Dslr

[Parthiban]

Just a quick reply as I'm away but I've now got the camera and have quickly realised that I'm not going to be able to figure this thing out while on holiday!

First impressions are great, the pics it produces on full auto are very impressive, even in low light, and I'm actually surprised as to how good the built in flash is (didn't expect it to be as intelligent as it is)

Thanks again for all the info and I'll delve a bit deeper into this when I get back!

[Ellz]

Parthiban how did you get on ?

Very randomly dad sneakily exchanged his old Nikon for a D200 just before we went away Skiing over xmas. Didnt get to use it much but when we got back going through the photos and they are fantastic, the image quality is much higher than the old D70 he had, it also takes 5 frames a second which i like :D

Im going to take it out tomro to the autosport show at NEC so i'll let you know how it goes.

As i did my A level with a SLR i havent done any shooting in RAW so will look into it and see how it works etc. As i've never done it before would you recommend doing it all tomro at the Autosport show or not as i dont wanna F up all my photo.

Heres a few my dad took, just in Jpeg not sure what settings, as the D200 doesnt have the pre set "landscape, sport" etc

[ColinBarber]

You need to add some +ve exposure compensation (+2 maybe) with bright scenes like snow otherwise the snow comes out a bit grey as in your examples.

[Ellz]

You need to add some +ve exposure compensation (+2 maybe) with bright scenes like snow otherwise the snow comes out a bit grey as in your examples.

I'll try and remember that next year :)

Just gone down stairs and snapped a few Jpeg fine + Raw takes the photos from this 1gig from 168 on jpeg fine to a mean 44 on jpeg fine + raw.

Because its low light im having to use a flash but thats what tomro will be like as well.

The RAW images im loading in photoshop CS2, soooooo much to adjust afterwards, but to be honest just the raw photo itself is crisper than the Jpeg image, as long as the brightness is right they look better.

Is photoshop a good program to be using with RAW, im just seeing how quick it is to save all RAW images to Jpeg as tomro i'll be taking a good couple 100 photos.

[ColinBarber]

You can just use adobe camera raw to do basic workflow of RAW images. I hardly ever use Photoshop as I don't tend to do pixel editing. It you just want to make global adjustments to exposure, colour, white balance, contrast, saturation, cropping, highlight recovery etc. then apple Aperture or Adobe Lightroom are excellent programs, especially if you take a lot of pictures because they help you manage and block adjust batches of photos.

Both of those are available to download as a free trial (Aperture is Mac only) so you can try them out.

[Jiberjaber]

You need to add some +ve exposure compensation (+2 maybe) with bright scenes like snow otherwise the snow comes out a bit grey as in your examples.

I'll try and remember that next year :)

Just gone down stairs and snapped a few Jpeg fine + Raw takes the photos from this 1gig from 168 on jpeg fine to a mean 44 on jpeg fine + raw.

Because its low light im having to use a flash but thats what tomro will be like as well.

The RAW images im loading in photoshop CS2, soooooo much to adjust afterwards, but to be honest just the raw photo itself is crisper than the Jpeg image, as long as the brightness is right they look better.

Is photoshop a good program to be using with RAW, im just seeing how quick it is to save all RAW images to Jpeg as tomro i'll be taking a good couple 100 photos.

Ellz, CaptureNX2 , much better to adjust your Nikon RAW files in that.

You can do the following simple adjustments in the free ViewNX programme as well.

Exposure compentation

White Balance

Picture Control

Sharpness

Contrast

Highlight & Shadow Protection

Dynamic lighting and Colour booter

I wouldnt bother with shooting the RAW+JPG, just shoot RAW and convert later, there is a lower res JPG actualy already stored in the RAW file.

[Jiberjaber]

Here's the details you were after from the picture info, they were all shot in Programe mode (P)

ExposureTime: 1/800"

Aperture: F16.0

ExposureProgram: Program AE

ExposureBiasValue: 0

MeteringMode: Center-weighted average

ISO: 320

WhiteBalance: Auto

FocalLength: 18.0 mm

LensSpec: 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G

ExposureTime: 1/1500"

Aperture: F20.0

ExposureProgram: Program AE

ExposureBiasValue: 0

MeteringMode: Center-weighted average

ISO: 320

WhiteBalance: Auto

FocalLength: 18.0 mm

LensSpec: 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G

ExposureTime: 1/1250"

Aperture: F18.0

ExposureProgram: Program AE

ExposureBiasValue: 0

MeteringMode: Center-weighted average

ISO: 320

WhiteBalance: Auto

FocalLength: 18.0 mm

LensSpec: 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G

Does he know it has done about 10,000 shutter activations?

[Ellz]

Does he know it has done about 10,000 shutter activations?

Cheers for that, nope i guess not, does that matter ? How did you find all this out ? Just click photo and properties ?

I tried shooting in RAW at the Autosport show some of the photos where very very similar to the jpeg normal but the odd 1 or 2 you could see where very different. Only problems is I had a 2gig chip in to begin with about 40 shots in and it wont take any more saying card needs formatting. Is there anyway i can get the info off the card, when i try and go into it on the computer it trys to format it saying all data will be deleted.

[Jiberjaber]

Sounds like the card is goosed, you did format it in the camera didn't you?

Try reading it from the camera using the USB connection.

The shots info is from the EXIF data, you need something like KUSO viewer (free) to see it. 10,000 isn't a problem I would have thought unless he was sold it as new :)

[Ellz]

Sounds like the card is goosed, you did format it in the camera didn't you?

Try reading it from the camera using the USB connection.

The shots info is from the EXIF data, you need something like KUSO viewer (free) to see it. 10,000 isn't a problem I would have thought unless he was sold it as new :)

Yeah have tried that as well, really ****** off then as loads of nice cars on there :tsktsk:

Yeah he got it second hand from clock tower cameras in brighton with trading in his D70 so no problems there.

[Parthiban]

Forgot about this thread for a while so sorry about that but hopefully I can update now. Picked the camera up at the airport on my way out to the US - just £620 for the body and kit lens which I still think is an absolute bargain for what it is!

I actually ended up using the camera quite a bit in auto mode as when you're trawling theme parks and the like a point and shoot is exactly what you need - the results were pretty impressive though for the majority of the time.

This is one of my favourite "auto" shots, was moving in a massive crowd so no time to stop and take a proper photo, it was almost pitch black except that floodlight you can see in the corner which was facing me - literally just paused for a second, pointed, and clicked and it was a surprisingly good photo!

And a few more examples (some auto, some not as I was slowly figuring out how to use the thing!)

I'll be the first to admit I still don't really know what I'm doing but I already know a lot more than when I picked it up so hopefully I'll get better!