Originally posted by NaClH2O Hi Roger and welcome to the forums. I don't know what you did wrong, but something obviously isn't right. What you need to do is post some of the worst offending photos with the exif files intact. Then we can see what you did and all of the settings on the camera (that's what the exif file is) one of the benes of shooting digital is that the camera saves all it's settings so it's easy to spot if you did something wrong.
NaCl(it probably is something simple but we need to see the shots)H2O
People, I may have some knowledge about composition, focal distance/aperture interactions on depth of field, lighting, color temperature, the old films, filters, etc, etc, but I must say Iīm a completely IGNORANT about digital! As I said, I stopped taking photos about ten years ago because i refused to jump into those little cameras, and couldīt afford a decent DSLR at that time. Although I can consider myself a reasonable skilled and experienced guy w/ PCs, I have almost NO contact w/ digital photos, so dealing w/ uploads, file sizes, extensions, photologs, etc, is dificult to me. That said, please excuse me for the stupid questions Iīll ask you, OK? Starting w/ the first one: NaCl, what do you mean by the exif file? I think it a file attached to the photo, w/ all the data, isnīt it? How can I upload a photo here, making sure this file is sent along? As I said, Iīm pretty ignorant... Rsrs!
Originally posted by elho_cid From what you describe there could be red channel overexposed. Look at the RGB histogram, that may tell you. K-5 has the best DR of all digital cameras, so use it. If you don't blow any color channel, you can recover extreme amount of detail from the shadows. But if you do it, even RAW can't help.
Excuse me Cid, but wouldnīt be the opposite? If this red channel was overexposed, I shouldnīt expect the photos to be more red than normal? I got the opposite: the beautiful red skies I tried to register, simply disapeared. BTW what is "DR"?
Originally posted by Nuff Since you shot raw, pull out lightroom and adjust the sky so it looks the way you saw them. Easy...
A camera doesn't really know what the scene is and how it should look like, it's not a human eye. Interpret the captured data so it looks the way it's supposed to look.
Also you might want to show us few examples and even a raw file to play with. Since you are new to digital world, you should start learning about it instead of doubt it.
Nuff, are you sure I can upload a raw file here, isnīt it to big? In fact I tried a couple of minutes ago but there was an error message from PF saying the time was expired.
About the lightroom, as I can see, this is an excelent program to manage photos, probably one of the bests, but unfortunately I cannot afford for it now, (Itīs extremely expensive here in Brazil!), can I use one, or a combination of 2 or 3 free programs like Picasa, GIMP and the Pentax Utilities to get at least a reasonable result? Note: I installed Picasa and P.U.4 (that came w/ the K5), but I donīt know how to use any of them... BTW, Picasa deal and edit the raw (PEF) files? I thought I could only open this kind of files w/ the PU4, but the Picasa I installed open the raw photos w/o problems. Finishing, I couldnīt agree more w/you: I know I most learn about digital photography, and this is something I want a lot, but guys, If you think my doubts are too "basic" to be discussed here, please let me know, so you donīt waist your time w/ my silly questions... Any tip for an "online basic guide to digital photography for completely ignorants on the subject" will be helpfull! rsrs!
Thanks again