lifted at the same time. The contrast is controlled by the slope used. The way you have described this it will increase contrast.

Unfortunately my copy of NX-D is past it's time limit otherwise I would post an example of what it does. Actually I would buy it apart from the fact that it doesn't work too well under Linux, main problem is that files can not be saved. I thought I had a screen shot of the effect of it's shadow recovery slider but so far haven't found it. Their software also has an advantage in terms of camera colour profiles - changed shot by shot.

You might find this thread interesting - shoot nef, have active d on and tweak in camera settings in this case in CNX-2. Most camera manufacturers own raw software will apply any available camera setting to raw files.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/captur...7627641438122/

John
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[ajohnw]

John you have Active D-lighting on your D7000, in case you did not know it.

Cheers: Allan

I'd guess that must not be me John but the other John. I'm pretty sure I turned it off.

John
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[Polar01]

No John is it you, you have it on your D7000, page 139 of the manual, however you may have turned it off, I had the same camera before it was stolen. Had mine set to high and still was able to use Exposure compensation to increase the exposure.

Cheers: Allan

[Mike Buckley]

I can confirm that Active D-Lighting, which is a method of in-camera exposure, is different from D-Lighting, which is a method of post-processing. The two processes are different and produce slightly different results.

I do not agree that using Active D-Lighting while using exposure compensation should be avoided.

[ajohnw]

No John is it you, you have it on your D7000, page 139 of the manual, however you may have turned it off, I had the same camera before it was stolen. Had mine set to high and still was able to use Exposure compensation to increase the exposure.

Cheers: Allan

A miss understanding Allan - I thought you reckoned i had it turned on. I've not taken many shots with the D7000 but set it up for what ever corresponds to Nikon's standard gradation and everything I could find off. The simple capabilities for raw development that came with the camera surprised me especially the aspect I have mentioned. I also went through the rigmarole of extracting the camera profiles that it generates but quickly found that they vary from shot to shot. To be honest if I could run it properly, the gui behaved oddly as well, I would probably use it for all initial raw development and then finish off in another package. Currently I'm fully occupied with m 4/3. In that it goes by the name of auto gradation or something similar.. Not used it yet or the ability to alter the curve on the fly in the camera but it makes more sense to do that in a PP package.

I now more or less use Adobe std profiles for all cameras.

John
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[george013]

.....
Unfortunately my copy of NX-D is past it's time limit otherwise I would post an example of what it does.
.....
John
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Capture NX-D is a free program.


George

[ajohnw]

Capture NX-D is a free program.


George

View NX-2 is free I believe but oddly that wont run any more either.

John
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[george013]

View NX-2 is free I believe but oddly that wont run any more either.

John
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You have probably a beta-version. Just download the latest from Nikon.

George

[mrinmoyvk]

Neither of the Nikon software's used to get installed on my machine. Tried everything, also the rebuild but no success. Invalid DLL entry point. was the error thrown when I start the installer. Finally I managed to get a copy of Adobe creative cloud from one of my friend who got the copy installed on my machine but refused to share the installer.
Anyways, all issues resolved now and no need of Nikon software. Still confused what that invalid entry point means.

[george013]

Neither of the Nikon software's used to get installed on my machine. Tried everything, also the rebuild but no success. Invalid DLL entry point. was the error thrown when I start the installer. Finally I managed to get a copy of Adobe creative cloud from one of my friend who got the copy installed on my machine but refused to share the installer.
Anyways, all issues resolved now and no need of Nikon software. Still confused what that invalid entry point means.

Did you see the system requirements? Windows Vista, 7 or 8.


George

[mrinmoyvk]

Did you see the system requirements? Windows Vista, 7 or 8.


George

I tried Win XP 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit. Both not successful.

[george013]

I tried Win XP 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit. Both not successful.

XP is wrong anyway. If you got a message "invalid dll" I believe you also get the name of that dll. Do a search on that name . That helped me until now.

George

[mrinmoyvk]

XP is wrong anyway. If you got a message "invalid dll" I believe you also get the name of that dll. Do a search on that name . That helped me until now.

George

Will try again installing and check, previously I had tried on Win 7 Home premium 64 bit. Now I have Win 7 professional 32 bit. Lets see...