sun_p

December 30, 2015

Shun - the moment you mentioned moisture, I got the hair dryer out. After a couple of attempts, its working absolutely fine!!

Thanks for the suggestion!

December 29, 2015

It behaves the same way for for other functions also! So if I keep rotating the dial, it will suddenly change the value, but then I cannot change it back, need to keep rotating the dial and it might change once in a while.

December 29, 2015

Thanks Shun! I was able to change the command dial dial buttons and now the shutter speed works with the front dial, but the aperture does not change with the main dial (It changes randomly when i keep rotating the main dial) same when I switch back the dials. Would this mean that the main dial has gone bad? Wondering if it would cost a bomb to change it considering the camera is over two years and is out of warranty now. This was working absolutely fine last time I used it with flash. Not sure, if fungus or something is causing this issue since I was out for 2 months and it was raining in between.

December 29, 2015

Hi Everyone,

Sometime back I had changed the settings on my Nikon D600 to self timer mode when I was trying something after which I was out for about 2 months. I just got back and was trying the camera out, My mode is M and lower dial is Set to "S". The aperture is changing but the shutter speed does not change. When I try to rotate the dial it randomly changes, Wondering if there is any problem with the dial or if I have by mistake changed something in the menu/hit some button etc. Unfortunately, the manual is also not with me at the moment. Would anyone know what I need to do to make sure its not a setup issue. I hope its not a hardware button problem!

thanks!

January 7, 2015

Thanks a lot everyone! I think I am now very clear on what lens to go for. Thanks Rodeo Joe for the information on - how much of the baby's face would fit in the frame approximately part. I think even a 135 mm would be quite a change from a 85mm at least in terms of the compression etc. I am also thinking of trying out my 105 2.8VR again to see if I can use it a little more creatively. Its been lying in the bag for about 8 months. I have a shoot this weekend, I am thinking of using that for the closeups and then once I am ready with my finances go for the 70-200 2.8 vd II

Thanks again! Sun

January 3, 2015

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Like l said, the 85/50 would continue to be used for the session as my primary lens. But I think I have got my answer in terms of what lens to get. It might also be interesting to use a zoom after shooting only prime for the last two years after migrating from my very first D40/d90/18-55 kit lens.

I had one more question on this - Considering the fact that the focus breathing happens only at minimum focus distance(I hope I got that right), for those who have the lens, would a baby's face (around 8-12 months age group) require us to be at MFD to fill the frame? The reason I ask is because we would be going closer to the subject to fill the frame approaching the MFD only if the size of the subject is really small. What about a baby's face (8-12 months age group)?

Thanks!

January 2, 2015

Hi Matt - Great to hear from you. You were instrumental a couple of years back in my getting the right camera and lenses especially the sigma 50 1.4 and the Nikon D600. I think you got it absolutely right. I also happen to shoot pets and a faster AFS is something that you need in both cases, kids and pets :) . Its almost non-negotiable. For adults even a manual focus lens would do. I had one question regarding the focus breathing. If I zoom out till 200mm and try to focus at minimum focus distance, as mentioned it will actually be around 135mm. What about the compression and perspective? Does that also change to that of a 135 mm lens? Also, then when would this lens show the true 200mm length? Would it be if I pull back further? Say for example, a kid is about two feet in height sitting down. Approx, what distance would I have to step back to get the full 200mm focal length and based on your experience, how much of the subject would it cover? Just thinking if I would need to crop in post with the zoom also.

Kent - Couldn't agree with you more! Kids are too busy doing their own thing and if anything react mostly to the parents. Infact, If I am close and try to get their attention, they get all startled spoiling the photographs sometimes. This is the reason why I was thinking of getting a longer focal length lens. Of course, love the compression also! Just doing what ever it takes to make my customers happier this year.

Rodeo Joe - Sigma and Tamron as such don't have a proper office at my place. So its mostly dealers who get it from different places outside the country. so its a little risky. Nikon and Cannon have proper offices and we get warranty etc. So considering the cost, I was planning my finances in a way to get this zoom if required. However, since I don't have access to test or rent these lenses, thought of putting my questions over here. Nothing like experience from other photographers! At least, I have always got great advice here.

January 2, 2015

Thanks for the responses.

Paul, the 200 becomes a 135 at MFD!! wow. I did read about focus breathing, but those articles were mentioning it would be more like 165 or so. However, AFS is critical for me. The kids move really fast, so manual focus and slow focus is a total no - no. I actually, have the nikon 105 VR micro which I had got 2-3 years back when I used to shoot a bit of food and products. I did try it out on portraits, but it was too slow. I was missing a lot of shots. Also, I guess, at the head shot and shoulder shots, considering the angle of view, there might not be much of background anyway. My main intention was the compression and a slightly different perspective which would add some value to my customers. Right now, like I said, with the 50 and 85, head shots are a bit of a struggle for me, but when I do get them, they generally end up being the customers favourite. I also shoot a lot into the light, and a couple of years back had the 135 in mind but read that it was too slow and the CA was bad. I guess, it would be great to shoot adults with it, but not so sure about kids.

Wouter, generally, with kids, that I shoot in the 8-11 month age, most of them are busy doing their own thing, I generally get the parents to interact with them sitting behind or by the side outside the frame. In many cases I have noticed, If I actually interact with them, then they get a bit startled, eyes widen, pupils dilate etc when they see me so close. Also, I don't plan to make the 70-200 my primary and only lens, I continue shooting with 50/85 and then for head shots and maybe a few other shoulder/eye shots switch to the 70-200 and shoot only at 2.8 (hence not considering the F4 version). I will take a look at the 180 2.8 online to read about it.

Les - I have the 105 VR. But don't use it. Its too slow for kids. And also a bit too sharp for my liking. I prefer a slightly softer look.

January 2, 2015

Hi Everyone,

Here is wishing a very Happy New Year to everyone reading this!

I was planning on buying the 70-200 f2.8 VrII lens this year and wanted some advice from the experts here. Unfortunately at my place I don't have the option to rent the lens so am posting over here like I have done before. All the gear I currently have is thanks to the recommendation from experts here and I am more than happy with what I have.

To give you a background, I primarily shoot kids, couples and families and have been doing so for the last two years. I shoot both indoors in a studio setting and outdoors in the open. Outside I shoot natural light without flash. I have a Nikon D600 and the sigma 50 1.4 and nikon 85 1.4 D both of which I use and have managed to get great photographs. Although with little kids, I noticed I tend to use the 50 more since the 85 sometimes takes a little while to focus.

One issue that I see with the 50 and the 85 is that the working distance between the subject and myself is quite less and for head shots when I get closer to kids, they generally have that startled look with open eyes. The other option is that I step back and take photographs and then crop later which results in a little loss of resolution. I also give prints of all the photographs I take. So I thought the 70-200 f2.8 might benefit in the following ways

1. I will be away from the kids and can zoom in at about 200 and get a lot more natural looking head shots and some eye shots.

2. With the perspective and compression at 200, it will add to a slightly different yet flattering look especially for head shots, which would help with the sales

3. I see the AF is very fast on the lens, which is very important with kids. Not to mention the VR will help by almost 2 stops so even if I shoot at 200mm, I can have a slower shutter speed outside by almost two stops.

4. I am a sucker for bokeh and the 85 and 50 at 1.4 excel. However, I understand at 200mm, the angle of view is that much lesser so even if the bokeh of the lens is not the best, at least it makes the subject pop out if the distance from background is good due to the different angle of view at 200mm

So plan is to continue using the 50 or 85 mm at 1.4 like I currently do and then use the 70-200 for head/shoulder shots and also the added benefit of slightly different background rendering due to the smaller angle of view. AF speed of the lens also being an important factor.

Wondering if any of the experts here feel that it might not be a good idea or have any other suggestions? I shoot mostly kids in the age group of 2 - 12 months.

thanks!

Sun

February 10, 2014

Hi everyone, I shoot with a D600 and mostly with an 85 1.4/50 1.4 at about 2-2.2 and primarily shoot portraits of kids and couples. I shoot both, studio type photographs (against seamless) and also outdoors. so far I have done quite a few studio shoots and shoot completely manual and am very comfortable. Been very happy with the results since I have full control on all parameters (more of less). Studio shots are all using strobes. Now, outdoors is a different story. I generally, find a shady spot and check the ambient light dial that up in my camera in manual mode to get the exposure and I can get good photographs. However, One thing that happens out doors is the since the light is changing fast, and also my subjects being little ones, they are very unpredictable, so they are constantly moving. I on my side, also keep moving and try taking photographs from different angles and directions, which means sometimes I might have light directly coming into the camera, sometimes on the side and sometimes not. So unlike a studio, I am not shooting from one direction only. With this considering the speed I need to work with the exposure changes. My question is, in such a situation would it not make sense to just shoot Aperture priority, Because, if we are on manual, and set the shutter to 1/60 and the light is too much because i moved in the opposite direction, the image would be blown. another thing I noticed is that because of the bright sun, the lcd is hardly visible, so sometimes you might not know that you have blown out the image. Also, since it involves kids that are like a year or less, they move quite a bit and also have a very short time before they become restless, cranky and tired. So I need to shoot fast also focusing on composition etc. I was wondering what is your approach, for shooting outdoors with fast moving subjects, is aperture priority a better and more reliable approach (Keeping ISO fixed)? The only reason I ask is because I don't want the exposure across photographs to be all over the place, Some turn up dark, some light etc etc. Would love to hear your experience! Thanks, Sun

November 7, 2013

As always, thanks everyone. After reading all your comments, I think I am not going to go in for the 80-200 for now. Will continue for a while with my existing kit. I was under the impression that the longer lens would have a major difference in background blur, but that is not the case.

thanks!

Sun

November 6, 2013

Hi everyone,

Just to give you some background. I primarily shoot portraits both indoor and outdoors. I use a D600, sigma 50 1.4 and nikkor 85 1.4 D as my primary lenses. I shoot both kids and adults. I am happy with my setup and have been using it successfully for the whole year with great results. However, I am a sucker for Bokeh and was looking at options for getting the background a little more out of focus than what my 85 1.4 can do. Especially, since sometimes (atleast outdoors, I can't shoot at 1.4 if the light is too much(Unless I put on some sort of a filter etc). So ever since I have started photography I have pretty much been using prime lenses and 85 is the max I have shot (in terms of focal length). Since I am a portrait shooter, I was now thinking of picking up the 80-200 2.8, mainly for outdoors, which will enable me to shoot at longer focal lengths(I know I will have to step back a lot further and I also understand that bokeh depends on other factors like subject background distance, aperture, focal length etc) but also with the understanding that at longer focal lengths, at 2.8 I will be able to

1. Get the background a little more out of focus? (Or is that not true and the difference of shooting with 85 1.4 at say 2.0 and a 200 mm at say 2.8 would not be much(in terms of background bokeh? considering the subject fills the frame) 2. Get some benefit of longer focal length (which is said to have a better impact on subjects due to compression)?

3. Get in a slightly different perspective since I have been shooting with the 50/85 for a year now.

Was hoping to get some advice from the experts if they see any issue with this. 70-200VRII is out of budget and in my country I don't have the option to rent. Nobody known has either of the two lenses. So as has always been the case, I was hoping to get some advice before planning on getting the lens. Its currently well within my budget. Also, this is not a case of NAS :) I have had this gear for sometime now. The only reason for this has been to bring about maybe some sort of change in style (in terms of perspective, bokeh etc) in my photographs.

Thanks, Sun

August 15, 2013

Thanks Rodeo Joe. I think I am going to try out the White paper option. However, your last comment got me thinking.

I use elinchrom 100cm Octa and the modelling light set at the highest value. No other light source. The shutter speed is 160 as against the 200 because I do notice sometimes a black line when I use 200 which is the max sync speed of the D600. The room walls being very close, I wonder if the beige side walls bounce off and cause a yellowish tinge. But when you say the light source cannot be in the 4100 range. What would be the range generally for an all whiteroom, with standard strobes? Also, the main reason I decided to invest in the Expodisk was so that its easier to record white balance. Since I mostly shoot kids, families, etc, I don't have to have someone hold it while I set the white balance since I dont have any assistant as such.

<a href="/photodb/user?user_id=4921638">Sjoerd Leeuwenberg</a> - Did not know that the white balance does not matter. I mean, Lets say I open the raw file in lightroom and convert it to JPG what white balance does it take? I thought its the same that shows up in Lightroom? By manipulating that and saving to JPG would change the color of the image. Sorry, did not understand that.

Phil - I wanted to know how to set the white balance correctly. If I were to just set it to 3800, Maybe If I change the lights and aperture and shutter and distance of the light, I would still need to redo the white balance and then the reading might be different. :)

Thanks everyone. Sorry, am traveling this week with limited access to the net, hence the delay in replying!

August 14, 2013

Hi there Gurus, Just had a situation where I was looking for some advise and help from all of you. Just a brief description of the gear. I use a D600, have a small room - which is like 8 feet wide and 12 feet long and about 12 feet high. The ceiling is Pure white, while the walls are off white, Light beige to be precise. I use one Octa and shoot against a white seamless. I always shoot manual and RAW. Now for white balance I use the Expodisc Neutral 77mm. My light is about 4-5 feet from the subject top left 45 degrees and is 100mm in dimensions. What I notice is that the images are generally on the warmer side. In lightroom they would generally be around 4150 - 4200 temperature range and mostly have a yellow cast which I need to correct to about 3800 to 3900. I don't do any other touch-ups in post and was hoping to nail the white balance issue so that I get it right out of the camera since all other parameters are always the same including aperture, ISO and shutter. I use only the 85mm 1.5 D Nikon and sometimes the Sigma 50 1.4. Now as per Expodisk we need to point the camera to the main source while recording white balance and some cases online users are saying if there are multiple light sources to just point the camera from the subjects location. I suspect the issue is with light bouncing off the beige walls considering the size of the room. My question is what would you do to get the correct white balance in camera so that post changes are kept to a minimum. Or would you suggest, I white balance off a grey card? Never done that. Final idea is to get color corrected image in the camera itself since all other parameters are almost the same every time in order to speedup my workflow. Any help please? thanks, Sun

June 2, 2013

Angie - I had taken it to the Nikon Service center and they did tell me that they can replace the focus part for me, but it would take time. The service guy did tell me that the noise is not really an issue. So I did not want them to open up my brand new camera. I did not face this issue with any of my other fixed focal lenses. So I decided not to do anything with the camera. Now its almost over 6 months, the 85D1.4 is my primary lens and I have had no issues whatsoever with the camera and the prints /images are beautiful. The noise has also gone and this camera/lens is what I have been using for all my shoots.

However, since yours is a refurbished one and you do have the option of returning (Something we do not have in our country) and if you are getting it with not just one lens, then why not return it and purchase another one. There might be a genuine issue with the focus part of the camera.

February 28, 2013

Hi There,

I recently switched from a cropped sensor D90(I still have it) to a D600. I see the vignetting is quite a bit compared to cropped sensor, which I think is normal. I use generally the 85 1.4 and 50 1.4 mostly wide open. My question is what is the best approach to remove vignetting in post if not in camera. without having to chop off the photographs on the side. I know in lightroom, we have the post crop vignetting, but somehow , not been very successful in removing it. Are there any specific settings that you could recommend in lightroom etc. I don't want to modify exposure as such. Also, if there are around 30-40 photographs to process doing something in lightroom might be better and faster than individually correcting corners in Photoshop. This is particularly important since I shoot a lot against a white background using one light, without lighting the background seperately(which I don't want to do).

Thanks,

Sun

February 28, 2013

Mike, I have only seen the prints and the difference between them since the lab sent me two samples of the original print and the new print (without the enhancement) and from what I can see is that the one with the banding, clearly looks oversaturated, the kind where we run those "Color Pop" PS actions. Secondly, I noticed since I shot against a white background and with my D600, (earlier I used to shoot with a cropped sensor), that the images have vignetting (which is less in a cropped sensor), So although I had corrected a bit in Lightroom, it was not enough. Not sure, if that was causing some sort of a "gradient" kind of an impact, adding to the color banding all over the white surface when they enhanced the photograph.

February 28, 2013

Hi Everyone,

So the issue is fixed!! The problem was that the lab had apparently an enhancement setting 1 where they would enhance the jpgs a bit! When they set it to 0 and printed the photographs as I had sent them, no banding. Phew! Another lesson learnt.

Thanks everyone for taking the time out

Mike - What I meant was that the jpg's out of camera sent for printing had banding(the prints), not the softcopies.

February 27, 2013

Hi There,

This is what I did, I cropped the nef in lightroom, changed white balance, external editor cs5 -> resized to 800px, convert profile sRGB , mode 8 bits, save as highest resolution jpg.

http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b532/gemini15june/1_zps543cd3d8.jpg

One thing I did not mention in my original post was that, the single octabox I used, i had added diffusion material so that the light was around 1.4 stop, at 200 shutter speed, ISO 100. I wanted to shoot wide open. Subject distance from background was about 3-4 feet, shooting with d600, nikon 85 1.4D at about 1.8/2.0. Not sure since the 100 cm octa is a big light source, could it be possible that the white background was not getting enough light? I read online that insufficient light can also cause banding, since there is not much information. Although it doesn't look like that to me.

Thanks!

February 27, 2013

Michael - Not sure how to upload the file, its 25 mb. out of camera jpg is usable(very little but visible), but the white balance is way off. Any adjustment in Photoshop or Lighroom, and everything gets completely visible.

Is there any way to check if an image has banding in photoshop? like by moving levels etc. Not sure if a printing issue yet, they are yet to confirm.

Nish - need to check if PNG are acceptable by the print company.

I was just surprised why something like this should come up even after using Raw, minimal PP, 16 bit and correct color spaces! The last message from the print company(which is a pretty good one) was that they are testing using enhancement level0. Not sure what that means.

February 27, 2013

Hi Experts!

So this quite literally is a SOS call. Facing this problem for the first time. I did post my question in the digital darkroom forum, but did not get much information and I had returned my prints so I am posting this time in the Nikon forum so that I can get some help.

Now I recently purchased the D600, did an outdoor shoot, got great photographs. The workflow I used was RAWfiles -> Win 7 - Lightroom 4.2 -> external editor CS5 (Pro photo 16 bit) ->save -> back in Lightroom - >export as jpg sRGB.

Photograph prints looked awesome.

Next shoot was a studio shoot - >Pure white seamless paper background. Subjects were wearing white shirt/lightblue top. Same workflow as above. No issues found in the monitor, checked on macbook Pro. Photographs have no issues (Softcopies)

I send the photographs for printing and boom - > every single one of them have the whole white area full of color banding, its not horizontal or vertical but in all directions. Spread all over the image.

I thought must be an issue with my processing, tried again, same problem (both matte and glossy prints).

Strange, even the JPG (I shoot RAW plus JPG fine) , which was straight out of the camera had some banding!! One mistake I noticed was that I was shooting sRGB and not Adobe RGB, but still out of camera jpg also showing very slight banding?

Since I shoot raw. So then I decided to open the NEF's in NX2, process then, save as 16 bit tiff, open in photoshop and do the skin touch up - >convert to sRGB profile -> Mode 8 bits -> save as highest quality jpg. I also converted some files directly from NX2 to jpg without going through photoshop. I am yet to send them for printing, but I am totally out of ideas, and am at my wits end. Not sure what else to do? I noticed NX2 uses Nikon RGB and my photoshop I set to Adobe RGB 1998.

I used one Octa front facing, light meter, I over exposed by a stop at most. but since my walls are beige, I just adjusted the white balance in both light room and NX2. the only other PP done was skin touch up using spot healing, but like I said even without going to PS, files exported from lightroom had banding. I also noticed all the files had vignetting (Maybe because of FX), not sure if that is adding to the issue. Did try controlling that in both lightroom and NX2

Going crazy. The Nikon capture nx2 remains my last option, will wait for the prints. I am wondering is this an issue with the printing company? They are also looking into it. Its been 2 days. They want the file in jpg format and confirmed the files received are good.

Any suggestions? Is this Moire or something like that? Do you want me to post a file(not sure what to post, I can try taking a photograph of the print). Like I said the soft copies have no issues, only prints have!

Strangely, I have shot against the same background earlier using a dummy, and the prints were flawless!

Thanks,

Sun

February 21, 2013

Hi Andrew,

I have not added any profile. Just was using what ever was the default. The coloration was random, purple, blue, grey etc. Something like, if you open a jpeg and make changes and save it and then in the same jpeg you make changes and save it. I suspect it had to do with the fact that the other external editor had sRGB, 8 bit selected. So I guess, the file from lightroom was opening in photoshop from prophoto SRGB to sRGB in 8 bit, and then after making the changes, I saved the file in photoshop itself without going back to lightroom. So I guess, that might be causing the issue? maybe. Now I have set the other external editor to prophoto SRGB, 16 bit and now from lighroom when I open CS5, do my skin and other changes, save it, and then export from lightroom. HAve sent it for printing. Hoping this time that issue does not occur. By the way, my original file in Lighroom was RAW.

Thanks

February 21, 2013

Hi,

I have lightroom 4.2 and Adobe photoshop cs5 extended on my new machine installed. For some reason the 64 bit cs5 crashes so I have the 32 bit CS5 as my alternate external editor setup in Lightroom. I generally just changed the whitebalance in lightroom, opened the CS% 32 bit using CTRL+alt + E and made changes. In the print, all the photographs with white background have gradients and color bands. I checked the adobe settings in lightroom, external editor was set to Tiff, pro photo. with zip. The alternate external editor was set to tiff (8bit) sRGB.

Do you think this is what might have caused this issue?

I have changed it to pro photo, 16 bit, compression none. But just wanted to confirm what is the best option to select?

In photoshop, I only do skin retouching and photograph border.

Thanks,

Sun

January 7, 2013

Thanks Andy, everyone.

Andy - What I did was I just added a 1 cm border in photoshop to all the D600 images, instead of cropping them to 5*7, Although the borders around the images might not be the same, but it was enough for the purpose. regarding the DPI, are you saying 1. Lets say I want to print 6*4, should I have selected the PPI as 320 instead of 240. At 240 resolution is 6016*4016. At 320 it is 8021 by 5354

2. Would this change make any difference if I say printed a 6*4 and a 8*12 of the same image at 240 and 320 or lets say 500? I understand it would matter at much higher sizes, but would there be any difference at the mentioned ones?

3. In print what would the difference in PPI show? Meaning, would it be less sharper or more pixelated?

This is something I just need to keep in mind next time around.

Thanks, Sun

January 7, 2013

Hi Everyone!

I had a shoot last week for which I had to get 5 by 7 and 8 by 10 prints done. Now, when I opened my D600 files (shot in RAW+JPG) 14 bit mode, in lightroom and then final edit in Photoshop before saving as JPG, I noticed the default DPI was 240.

I heard for print the general recommendation is around 320. Would this difference have an impact in the print. I actually got the prints, and they looked pretty good to me. But I am wondering if I should have selected a higher DPI? Would that have made any difference in the print quality? I actually, did not bother about the DPI. Only after the prints came in and when I was going through a printing site, I read they prefer 300 or higher.

If there is going to be a difference, I guess, I will have to redo the files.

Thanks,

Sun

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