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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-23-2013, 11:50 AM
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Who can tell the difference between 10 and 200 ISO? I set it to 100 when I start, but I don't care if it accidentally gets left on 200 ISO.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-22-2013, 12:44 PM
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I have HC set on my K-3, I have one card set to jpg and one set to raw… I prefer to use the RAW images, not the jpg images… I tend to use the jpg images for exporting to my iPad for easy distribution when that is necessary. The jpegs are excellent in most circumstances, it's just, I know I can do better if I'm going to print the image.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-21-2013, 07:29 PM
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If you've ever worked with levels or curves on a raw file, you know exactly what the camera is trying to do. That being said, those types of adjustments have to be manually adjusted on every image anyway, so this really doesn't save you any time or anything. Unless you're telling me the camera knows exactly how I will want to PP this image and does it for me, some kind of telepathy or something. I can manually adjust the high end, the low end, the middle, I can create as many zones to adjust as I wish. and honestly if you're not doing that, you aren't getting the most out of your images, whether or not you think the camera has miraculously done it for you. If you don't want blown highlights, don't blow your highlights. Any adjustments made by any camera are preliminary at best.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-19-2013, 07:35 PM
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I'm going to jump in here and say I agree with Twitch on this, and when the two of us agree, there's virtually no chance we're both wrong. We tend to come at these things from totally opposite directions. You're swallowing corporate mumbo jumbo.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-19-2013, 03:50 PM
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-14-2013, 07:48 AM
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Set your Pentax to EV -2, or if you're shooting into the sun, or EV -3. The reason no one has a feature guaranteed to not blow any highlights, is it would ruin a lot more images than it saves. Those are the settings that will do what you want. Your camera will still compensate for changing light conditions and constantly underexpose everything. It's really sad, but exposing for highlights by definition, under exposes everything else. WIth a K-5 you should be able to pull up some detail out of the shadows.
If you look at a lot of theatre photography, that's the way they are expose, often with a lot of darkness behind the actor in the spotlight. I expect, the metering system in the K-3 would also be a lot more accurate than the k-30 just because of the additional (and smaller) metering points. SOme combination of spot metering and -1 or -2 EV might also work if you keep your subject centred.
What you are really asking for is some kind of HDR function that will give you a normal exposure in the mid tones, an under-exposed highlights , and boosted shadows from one exposure. I think, technically it could be done…but to date, it hasn't as far as I know. A K-30 should be awesome for that because of the ability to recover shadow detail, a K-x , not so much. But if you look at the guys who have posted images from bars etc, you are going to get those wonky colours from the stage lighting.Especially in recovered shadow detail. Some things just can't be helped.
It's impossible to discuss what Nikon does, because you don't actually know what it does. And neither do any of us. But it is possible that they have produced a camera that is really good at handling theatre lighting. The would be the kind of niche product that you buy the camera to do the job if that's what is important to you.
Just like if you want to rake the leaves in your garden you buy a leaf rake. You can use garden rake, and you might wonder while using your garden rake, "why doesn't someone make a rake that can be both a garden rake and a leaf rake?" That in no way will help you get your leaves rakes, nor will complaining about it on the internet.
OK, I've had my say, (a couple of times), I'm out of here.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-13-2013, 10:44 AM
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There ya go. Already done... no need to trot out any more Nikon Marketing Hype.
Now all you need to do to get this back on even keel, would be to get Nikon to admit, photographers have done just fine for years without ADL, and that an impossible lighting situation, is still an impossible lighting situation even with it.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-13-2013, 09:51 AM
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SO, and this is what really confuses me… what is the difference between turning on ADL and looking at your histogram and adjusting the image? I assume you have to go into a menu to turn on ADL, my exposure adjustment is done while shooting, no need for menus. It sounds like you're saying you can set the camera to expose based on the brightest highlight in the image. And that sounds cool. If that feature is critical to you then go for it. So, are you going to show us some pictures so we know what you're talking about?
I'd be interested to see how it works. I actually don't even worry about this. In lighting conditions that need special attention, I bracket. ANd I've found there is no way out of bracketing. It's pretty hard to predict what the exact exposure I want is. And I suspect I'd continue to do that even with ADL turned on. Especially since bracketing gives me multiple images to work with should I decide to go the HDR route. Usually, you don't want to clip your highlights, but you want some dynamic range in your shadows as well. You've done a great job of explaining this Nikon Technology.. you just haven't showed us how it works or if it works. And since many of us already have ways to deal with the lighting problems you discuss, neither can we evaluate if the Nikon method is easier or harder to apply than traditional methods, etc. You'd really need to do a side by side work flow.
You've established that there's an exposure setting in Nikon that stops you from blowing your highlights. You've yet to establish that it's overall, in the great scheme of things, a useful innovation.
Hell, you haven't even established that your Nikon ADL system would do a better job with that bird you posted, than the K-30 did. Sure it might turn the whole bird except the blasted parts into one big shadow, but would that actually be better? Would it improve the picture? You seem to have missed that part about realizing what the limitations of your sensor are and picking the best compromise. IN many cases, having a small blasted highlight is much better than huge black areas. Especially if there's a light source in the frame.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-12-2013, 07:53 AM
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There is a setting in the K-3 menus that gives you the option of not blowing your highlights… I've seen it in the menus but haven't checked it out to see how it might work.
But just in case you're looking for a bit of advice on how to shoot this…
FIrst, you're shooting in direct sun. There isn't a camera or film that's ever been made that can capture the whole dynamic range of this image without filters.. From the highlights to the shadows the ratio from light to dark is probably 20,000/1. So that's your first problem.
Spot metering on the birds head would help some, but you shot this at 0 exposure compensation. What you need to be doing is checking your histogram after taking the image, pushing the EV button on the top of your camera and rolling your EV down, on this shot to minus 2 probably, maybe more, because you have shadow behind the bird is pulling down your metered exposure value, even though it isn't really an important part of your picture.
The camera has to make a decision based on what you tell it when it looks at a scene like this. But you have to tell it. But the image is pretty much ruined by the high contrast caused by direct sun. You're simply asking too much of your sensor. Your assertion that a Canon would do better, i.e. lowering the exposure, keeping the white feathers from being blasted and totally blacking out the area around the eye and beak is not very informed. You wouldn't get a better image doing that. Once you lose details in those areas of the image, they just look like black holes. Given the lighting conditions, your camera made some pretty good decisions.
In fact, any K-series camera K-5 and beyond (K-5, K30, K500, K-01, K-5II, K-5 IIs) is going to give you superior dynamic range, compared to even the most expensive Canons, giving you a bit more latitude to work with in images like this.
I'd be interested to hear what guys who use neutral density filters would say about this. Could this image have been rescued with the use of filters?
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