Camera Settings

[Brownbear]

I noticed that my Nikon D80 has settings in the camera, which allow me to optimize the image using the in camera editing.. For example I can set the camera to make an image more vivid, softer, to sharpen the image, adjust the tone etc.. There are normal settings, automatic settings, medium and high settings (eg, high sharpening or contrast)

I'm thinking that I should have all these set to normal, so that after uploading, if I see that the photo needs needs some work (sharpening etc) I can do the editing, rather than leave it in the hands of the camera... Is this correct?

Thank you.

[Marie Hass]

Please, Christina, if I may?

I shoot in RAW + Jpeg, and edit in RAW. I do not know what editing program you use, but it is better to have the control over what happens to your images, than let the camera have the best guess. I am sure others more experienced will offer guidance.

'Rie

[Brownbear]

Thank you Marie... It's nice to have a confirmation of my instincts. I have photoshop elements 9 and lightroom 4.1, both of which I'm just learning..

[DanK]

+1 what Maggie wrote. If you shoot jpeg, you lose a lot of control. If you shoot raw, none of those camera settings make any difference, although some software will recognize them and use them as a (completely reversible) starting point for rendering the raw image. I don't use any of them for an initial rendering. Instead, I use the Adobe standard profile in Lightroom.

One reason to set the camera's picture style to something very neutral, with no contrast or saturation boost, is that it will give you a somewhat more realistic histogram on the LCD. The histogram represents the processed jpeg, even if that is not what you end up storing on the car.

[Marie Hass]

Hello, Dan.

My name is Marie, not Maggie. I go by 'Rie to my friends. Thank you for the confirmation.

Christina, Elements will let you process in RAW. In CS55, I open in RAW and do my very basic editing there. Then I use CS5. I had Elements 8, and found it to be a very useful editing program. Also, just FYI, if you screw up, you can always start over with the original RAW image. :-)

[Mike Buckley]

When using my D80, I always shoot RAW files at +2 sharpening. I do that so I can critique sharpness in the camera's LCD at 100%, which seems to be two steps lower than maximum viewing size. When I postprocess the image, I begin by reverting the sharpening to zero. I resharpen using the postprocessing software.

[Brocken]

Hi Christina,

a great many people buy cameras to take away on holiday and don't use them much for the rest of the year. It's my guess that all these internal editing features - which add so much complication to Nikon camera menus - are aimed at people sitting on the edge of their beds in hotel rooms, looking for pictures to email back to family and friends. As with many mobile 'phones, it would be great if you could just have a one-click button to disable all the mostly unnecessary options in order to simplify the operation of the camera.

I am sure I am not alone in saying that there have been occasions when the complexity of the software has led me to mis-set the camera, and so lose pictures more than once. I use RAW-NEF only, and so evade a little of this complexity, but if you wanted some pictures to be available at once, 'Rie's suggestion of using RAW+JPEG is a very good one.

Christopher

[Marie Hass]

Thank you Christopher for mentioning that last bit. I forgot to mention what I use my jpegs for. Sometimes the camera adjustments are just perfect and I do not need to do anything more to my image, so I will use my jpeg images instead of RAW. Also if I took a whole slew of pictures (I just did a wedding and had over 2000 pictures), I use my jpegs as proofs. And, lastly, the jpegs can serve as a point of comparison when you are working with your RAW image.

Just have fun.

'Rie

[Brownbear]

Thank you everyone for your very helpful replies and advice... I shoot raw and jpeg, and use the jpeg as reference as to what the photo should look like, or just the jpeg if it turns out perfect.

Mike, when you shoot RAW files at +2 sharpening and then revert the sharpening to zero... Wouldn't this possibly ruin the jpeg? and/or unnecessary processing noise noise into the photo? Thank you.

[jprzybyla]

Hello Christina... I would suggest something that I do. Rather than than looking at your own jpegs as a reference for post processing find a photographer in your genre whose work you like. Study his or her work, the composition, the color, the detail shown, and strive to achieve that level in your images. I photograph nature (mostly birds), I look at as many nature photographers website as possible evaluating my work against theirs. I try to determine where I need to improve.

[Brownbear]

Hi Joe
Thank you for the great advice. It is something that never occurred to me... I will start by looking at your gorgeous bird photos!

[Polar01]

Rie: if I may call you that. The D80, is a good camera a little old but still an excellent camera, by first was a D70 close. There are some basic preset in the camera ie: landscape, vivid, standard, etc., and you can adjust these setting to help get more of the I will say feel of the image you like, some like more saturated colour, if alway shooting landscape sharper, etc., at the time these cameras came out most people shot as jpg's not raw, however the camera let you also shoot raw or both. Today more people shot raw, and process it in raw. If you go the the camera calbrition icon in RAW, one of the items that appears is camera profile when clicked on you you will see the basic presets, click on these and watch how the image and the histogram changes. As you shoot both, I suggest that you continue to do what you do, if yu do not like the jpg you can always work on it in raw.

Cheers:

Allan

[William W]

I use Canon DSLR’s but the functionality is very similar. I shoot ‘raw + JPEG (L)'.


The picture styles affect the JPEG and can be thought of a an 'in-camera Post Processing’ but they do not affect the raw file – I believe this is the same on the Nikon.

I choose to record both in JPEG and raw, because usually I use the JPEG image in some manner: therefore I change the Picture Styles to make a suitable OUTPUT JPEG for my chosen purpose.

My Canon Cameras have a capacity to store various “styles” (contrast, sharpness . . . etc.) as various ‘parameters’,. This functionality I find useful – as one can select a ‘parameter’ and the pre-set Picture Styles become operative.

I suggest you choose for what purpose you will or will not use the JPEG images and then choose how to use the picture styles to best suit that purpose, rather than just selecting the 'normal' position without any reason.

WW

[Mike Buckley]

Mike, when you shoot RAW files at +2 sharpening and then revert the sharpening to zero... Wouldn't this possibly ruin the jpeg?

Yes. That's why I shoot only RAW files. I have no need for shooting RAW+JPEG, though I understand why others do.

[Marie Hass]

Thank you Christina for starting this thread. The diversity of excellent answers and wealth of knowledge demonstrated by the posts show that there are no rights or wrongs and all have something valuable they can contribute.

'Rie

[Brownbear]

And thank you to everyone for helping me learn..

[jprzybyla]

Christina, I read your post again. You are correct that they all should be set to Normal or Neutral. Also you do not have to shoot RAW + JPEG, the RAW file has a JPEG imbedded in it. That is what you see on the camera screen. I have a very simple setup for my camera. I use Nikon's Auto ISO to decide on the ISO needed. I choose from the range of ISO's the lowest offered by the particular camera (my D7000 that is 100) with the highest ISO being half way to the highest that the camera is capable of. Depending on the lens I set the minimum shutter speed. For my 55-300 (which effectively gets out to 450mm I choose a minimum shutter speed of 1/400). Then I shoot using either Aperature Priority or Shutter Priority. Aperature Priority for stationary birds, normally I use f/8. If the bird is long or I need more depth of field then I quickly change to f/16. If the bird is flying I use Shutter Priority set for a shutter speed of 1/1600. If a duck or fast moving bird then I change to 1/2000 or 1/2500. It is difficult enough to frame, focus and follow a bird than to worry about selecting ISO's. If I need to change the exposure I use the +/- EV control which is quick and easy. Hope this helps.

[Mike Buckley]

Christina, I read your post again...Also you do not have to shoot RAW + JPEG, the RAW file has a JPEG imbedded in it. That is what you see on the camera screen.

You are correct, Joe, but I gather from one of Christina's posts that she likes having the JPEG immediately available without having to convert the RAW file. If I understand her correctly, that's a valid reason for shooting RAW+JPEG.

[Polar01]

Joe: I believe that you maybe have a misunderstanding, there is no jpeg imbedded in a raw file, what you see on the screen is a jpeg that the camera produced from the orginal file taken, it was either created as per, either programed by you or the factory. The jpeg that is displayed on the screen is only saved if your camera is set to save jpeg, or jpeg and raw. If the camera is set to save raw files that image that you saw on the screen is not saved by the camera in anyway. I do not know if you are think of sidecar files that are saved with the raw file once the orginal raw file has been opened in the raw converter, that file contains the orginal setting of the raw file so you can go back to the orginal setting after you made change in the raw converter to the image, again it has nothing to do with a jpeg file.

Cheer:

Allan

[Mike Buckley]

Joe: I believe that you maybe have a misunderstanding, there is no jpeg imbedded in a raw file

Joe is correct, Allan. Most (perhaps not all) camera systems automatically embed a JPEG in the RAW file. It's often called a "preview JPEG" or "JPEG preview" or "embedded preview." You might be aware that some third-party software helpfully extracts the JPEG from the RAW file, which is not the same as converting the RAW file. If the JPEG were not embedded in the RAW file, there would be nothing to extract.

In the example of Nikon, the system actually embeds two JPEGs -- the EXIF JPEG and the higher resolution JPEG. If the higher resolution JPEG is not the full-resolution image produced by reasonably modern camera models, opening the RAW file in Nikon Capture NX2 and saving it automatically stores the full-resolution JPEG in the RAW file. I don't know about other systems.

To further explain, I use IDimager to catalog and review my images. I can configure that software to convert the RAW image to display it or to display the embedded JPEG preview. The latter method is understandably much faster.