martin-s

<p>I agree with Juergen.<br>

Typically there is a protective glass cover and anti-aliasing filter on top of the sensor. A wet clean should do the job although you might need to repeat the procedure.</p>

<p>In addition to what George said, it would be helpful, if you could provide us with a screen snapshot from Lightroom that shows the problem and a link to an original RAW file.</p>

<p>The latest version of the LR 2 installer includes all the additional camera profiles – no need to run the Adobe DNG Profiles beta installer.<br /> If you don't see anything except <em>Adobe Standard</em> , that probably means Adobe didn't create any for your camera in the first place.</p>

<p>I don't have a PC, but as far as I recall, LR catalogues are cross-platform, so you shouldn't have any problems merging them.<br /> I merge catalogues all the time. Just choose "Import from catalog…" and you will get the usual import window, where you can select either all or a subset of images to import. That will preserve all the adjustments made to the images.<br /> You can either connect the two computers via Ethernet/Wireless or use an external hard drive (or other storage media) for the transfer. If you're doing it via networking and you have a lot of images, the process can take quite a while.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"PTLens has that lens covered for unshifted or full shift, if I understand it correctly."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It will work for any amount of shift, you just need to make a note of the exact amount applied to the individual shots and use that in the procedure.<br>

PTLens comes with a PS action to enlarge the canvas first. You then need to manually reposition the image on the extended canvas according to the shift value and run the distortion correction on that.<br>

It's a bit awkward, which is why I've only used it rarely.</p>

<p>For Intel Mac & PC: <a href="http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/">PTLens</a><br>

For PPC Mac: <a href="http://kekus.com/lensfix.html">LensFix</a></p>

<p>If the files have a .psd extension they're Photoshop documents and don't need to be unzipped at all. Double-clicking should open them in PS, if not drag then onto the PS icon in your Dock, or right-click the file and look under "Open with..." in the context menu and select Photoshop as the application to use.</p>

<p>For compositing or any other sophisticated manipulations, you have to resort to PS anyway.<br>

LR was primarily designed as a <strong>RAW workflow</strong> application. I doubt it’s a good <strong>general</strong> asset manager; Bridge would likely be a better choice.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“Here is a picture I took in Kamchatka…”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Jorgen, this is a beautiful picture. May I ask, where in Kamchatka it was taken?<br /> I’m interested, since here in Iceland there is a remarkably similar place called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Viti_crater,_Askja,_Iceland.jpg">Víti</a> , located in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askja">Askja</a> caldera. It’s even safe to go for a swim in Víti, the water’s lovely.</p>

<p>Dave,<br>

if you're still following this thread, take a look at <a href="http://luminous-landscape.com/essays/balance.shtml">this article</a> on Luminous Landscape. It illustrates my point, that the "right" white balance is pretty much a matter of personal taste.</p>

<p>As far as I can remember…<br>

"sRGB IEC6... several more numbers" is installed by Adobe applications and is indistinguishable from "sRGB Profile", which comes pre-installed on a lot of operating systems somewhere, you can use either.</p>

<p>The "e-sRGB" I haven't come across, but you could test it yourself: open an image that is in sRGB and – only in this case – use Photoshop's <strong>Assign Profile</strong> command to apply "e-sRGB". If the image changes visibly, then this profile is definitely not an alternative to sRGB.</p>

<p>If you're on a Mac, you can go to Applications > Utilities and use the ColorSync Utility to examine all the colour profiles installed on your system. It shows you graphically the differences.</p>

<p>Jeff,<br>

that sounds like the correct profile, although I don't know how the Nikon colour space compares to for instance Pro Photo. You'd want a large space especially if you're going to make substantial edits in Photoshop. Your scan software might also have an option to scan in 16-bit mode rather than the standard 8-bit. That will produce files twice the size, but again it could be worth it for editing in PS.</p>

<p>Also always keep your original images in a large colour space, and only convert copies to e.g. sRGB.</p>

<p>sRGB is indeed the best choice for the web.</p>

<p>However you should <strong>convert</strong> your images to the sRGB colour space rather than simply assigning the sRGB profile. The latter is plain wrong – <a href="http://www.colormanagementinfo.com/page1/page10/page10.html">here's a brief explanation</a> of the differences.</p>

<p>You should also make sure that your <em>J.H. profile</em> is actually the right profile to use with your scanner. Otherwise you might be messing around with your images' colours. Ideally you would calibrate your scanner and let the scan software embed the correct profile automatically.</p>

<p>We have a D90 and its images come into LR looking great. I suspect it's a camera setting in your case, that the Nikon software is able to pick up, but which is ignored by LR. That is quite common with other manufacturers' software, too.<br>

If the histograms look dark, then that's how the images were <strong>shot</strong> .<br>

Have you tried to reset the camera to factory defaults?</p>

<p>By the way, since you shoot RAW, the selection of a colour space is irrelevant except for the jpeg preview. Internally LR uses the ProPhoto working space, not sRGB.</p>

<p>Tony,<br>

if this is going to be an important event and you want a memorable record of the moment, you might want to consider hiring a professional to take the shot on a medium format digital camera.<br>

The other family members would probably be happy to chip in.</p>

<p>Dave,</p>

<p>I'd say, trust your intuition in this matter: the right white balance is what looks good to you.</p>

<p>Unless you're aiming to faithfully reproduce the colours of for instance fabric samples, there simply isn't one "right" white balance setting. There's always a range over which an image will look good. Especially in atmospheric images that range can be quite wide.</p>

<p>Technically the golden glow, that you and others like, is a strong colour cast, but correcting that would most likely ruin the image.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"The second-biggest problem is that it simply can’t deal with multiple light sources with different color temperatures."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I doubt we'll ever see a software tool capable of correcting that sort of problem. This can only be addressed by filtering the light sources themselves.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Maybe I needed a tilt/shift lens to help. :-) I am still looking for a good enough excuse to get one of those."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You've answered your own question there.<br>

By tilting the focal plane you can achieve sharpness from the extreme foreground to infinity. But TS lenses aren't a magic bullet either. As you tilt the lens the DOF space changes from a rectangular box to a wedge shape, so you could end up with detail <strong>above/</strong> <strong>below</strong> or <strong>left/right</strong> of the focal plane being noticeably blurred. Seems a fashionable effect nowadays.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Anything the matter with an approach that asks the photographer to determine what the real/most important subject of the photograph is and focus on that, with aperture selected to provide either a broad or narrow dof depending which suits the shot best?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, that's what I was trying to say.</p>

<p>If the detail at infinity, or close to it, is the dominant feature and covers a large area in a shot, I will focus on infinity and stop down to ensure that the foreground is acceptably sharp. But if I consider the foreground to be the more interesting feature, I will adjust focus accordingly and accept that infinity will be OK in terms of sharpness, but not great.<br>

This approach has served me well – no DOF tables necessary.</p>

<p>I also agree, that knowing the hyperfocal distance isn't very helpful, since the majority of modern AF lenses has useless distance scales.<br>

The best were probably the old Hasselblad lenses that had mechanical DOF indicators, that would move as you adjusted the aperture; those were the days.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"What's your technique for setting the hyperfocal distance for landscape photography?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I rarely resort to using the hyperfocal distance in landscapes, but rather follow the advice given in <a href="http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html">Depth of Field Revisited</a> : focus at infinity and pick an appropriate aperture value.<br>

I would sacrifice sharpness at infinity only if there is a dominating, <strong>very close</strong> foreground with interesting detail.</p>

<p>Jeff & Scott, thanks for your input.<br>

I can see the drawbacks, but they certainly seem to have their uses, especially when strapped onto a hood. I find the hard lens caps often too fiddly under these circumstances.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Consider a neoprene sock as a cap. They are great protection."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sounds interesting. Are these made specifically for use on lenses, and does anyone have a link to those neoprene socks?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“Like everything else in photography, it requires putting your time in the field. WHen the shot comes together, you are there. ”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I second that.<br>

Spending more time in one place allows you to get a feel for it, its special features, the changes in light, seasonal changes etc.<br>

We go on extensive camping trips all year round and also return to places again and again, yet they're never quite the same.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“To me, proper exposure is not entirely personal interpretation.”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sorry if my reply wasn't entirely clear, but I wasn't referring to the <em>proper exposure</em> but the <em>end result</em> .</p>

<p>Thanks very much everyone for your thoughts.</p>

<p>I knew about those 3rd party RF remotes. I was hoping not having to attach a device (also requiring its own power supply) to the camera with a cable, but there you go. The size and simplicity of the ML-L3 is just perfect, if only the camera could sense its signal from behind.</p>

<p>Phil, good idea of using the timer!</p>