Clock at night

[djg05478]

I was out and about the other night experimenting with night time shots and got this. I've had my D90 less than 60 days, so my methodology is classified as "willy nilly" and my intention is to just keep clicking and experiment with camera settings to learn the camera.
Lens: 55-200@66mm f/9 , 5 seconds, ISO800
This is also my first foray into shooting in RAW and editing it Camera RAW.

I welcome some C&C

Thanks
Debbie

[carregwen]

Debbie

Afraid it's under-exposed, and quite a bit. I put it in my CS5 RAW editor and had to increase it at least one stop. Composition-wise, I'd rather see the top of the spire, which is cut off.

I've done a (pretty bad) edit, to show you more what it might look like with more exposure.

[Donald]

Debbie

Good on you for starting to shoot RAW. That's the only way to go.

Unless you're different than almost everyone else, you will get frustrated when you feel you're not getting to grips with it. You'll feel like dumping this stupid idea of shooting RAW ("Who ever mentioned that nonsense in the first place?") and go back to former habits/practices. Don't. Stick with it.

This is exactly the sort of image that you can learn from. Rob has already pointed out the learning points. To paraphrase Pops who has made the comment on here in other threads - You can learn a lot from a really good image, but you can learn a lot more from one that hasn't worked so well.

[carregwen]

Debbie

Up to you, but if you want to post the RAW HERE we can download it and try a proper edit for you (it's difficult with a small JPEG file). You need to register first, but it's easy and free - just like life, really.

[djg05478]

Thanks all. Donald - yes I'm going to stick with the RAW, no worries. I need to put some time into finding a resource that explains what exactly each of the adjustements is doing. Clearly I can see what happens when I move the sliders, but I like to know EXACTLY what is happening to the pixels.

The clock is local, I can go back with warmer footwear (cold toes: excuse for under exposure ) and less ale (excuse for clipping off the top of the spire ) and get a proper capture.

[carregwen]

Thanks all. Donald - yes I'm going to stick with the RAW, no worries. I need to put some time into finding a resource that explains what exactly each of the adjustements is doing. Clearly I can see what happens when I move the sliders, but I like to know EXACTLY what is happening to the pixels.

Debbie

Have a look in the FAQ at the top. I have just put it in there as a test. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/faq.php

You need to expand the You Tube screen by pressing the icon in the bottom right of the outer screen. To get out of it at the end just press ESC.

Peter gives permission at the end of the tutorial to embed it into a website.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Debbie,

yes I'm going to stick with the RAW, no worries. I need to put some time into finding a resource that explains what exactly each of the adjustements is doing. Clearly I can see what happens when I move the sliders, but I like to know EXACTLY what is happening to the pixels.

You really can't do better than Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5, assuming that's the version of CS you have. Also good for the cut down ACR version in Elements, if that's what you have.

Cheers,

[Geoff F]

Debbie, besides the information which is available on this site, you may find this article worth reading http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/w...flow_basic.htm

[djg05478]

Rob, Dave and Geoff - Thanks for the links, I shall do some reading.

I have CS 4 and an ornery PC; I've not been able to install Adobe updates and I haven't gathered the gumption yet to remedy the situation, but I have use of the RAW editor. I use the Adobe utility to change my Nikon files to dng's and open them that way. Its my understanding this is a lossless process.

Cheers! Its cooking baking day!
Debbie