Thank you - lots of wonderful teachers in this forum. Joanna is the ultimate expert in my opinion, but when I don’t understand Wolfgang comes along and says things in a way that fit into my mind better. Fotoguido is also quite talented - I don’t think I have met him before.
I do know about diffraction, and usually try to avoid f/22, unless it’s necessary. I’m surprised my D750 works as well as it does, with such tiny pixels, and Joanna’s D850 has even smaller pixels.
Back to what you wrote - I think by “sunstars”, you mean points on the screen with “lines” going out from them in many directions, sort of like a star? Maybe when you have time, you can please post something on how to do that? I see them in other people’s photos, but have no clue as to how to do it. I suspect you put some kind of filter on the lens, but that’s just a guess.
I love posting photos here, editing as best I can, and then many, many people come along with ideas on what I could have done better, and then they post their version. Images I uploaded a year ago I now consider quite ugly - too many mistakes, and too much use of “ClearView”. I thought I knew what would make an image look better, but now I realize I was deleting much of the data that the lens and camera captured. My sunset photo up above - had I posted it last year, it would be black buildings against the sky. In my wildest imagination I never dreamed I could bring out all that detail, while shooting into the sun. Now I look at images at 100%, and see data that I didn’t expect. It’s an opening into a whole new world. I’m guessing other software can do it, but PhotoLab makes it so intuitive ONCE I LEARN THE CONTROLS.
Sunstars: Yes, you understand what sunstars are. Not something you want to use all the time, but in moderation something a bit different. You don’t need special filters (although those are available also). And I haven’t used it much. You can give it a try by stopping your lens down to f/22 or so and just including the sun in your image. There are a number of subtleties, but that’s the general idea. (Be prepared to clean up some sensor specks due to the small aperture.)
Back to the main topic, I had an interesting experience this morning. I put my D750 with my heavy 80-200 lens mounted on my Bogen tripod, raised the camera up to eye level, and was going to use spot metering to measure the brightest part of the image. At 80mm focal length, anything I did to the camera caused the image in the viewfinder to “wobble” - anything. (My new tripod should be arriving any day now…)
So, I went looking in the D750 Menu for the self-timer setting, but found something in the PHOTO SHOOTING MENU for “Remote Control Mode (ML-L3)”. Selecting that gave me several options for remote shooting, including the option to lock up the mirror first, then either take an instant photo by using the remote, or taking a photo with a delay. Back to the computer, what is an ML-L3??
As for my photo from an hour or so ago, I got one photo I liked, but that was from before I switched from center-weighted back to spot-metering. A boat was sailing by the statue, and if I delayed any longer, the composition would be gone. I took more images at better settings, but clouds started blocking the sun. I may or may not have an image worth editing and posting here - there were lots of cruise ships, all lined up in a row, and I thought that made for an interesting photo, especially for people who don’t see these ships all the time.
Excuses, excuses. You know you should set the camera to what you intend to shoot next, before you switch it off, even if you don’t know what you are going to shoot next - it’s called predictive adjustment and it’s available in the upcoming Nikon D2025 Super AI IQ+
I think the best thing I can do is to set the exposure comp back to zero, and switch from (M)anual to (A)perture priority mode, with maybe 400 ISO. I think that was your suggestion for walking around with the camera, not knowing what the future might bring me…
Does that D2025 include the auto-shutter option, so it only fires at the optimum moment when the camera is stable and the composition satisfactory?
More seriously, DPReview had a discussion as to why the ML-L3 doesn’t work with the Nikon D850. https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4340612
What are you now using for that purpose? Does the D850 accept a standard old-fashioned cable release like cameras were intended to use, or is it like my D750 that doesn’t seem to accept any cable release???
It’s not a bad starting point. unless you do what I did this morning and forget to set the focus back to auto from manual, thus only getting the odd image sharp by chance
Your D750 does accept the MC-DC2 Remote Release un dirt one of the side covers. The D850 still has the reliable(?) old 10 pin connector which accepts any one of several wired remotes.
Or, if I want to go all posh and techie, I can use the Nikon SnapBridge app on my iPhone, which also allows me to wirelessly see the through the lens as well as pressing the shutter and reviewing images on the phone. But, at the expense of rather rapid battery depletion.
Well, here goes, one photo from this morning. It’s not as high a dynamic range image as what I’ve been shooting lately, but close. To get the yacht where I wanted it, I ran out of time and never got the metering changed from center-weighted to spot metering, but I did all the other steps as intended. Camera was on a tripod, but out of four almost identical photos, this image appeared sharpest. I wanted to capture the four cruise ships docked in front of the Miami skyline and I needed the yacht to put a little “movement” into the photo. Metering was done on a small white cloud, and the front end of the second cruise ship from the left, but I wanted something bigger and whiter. In retrospect, the brightest part of the image is the bow of the yacht. I may have made the green trees too dark, but this is how they looked to me.
I made a virtual copy (VC1), as I wanted to see how the “control line” tool might help, but I got lost in what it might do, and I didn’t like the results in what I tried. I just ended up using the graduated filter to make the top of the image slightly darker. I wondered if any flying sensor dust might wander into the photo, but the birds never cooperated. If I would have waited, the yacht would be out of the picture frame probably.
I’m obviously getting spoiled by PhotoLab - it’s difficult for me to accept that this image was hiding inside the original image my D750 captured, which is all way over-exposed and dull.
Again, everyone reading this - please try this yourself, and post the results you come up with. I very much enjoying “seeing” things through other people’s eyes!! I especially want to understand Joanna’s take on what I did, and how…
Before moving onto your next shot Mike, which isn’t really HDR, I just wanted to show you something I just re-discovered and applied to you sunset image…
That is incredible! I will try that - not sure right now how you got it to look so nice, it “feels” like looking at the sun!
Are you sure about that? I enjoy “dark mode” on many of my devices, even in the day, but it doesn’t change the forum appearance for me. I know I don’t “see” many things here correctly when they are surrounded by a huge bright white screen. Maybe it’s just me…
Yes, these are birds of course. See attached screenshot as example. Sensor specs may not be visible after upload due to compression so look carefully in DXO.
I never use sensor cleaning, it mostly manages only to bring dust on different position than before
Thank you!!! I think I have some wonderful teachers, even when I’m slow to learn.
Also, I am very careful at getting the meter reading centered perfectly, but the reading I’m using comes from the camera, not from me. I’m appreciating the D750 so much more, now that we’re doing these things.
I like the warmer version better - it represents what I “felt” early in the morning, but the warmth was going away as the sun got higher. It certainly is more appealing.
(Not directly related, but I wanted to send the above image in an email, and I wanted to put a thick black frame around it, since people will read it on a white background.
When I selected a white frame, it appeared black on my PL4 window, but white in the exported file.
When I selected a black frame, it appeared white on my PL4 window, but black in the exported file.
If you test this, and if you agree, maybe you can please pass this on to the appropriate people?
Here is my .dop file: _7509184 | 2021-10-23.nef.dop (43.0 KB)
On my screen, it shows a white border, but when I export it it works correctly, with a black border.
Hmm, I did notice the glare while reviewing the image at 100%, but had no idea of how to correct it. Is there a tutorial available on how to use control line to do what you’ve done?
I went to turn it on for my next attempt, but the asterisk was already there - meaning while I thought I was in regular spot metering, I was actually in the spotlight mode. Oops… At the time, I didn’t know to look for the aterisk. Me bad. I should have seen it, and wondered what it did, but at the time I thought there were only the three basic modes.
Regardless, it’s now turned on. For a fair test, I will shoot this way, without using the +1.7 exposure. If it’s obvious the 1.7 overexposure is necessary, I’ll turn that on too for the next time. Since we’re mostly concerned with the area near the sun, I think I’ll put the 200mm lens back on, and zoom in. If there’s a decent sunset tonight, I’ll go for it. It’s now 4pm EST DST, so my opportunity will be in about 2 1/2 hours from now.
Not as I’ve done it, no. Just general use. We are out shooting surfers tomorrow morning, if the rain holds off. I will try to put together a step by step guide sometime over the weekend.
Oops indeed! Ah well, another lesson learnt
I wasn’t thinking of doing both at the same time but I guess it will be interesting to see what happens.
Hmmm. Don’t forget one of the aims is not just to minimise flare on the sun but also to get shadow detail at the same time.
Just out of interest, here’s a shot from this afternoon, taken with my new toy at 25,600 ISO, first without and then with DeepPRIME
