hique

I believe there it a little of shadows/highlights used. The shadows in the background are very soft, contributing to the sort of pastel look it has.

The model was lit with a high light to the right... a little after her and a lot o fill light left of her.

When I bought my D200 I had it in my mind that I would buy as little DX lens as possible (for the reason pointed). So I only bought the 12-24mm (which was the only one I need, actually).

I also bet that in some time all the DSLR will be FF, making the DX lenses less-usable and with lower value.

The DX deal reminds me of buying and selling stocks :) I wouldn't bet on the DX for the next 5-6 years. LOL.

Maybe in the future the idea of keeping the 20mm will be a good thing...

Hmm... I don't think TIFF is a good option (but since it's an option, why now?)

Huge, and may come already with the wrong profile (sRGB for instance, if you are shooting that way).

I guess RAW is always the right approach.

TIFF is nice. But to me it's like keeping the large high-quality print and tossing the negative away.

"...look for a 6'5"/195cm American guy who carries a Canon camera in the Nikon press conference"

Lol. Very amusing. Good job on the match, Shun.

But I thought the norwegians were supposed to be the tall ones! ;) (just kidding Bjorn, I am a shortie myself).

Great to see the both of you covering and sharing your experience and insights with us all. Thank you for that...

I just don't know why Eric is in such a bad mood :) He should see all tech advance as a good thing, even if he prefers Canons. Remember that if it weren't for the competition, Canon would be making 2mp cameras and selling then at 10.000usd :)

No need to diss Nikon.... ;)

Well... D3. The question is answered :)

Forget the MP myth. High MP count is nice, right. But It can be done anytime by anyone. High sensibility, good price and good features... that's the challenge.

I guess Nikon will sell the D3 like water since it challenges the 1D, 1Ds and 5D all in the same product with a nice price (actually it challenges the 1D and 5D more).

It will be a great challenge for both companies and it all just benefits us users.

Cheers.

I think I got it :)

Thank you all for the support.

"BTW, your new image example seems to be suffering from blooming."

I guess so Shun.

Would it be a issue of the camera (defect or simply a camera caracteristic?) or a natural result of severe overexposure?

Marshall and Shun,

From your experience, how much ND's should I use in a situation like this?

Lately I am using a 0,9 grad alone but it's not enough. How much are we talking about? 1,2 + 0,9?

Thank you all for the responses. They were all really helpful.

Lately I am using Grad NDs AND stacking multiple exposures.

But, isn't there a easier way? Would a Custom Curve loaded up in the camera help?

I don't mind using the Grads in the field but stacking is too time consuming...

Cheers and thank you all.

Well, I guess you are all right. Maybe I am expecting too much

Anyway, I am posting now a side-by-side example of the situation handled by the D200 and Velvia 100F

"No slide film will do that, either, though you're right that they blow-out to featureless white in a different way than digital cameras do"

It illustrates Marshall observation.

Thank you all so far.<div></div>

I still can't make the D200 to act like I would like in sunset situations.

Even though I underexpose to avoid too much blown highlights, the sky still

looks awful.

The only way to get a reasonable representation of the sun is by making the

shadows completely worthless.

The problem is not with metering. The problem is with dynamic range, especially

in the extreme highlights.

I am posting an example of a sunset picture. Of course there is too much

contrast but, by comparison, shooting slide film never gave me this kind of sun

(looking like a halo effect).

When using slide I would get the same bright sky and sun but without this ugly halo.

By the way. The picture was shot with uncompressed RAW and converted to jpg with

no post-processing (via ACR). Looking at the histogram shows that there is

little room for further underexposure (in an attempt to save the highlights).

Tried to convert in CaptureNX and set a lower contrast but the halo on the sun

still remains.

My questions:

1) Does anyone gets better performance in situations like this?

2) Using a custom curve would help or only mess witht the contrast.

3) Upgrading the firmware would help, maybe?

4) If possible, could someone post a picture with no ND grads and no

post-processing taken in similar situation?

I hope someone can help me. I am really disapointed by the camera in these

situations. Recently I am using a grad filter but even with it (0.9 factor) the

sun looks awful.

Cheers.<div></div>

"Looks like you are lacking basic understanding how your flashes work, and how you could possibly use them."

Hmm... I think that's not the case. Been using SB-28's, manual flashes, studio flashes, etc for years and years.

I always bounced flashes at white walls and NEVER has this sort of problem. If the SB range said it will go until 4 meters and the distance from flash to ceiling is 1.5 meters and ceiling to subject is another 1.5 meters, then it is supposed to light the subject correcty.

I have always done this with negative and slide films and never had any problem. The only problem is now that I am using the D200.

So... I am really not getting it. The sync speed it 1/250 so no influence from ambiente light.

I was using REAR curtain. I am not sure if it would interfere.

Manual Exposure.

I started testing the SB28 and SB800 side by side with a D200.

Shot the SB-800 bounced on the close ceiling. The distance showed 6.3mt which

was enough. Shot TTL and TTL-BL. Both images were VERY underexposed.

Opening up two steps on the aperture made the image ok.

The impressions it gives me is that the 6.3mt is a lie and that in fact the

range was up to 3 mt. Very strange.

Shot the SB28 at Auto. The same result.

Neither the camera nor the flash is setted at a negative Exp. compensation.

Maybe something is not correctly configurated in the D200 menus? Any tips?

Maybe the batteries? Should I try other ones?

Thank you for the support.

Cheers.

More than luck, you had Myra ;)

How good the world would be if all were Myras

That's not what compact flash cards are for. Try to avoid doing that.

It will be much more practical if you use a Pen Drive, CD-RW or DVD-RW

It's hard to understand what exactly you mean by glossy.

The sharpness is a result of a unsharp-mask filter. It will make your pictures look more...hmmm...sharp! Less blurred.

The reflective appearence of the bird's beak is a result of the light and the surface of the subject. You can make this more obvious by increasing contrast.

Anyway, can you be more specific about what you mean?

Cheers.

Just to explain the examples:

First, a 100% crop from a night scene. Observe like the points look more like squares.

The second image is the red channel from the first image. The arrow indicated a case where the phenomenom can be observed.

The third image is a sun setting behind some clouds (blue channel). Look how it seems pixelated. It even seems like JPG artifacts, which is not the case. All the other channels didn't have this problem, in this photo only the blue channel.

Well, thanks for your time and thoughts.

Cheers.

Hi there fellows. Let me respond the observations so far:

I am shooting in RAW. I use the camera sharpening at normal.

I am viewing at 100% (I am posting examples below).

It's not a flare or optical phenomenon since it never happened before with my film cameras. With the D200 this happens with any lens. So I can only conclude it's a camera thing.

Here is an example:<div></div>

Hi there folks.

I'm having a problem with my D200. The far highlight points (city lights at the

horizon) seem over-sharpened by the camera. Them have a square, pixelated

appearence.

When the points are large, using a small aperture I can get them to become

star-shaped, what is nice and avoid this problem. But with large apertures and

smaller highlight points I have this pixelation problem.

Is someone else experiencing this?

When I got the camera I tested it for banding and couldn't make it to show any

banding. I concluded that it was same in that regard. Anyway, this seem to me

like a 'residue' from a banding problem.

I don't know if there is a way to resolve the problem but I am just curious to

know if anyone else noticed this.

Cheers.

I also shoot slide film side by side with digital.

I love it. It's the best thing in the world when projected on a wall. More beautiful than any other media. More beautiful than digital, than fine art prints and than beautiful magazines reproductions.

It's just what slide is. Beautiful when projected. It's not the print film's fault, neither yours nor the guy from the lab.

Shoot slide and have fun! :)

"I though any file can be printed any size, but with that you loose quality?"

You got it right. You can't print any size you want but it probably wont look that good.

Photoshop manipulation won't do any good. Resizing the image to a bigger size is always the same: you always lose quality.

"LCD vs CRT is the same fight as film vs. digital"

Hmm...no it's not.

It's the same fight if you count the digital as being in 1990.

LCD (most) is still inferior to CRT. Has less dynamic range. Has colour/tone balance issues depending what part of the screen you are looking at (this happens even with the iMac monitors).

If you compare in the same room most of the LCD monitors (even apple) with a Sony Triniton CRT, you will see the difference I'm talking about.

I know many people prefer their LCD (for emotional reasons), but they are not quite there yet.

If you can't really see the difference, maybe you shouldn't mind about it.

It's the right tool for managing digital photographys.

Why would you want to make a book using CorelDraw if you have InDesign?

One tool for each job...