Show Off Your Pics (1 Viewer)

[Mike Frezon]

All right fellas.

I changed my camera setting to Raw. It was previously set to something the manual refers to as "Large/Fine." There is also an option to shoot both Raw and Large/Fine at the same time.

I shot a few test shots around the house tonight. And I off-loaded them onto my computer.

I saw what you were talking about with the RAW Conversion process when I went to open an image in PS. It gave me lots of options in terms of tweaking the image. Easy to screw things up if heavy-handed.

But I also quickly saw what you were saying about bring life out of the shadows.

Here's a shot of Petey laying under our coffee table. I bounced a flash off the ceiling but since he was laying under a solid-top table it created an odd effect. But as you'll see in the untouched shot the background is lost in black. But a few tweaks and the deep wood of my HT cabinet appeared out of nowhere.

I think I prefer Petey, actually, though in the untouched image as he "pops" off the background.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Obviously, I've got a lot to learn about all this.

And I thank you fellas for your patience and tips.

 

[JohnRice]

BTW, no matter what you do in the RAW conversion, the original file is untouched. So no matter how much you screw it up, you can go back to the original file and do it again. Also, Photoshop will save an adjustment file to the same folder as the RAW file. It has an .xmp suffix. If you open the RAW file again, it will automatically load the settings you used last time. Then you can change them and if you click "Open" or "Done", it saves the new settings and replaces the old ones.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I was just going to mention the "non-destructive" nature of RAW editing, but John beat me to it. That is one of the great things about shooting and processing in RAW -- the editing changes you make do not alter the original file, so you can alter your edits later with no ill effects. With jpegs, every time you make changes and save to the file, it alters the file and re-compresses the image.

And the "Large/Fine" setting you were using on your camera was the type of jpeg compression being used, Mike. I think that setting is for the best jpeg image quality -- i.e. the least amount of compression. Unless you have a need to distribute images in the field to others, I wouldn't bother with shooting RAW+jpeg -- is just eats up storage space on your memory card and slows down your camera.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'd love to take a crack at Petey raw conversion if you are willing! Just send to sposten at the gmail. If not, understood too!

 

[JohnRice]

I saw this yesterday and had to go back today to take a picture of it.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Wow, that's a great find, John! I assume you de-saturated the color of the landscape and house? It creates a terrific and humorous contrast.

 

[JohnRice]

Wow, that's a great find, John! I assume you de-saturated the color of the landscape and house? It creates a terrific and humorous contrast.

Yeah, everything except the sign has an 80% B&W layer. I also punched up the sign a bit, to make it pop, but not as much as I see here. Has anyone else noticed that photos posted on HTF are kind of super saturated? I'm going to try to get an image gallery set up on my own hosting and start posting links instead.

BTW, I've shot that house before, but that particular ad is new since the last time I drove by there. Not good placement.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I am not noticing the extra saturation on shots I post. I am using Smugmug to host images. Maybe it has something to do with where you host your images?

 

[JohnRice]

Here's the same shot on my own hosting. I've been using HTF, but I'd rather be able to control it more, so I'll do it this way from now on. Plus, I wanted to see if it looks different. I think it looks the same.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Looks the same to me, too, John.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Here's something a bit different from me (outside my wheelhouse of dogs and grandkids).

My son and I took in a couple ballgames between the Dodger and Phillies this week in Philadelphia. Here is Rhys Hoskins smacking a 2-run RBI double in today's game:

 

[Mike Frezon]

And back into my wheelhouse...this is my youngest granddaughter on her first birthday:

 

[DavidJ]

Here's the same shot on my own hosting. I've been using HTF, but I'd rather be able to control it more, so I'll do it this way from now on. Plus, I wanted to see if it looks different. I think it looks the same.

On mobile (iPhone 8+), the first one is more saturated to my eye. Although looking again, I'm not sure. So, I'm no help.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Here's the same shot on my own hosting. I've been using HTF, but I'd rather be able to control it more, so I'll do it this way from now on. Plus, I wanted to see if it looks different. I think it looks the same.

I flipped between the two photos several times. Sometimes I thought I noticed a slight difference, and then when I would look again the two photos would look the same. If there's a difference, it's very minor... at least on my calibrated monitor.

 

[JohnRice]

It's taking a while to get the experiment with a smaller, lighter camera going. The first time around, I was sent the wrong camera. I received a Nikon D5300 instead of a D5500. That one went back three weeks ago, and the seller still hasn't refunded it. When I ordered it almost a month ago, their feedback was pretty good, but in the time since, their negative feedback has gone up to 20%. Amazon has threatened them that if it hasn't been refunded by tomorrow they will file an A-Z claim for me.

So, I decided to go with a more reputable seller and got one directly from B&H. The camera is fine, but the 18-55 in the kit was messed up. I got an RMA for the lens only, but they seem to be confused about what's going on. We'll see what happens when they receive a lens with no packaging.

All that said, I really like the camera. I thought I'd go purist and use it with my Sigma 30mm f/1.4. That lens is a bit large and heavy for what it is, but it's wickedly sharp, despite all the complaints I see about it. I really don't know what those people are talking about. It's focus has been dead-on with every camera I've tried it on (D7100, D5300, D5500, D500) and it's built like a tank. The D5500 is very comfortable in the hand, even for my hands. It's actually a nicer fit than the D7100 was in a lot of ways., which is quite a bit larger. The grip is extremely deep, which makes it solid in the hand. I've heard complaints about the menu system in the D5300, and I think the D5500 really fixed that. Since virtually the entire back of the camera is taken up with the monitor, there's not much room for buttons. The D5500 adds a touch screen, and there's a consolidated setting menu where you can tap on basically any setting and change it. It's very slick. The only minor negative for me is the relatively small, dark viewfinder, but that's a big part of how they kept the size and weight so low. I've gotten used to the D500 viewfinder, which is exceptional, but they added a lot of weight and removed the flash to get it.

I was planning on doing some walking around with it. There was a car show yesterday, but it was gloomy, high of 50 and pretty much rained all day. I played around with these two shots of my messy desk at work. I goofed around with some digital filters and other stuff. I decided to add a little graphic to my pics. It's the graphic I used when I was shooting professionally. I specialized in architecture and almost exclusively used a view camera, so the graphic fit perfectly. Now it's "retro".

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I'm sure B&H will handle your return okay, John. They are one of the best camera stores out there. I use either Adorama or them for all my equipment purchases. There was a seller on Amazon offering the Sigma 105mm macro I bought for quite a bit less than the other vendors, but their feedback elsewhere on the 'Net wasn't very good, so I went with Adorama through their Amazon storefront. If the price seems too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true.

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah, I've dealt with B&H for years. There just seemed to be some confusion because they were asking for me to be certain to return the lens in the original box. The response I got today says they are going to send me a "brand new" lens. I don't know if "brand new" means to them what it means to me. I'm not sweating it, since I have the camera and plenty of other lenses to choose from. The funny thing is, there are so many religious holidays they observe, I don't know how long this is going to take.

Another funny thing is, it's ending up being $50 less than the original seller.

 

[JohnRice]

What is it?

 

[Mike Frezon]

At first I thought maybe it was a screen grab from the scene in which Geri (the old toy repairman) fixes Woody in Toy Story 2.

But....it's not.