Hi,
I've been using a Nikon D100 for around 18 months now, and some 30,000
exposures on I certainly think the advantages outweigh the problems. If
the E10 doesn't deliver you need to look at a camera such as the Nikon D70
or Olympus E1.
You can read some of the conclusions I've come to over that time in the
various features on About Photography - and see some of the results in 'My
London Diary' though you will need to imagine the great colour prints at
around 15x10" this system produces. I've put in them in a couple of shows
so far.
Raw is a great advantage, and the software I've been happiest using with
this is Capture One. You do need to expose carefully - basically to make
sure you don't overexpose the highlights but peg them as close as possible
to the top end of the histogram.
The most obvious advantages are in low light (I've had to do a certain
amount of hat eating about this.) I shot some stuff at a festival in tents
dimly lit by sunlight through coloured canvas a couple of weeks back. Very
little light, so working at ISO1600. The results were pretty good straight
from Capture One, but with a little tweaking in Neat Image to reduce noise
and Curvemeister to adjust for the blue light they look like they were
shot in good daylight. I've taken handheld shots in London at night that
are pretty good too, and other things I couldn't have done on film. Flash
is so much easier when you can see the results immediately. I did some
images of Christmas lights that were very tricky and I don't think I could
have managed on film, and so on.
As I said, there is more about most of these things - including features
on how to use raw, exposure, reviews of Curvemeister and Neat Image (Noise
Ninja is a good alternative too) and more on the site.
Digital has altered the way I do a lot of work, but I'm still shooting
film as well. Not because film is better than digital, but because they
don't yet make digital cameras that do some of the things I like to do
with film.
Regards
Peter Marshall
Photography Guide at About http://photography.about.com/
email: photography.guide@about.com
_________________________________________________________________
London's Industrial Heritage: http://petermarshallphotos.co.uk/
The Buildings of London etc: http://londonphotographs.co.uk/
My London Diary http://mylondondiary.co.uk/
and elsewhere......
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> I share any and all of the frustrations you all are enumerating. I've
> been using an Oly E10 for a while now and with all of the variables
> involved, I'm ready to go back to a Rolleiflex and Tr-X.
> One of the strategies that I've heard and haven't tried (no real good
> opportunity to do so) is to take two exposures: one for the shadows and
> one for the highlights and then combine them in Photoshop (or whatever
> software lights yer lamp). Obviously, this works only for stationary
> objects; portraits and other moving subjects are right out. When I do
> try this, I'll fall back on a suggestion that that Monte Zucker made in
> a Shutterbug article to overlay the two images and use the eraser
> function to take away from the topmost image...seems better than trying
> to select areas and then "jig-saw-puzzle" them together...fewer funky
> edges.
> Is RAW the answer? One of the reasons that I bought the Oly in the
> first place was that RAW was recommended as a means to achieve the
> highest quality possible and to be able to adjust the contrast and
> color balance of the image after the fact using software. There are a
> couple of software options out there right now and I haven't made a
> decision as to which would be the most effective. Adobe offers an
> add-on or plug in that gives more control over the processing of the
> RAW image than is built into the basic software.
> I have been advised to set the camera's contrast setting to "Low" and
> to not mess with the sharpness setting at all...to leave that in the
> "normal" position. The lower contrast setting seems to help and if
> that's an option, I'd recommend that you experiment with that. The
> Oly always saves the settings that I make...I'd be suprised to learn
> that Canon or Nikon doesn't do the same thing. My problem is that I
> have to REMEMBER to reset the adjustments after I shoot and move
> on...using the optical viewfinder on the E10, it doesn't always show
> what the adjustments are...though it does save me from using the LCD
> and wearing the batteries down. The histogram can be adjusted in
> software after the fact, so I take the approach that I'm shooting color
> transparency film and try to adjust for good highlights and juice the
> shadows up on the computer.
>
> argon
>
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> <HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT COLOR="#000000"
> FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">I share any and all of the
> frustrations you all are enumerating. I've been using an Oly E10
> for a while now and with all of the variables involved, I'm ready to go
> back to a Rolleiflex and Tr-X.<BR>
> One of the strategies that I've heard and haven't tried (no real good
> opportunity to do so) is to take two exposures: one for the shadows and
> one for the highlights and then combine them in Photoshop (or whatever
> software lights yer lamp). Obviously, this works only for
> stationary objects; portraits and other moving subjects are right
> out. When I do try this, I'll fall back on a suggestion that
> that Monte Zucker made in a Shutterbug article to overlay the two
> images and use the eraser function to take away from the topmost
> image...seems better than trying to select areas and then
> "jig-saw-puzzle" them together...fewer funky edges.<BR>
> Is RAW the answer? One of the reasons that I bought the Oly in
> the first place was that RAW was recommended as a means to achieve the
> highest quality possible and to be able to adjust the contrast and
> color balance of the image after the fact using software. There are a
> couple of software options out there right now and I haven't made a
> decision as to which would be the most effective. Adobe offers
> an add-on or plug in that gives more control over the processing of the
> RAW image than is built into the basic software.<BR>
> I have been advised to set the camera's contrast setting to "Low" and
> to not mess with the sharpness setting at all...to leave that in the
> "normal" position. The lower contrast setting seems to help and
> if that's an option, I'd recommend that you experiment with that.
> The Oly always saves the settings that I make...I'd be suprised to
> learn that Canon or Nikon doesn't do the same thing. My problem
> is that I have to REMEMBER to reset the adjustments after I shoot and
> move on...using the optical viewfinder on the E10, it doesn't always
> show what the adjustments are...though it does save me from using the
> LCD and wearing the batteries down. <BR>
> The histogram can be adjusted in software after the fact, so I take the
> approach that I'm shooting color transparency film and try to adjust
> for good highlights and juice the shadows up on the computer.<BR>
> <BR>
> argon</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
> SIZE="2"></FONT></HTML>
>
> --Boundary_(ID_tYlQ//US2VDJxA7z+tMoxw)--
>
>
Received on Fri Jun 11 16:10:47 2004
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