[melvis2]

I have been playing with different settings on my K-5 and I'm really kind of at a loss here. I was wondering if some of you more experienced folks had any advice as far as settings go. Is there a setting that you keep turned on or off and if so why? I've been told to keep my WB set to cloudy when shooting outdoors, I shoot in raw most of the time so not a biggie (I can always change it) but any advice there? Do I need to leave shadow correction high or low etc. etc.

[mannesty]

I think probably every user here has different settings to everybody else.

You will get the best performance from your camera by understanding what each setting does, and knowing when and why you might change them.

Some users will always use AWB, others will use daylight, one famous photographer I know, always uses WB set to flash because it gives warmer tones in daylight.

So it's not an easy question to answer, and what settings somebody else uses may not be suitable for you.

[Schraubstock]

I have been playing with different settings on my K-5 and I'm really kind of at a loss here. I was wondering if some of you more experienced folks had any advice as far as settings go. Is there a setting that you keep turned on or off and if so why? I've been told to keep my WB set to cloudy when shooting outdoors, I shoot in raw most of the time so not a biggie (I can always change it) but any advice there? Do I need to leave shadow correction high or low etc. etc.

Hi
I don't hear this mentioned a lot. Custom Image (page 222)
Press the right most button of the four-way controler twice after you have taken a shot (to see immediately the result of your tweaks) which will get you into all sorts of modes, like Bright, Natural, Prtrait, Landscape and so forth. Once you settled on a mode that suits most of your motives (or one in particular) you can further tweak Saturation, Hue and so forth. Once you have settled with a look to your liking you can lock this tweak in and next time you turn on your camera this particular setting (mode) will be active.

Set them all to your liking and every time you turn on the camera just pick a custom setting suitable for what you have in front of your lens. It will remember the tweak you made.

Greetings

[SpecialK]

I've been told to keep my WB set to cloudy when shooting outdoors.

Well, I would not do that, having done it accidentally yesterday, unless you like golden images.

[bymy141]

I have been playing with different settings on my K-5 and I'm really kind of at a loss here. I was wondering if some of you more experienced folks had any advice as far as settings go. Is there a setting that you keep turned on or off and if so why? I've been told to keep my WB set to cloudy when shooting outdoors, I shoot in raw most of the time so not a biggie (I can always change it) but any advice there? Do I need to leave shadow correction high or low etc. etc.

Well, you have 2 choices:
1) Shoot JPEG and get those settings right. And there are a lot of choices there....
2) Shoot RAW and postphone your setting choices to postprocessing on the computer.

I use Lightroom from Adobe and shoot RAW, I don't care about all camera settings, except for:
- Aperture, Focus, Shutterspeed, ISO. All the rest becomes irrelevant with RAW shooting.

So, I can pay more attention to making nice photo's

Bert

[lammie200]

Well, you have 2 choices:
1) Shoot JPEG and get those settings right. And there are a lot of choices there....
2) Shoot RAW and postphone your setting choices to postprocessing on the computer.

I use Lightroom from Adobe and shoot RAW, I don't care about all camera settings, except for:
- Aperture, Focus, Shutterspeed, ISO. All the rest becomes irrelevant with RAW shooting.

So, I can pay more attention to making nice photo's

Bert

+1 and testing my new signature. Hopefully it works.

[JeffJS]

I shoot RAW+ (PEF). Auto WB. No lens or other Corrections or in camera NR mostly because I don't want to wait for the processing times. For most things, I typically shoot EV-1, Aperture priority unless there is some reason to leave that mode, and Auto ISO (range from 80-32000). As I'm sure everyone has said already, the settings are a preference thing. Mine may change tomorrow but today, that's what they are.

[bxf]

Well, you have 2 choices:
...
I use Lightroom from Adobe and shoot RAW, I don't care about all camera settings, except for:
- Aperture, Focus, Shutterspeed, ISO. All the rest becomes irrelevant with RAW shooting.

So, I can pay more attention to making nice photo's

Bert

Yes, but it's worth keeping in mind that the JPEG embedded in the RAW is derived using the camera settings (at least this is so when shooting RAW+JPEG). I've seen some inexplicably horrendous JPEGs in RAWs that were quite decent, so when previewing the images, it may be desirable to have the viewer application ignore the embedded JPEGs.

[melvis2]

Thanks for all the response folks. Good info!

[Schraubstock]

I use Lightroom from Adobe and shoot RAW, I don't care about all camera settings, except for: - Aperture, Focus, Shutterspeed, ISO. All the rest becomes irrelevant with RAW shooting.

Yes and NO.
I don't entirely agree with this mode of operation, reason?
If you get settings right straight out of the camera it reduces or often totally eliminates PP and when you shoot hundreds of pics in a session it results in spending less time correcting them. Batch processing only goes so far in my experience. Also some batch processing raw converters are painfully slow. Bibble Pro is the fastest.

So,I prefer to do a little tweak for white balance first before I shoot (particularly in tricky light conditions and it takes no time) and let camera do it right for minimal PP work. But I never do any in camera tweaks that will slow it down.

Greetings

[ronpyke]

I'll toss my opinion out too, for what it is worth... I shoot RAW-dng. Nearly anything is possible in post and I never have to worry while out shooting.