D90 learning curve

[suhaskulkarni]

<p>Hi<br>

After about a year long debate with myself, I upgraded to Nikon D90 recently.<br>

I took D90 with Tamron 70-300 to local Zoo and spent a day.Light was low so I bumped up ISO to 1250<br>

However, when I saw my photos back I was a little disappointed. Obviously I did something wrong...<br>

The first issue is blown highlights. Attached is sample of the same. Is this due to high ISO? Or spot metering? Or seting ADR to normal?<br>

Second issue is that, the auto CA correction did not work. Another sample is attached for the same. Does Auto CA correction need any specific setting? I was shooting using JPEG fine option. I can understand it wont clean the CA completely, but as you can see from attached sample, the CA is too much and I think the camera did not even try to remove CA.</p><div></div>

[suhaskulkarni]

<p>Blown highlights</p>

[suhaskulkarni]

<p>Did not work - trying second time to attach image....</p>

[suhaskulkarni]

again<div></div>

[rossb]

<p>The dynamic range of any camera is partly dependent on ISO. The higher the ISO the lower the dynamic range. Also of course in post processing you can blow out the highlights easily with increasing the contrast or exposure. I am not familiar with the CA adjustments on your camera as I do not own one. I agree the picture shows some CA and I think that the D90 is an excellent camera and probably there is a reason. If it were me I would start with turning off auto functions and see how that works out. </p>

[hans_janssen]

<p>Your shutter is too long(4 and 2 times 1/125 and 1/200) and it should be 1/450(1/500) according to the focal length you used. I can imaging that the camera has problems with CA correction on blurry pics.<br>

Another reason could be that your lens has too much CA and cannot correct completely. Maybe it is a bad copy.<br>

Shoot in NEF and process in NX2 and you can switch on/off the CA correction so you can see what it does.<br>

Blown highlights: your mistake, you use spotmetering, so it only exposure right on the spot you measure. Take matrix the next time, spot metering is only for special light conditions.</p>

[david_klaffenbach]

<p>Suhas,</p>

<p>You used spot metering with aperture priority. In my opinion, this is a clumsy way to operate. The camera will set the shutter speed so that whatever is in the spot area will be exposed as a medium gray. If the spot is dark, you will overexpose. If the spot is bright, you will underexpose. You could address this by using exposure compensation and then using AE-L to hold the exposure (if you wanted to use a spot other than the point under the focus sensor) but that's a lot of busy work to do and keep track of for each picture.</p>

<p>If you really want to use spot metering, switch to manual mode. Then you can aim the spot at various portions of the scene and the meter will tell you what tone they will end up at given the current exposure setting. This way flows much better but it takes some practice and care. It helps to select 1/2 stop adjustments so the meter reads +/- 3 stops rather than +/- 2 stops.</p>

<p>However, it may be better for you to switch to matrix metering for use with aperture priority and see how that goes.</p>

<p> </p>

[david_klaffenbach]

<p>Google on "How to use the Nikon Spot Meter" and go to the first result. I can't link to it due to a silly (in my opinion) photo.net restriction. The description at this link under "Do It" is, well, spot on.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Take some time to learn about photography in general as well as how to use your camera. Until then you will likely find increased success in the full automatic 'green' shooting mode.</p>

[chauncey_huffman]

<p>I own an D90 also and here is my take on your problems. I read many articles about this camera before I bought it and the one negative that I kept seeing come up was the potential for blown highlights. This is a metering problem with the camera under certain circumstances. I would say either use some bracketing to figure out your sweet spot or just use a little bit of exposure compensation, maybe -0.3 EV. As far as the CA goes, it's almost definitely your lens. The D90 does an EXCELLENT job of controlling CA but to a certain extent nothing is perfect. I agree with a previous post that you should shoot some stuff in RAW and try to control the CA in NX2 or Adobe Camera RAW. Good luck!</p>

[suhaskulkarni]

<p>Thanks guys for the suggestions.<br>

Well, some of you have asked for the reasoning behind the settings... High ISO due to low light, aperture priority set to f8 because I know my lens is too soft below f8, spot metering because I was shooting birds and butterflies mostly. </p>

<p >I think I will switch to matrix metering and try now.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Chauncey – your comments seem reasonable. I read dpreview D90 review and they also mentioned about blown highlights. In your opinion does -.3 EV increase the noise level in shadow area?</p>

<p > </p>

<p >What is the highest ISO that you guys use for low light?<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=2113657">Elliot: </a> I am not new to “photography in general”. I have been shooting with DSLRs (and not in green shooting mode) with some success – at least never came across the problems so severe..</p>

[cc_chang2]

<p>Suhas,</p>

<p>I am not sure what I am looking at in this picture. Is it a crop? Why is it so blurry? How does the overall picture look like? I have a D90 and when matrix metering is used, the camera is in fact quite conservative in the exposure to protect the hightlight, especially when the Nikon 17-55/2.8 is mounted. If there is a reasonably large area that is light color, eg someone wearing a white T-shirt, the camera will make the white T-shirt properly exposed and the rest of the scene is thus slightly underexposed. When other lenses are mounted, e.g., 35/1.8, it does not underexposed as much. When using SPOT metering, you need to pay attention to the tonality of the subject of interest and make adjustments, if you are not familiar with this, you need to find out how to use it. Where was the SPOT meter pointed in this picture? The CA is corrected by the software, provided that you have the right software that can convert Nikon's data. However not all CAs can be corrected by software and this is why some lenses are so much more expensive than others ...</p>

[david_klaffenbach]

<p>Hi Suhas,</p>

<p>Regarding what ISO we go to, well, it depends. If I can't get the shot any other way, I'll go to 3200. I have used that at times for basketball when the light is really bad. It's a tradeoff of noise vs. blur. If I'm taking a picture that's more like a portrait (in terms of someone's face being larger in the frame) I find I'm more sensitive to the noise, and try to not go past 1600. And in general 800 doesn't ever bother me much.</p>

<p>But keep in mind this is a personal choice and it's affected by your settings regarding tone or your post-processing choices. It's also affected by white balance and the colors that exist in the scene, so blues in tungsten will be very noisy, as would reds in shade. While the situation doesn't happen to me very often, I think you can tolerate higher ISOs at sunny or flash WB setting. The attached photo is one I accidentally took at ISO2000 while playing with a new old lens.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9738275-lg.jpg" alt="" width="1018" height="1500" /></p>

[mizuho_saito]

<p>For low light I use 1600-3200 most of the times. I use the lowest possible ISO in to achieve the shutter speed I want. I have used 6400 a little too, but I wouldn't suggest not to unless you really have to. I also post process my images useing noiseware pro and shoot in raw. </p>