Nikon V2 shots

[ajohnw]

I have a love hate relationship with this camera. Given the chance it loves to clip whites and there isn't much chance of getting them back from raw. Wouldn't be too bad if there was rule to follow but so far it's defeated me. I thought I'd post some shots for interest only really. I just fail to understand just why they had to put a higher pixel count even noisier sensor in the V2 and also not bother to show exposure blinkies in the view. I'm left with the feeling that if they had done that and had the guts to drop the pixel count to a much lower level these would be popular cameras - especially if they retained the quality of the lenses. Assuming the dynamic range went up.

Rather than up load - here is a flickr album. Maybe we can drag and drop shots on here or even select a number at some point. Drag and drop works from linux on flickr. It didn't at one point but it still allowed several to be selected in one go.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/489946...57675203523295

John
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[Black Pearl]

I'd say they were pretty much what I'd expect most small sensors to output and the clipping looks to be typical and moreover correctable at the time of shooting. The heron is the only exception but the EXIF has been stripped so we can't tell what was set.

[NorthernFocus]

I had a year long love/hate affair with the V1. I agree Nikon should not have sacrificed IQ for pixel count. Adding the compromised IQ to poor ergonomics made it a total bust for me.

[Shadowman]

John,

Do you process with ViewNX or another program? Also, when you view in camera does the highlight warning display and looking at the exif data for the linked shot, it shows EV: +2/3. Were these settings used on most of the clipped shots? And finally, my experience with Nikon cameras; they always expose to the right; but then again I need to play around more with metering, I usually used matrix and should give spot metering a bit more use.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/489946...7675203523295/

[ajohnw]

No idea how the exif went. Not a good one to pick Robin. Anyway that one I should have bothered with raw but didn't as the compensation is a touch out but the direction might surprise you.



5min raw conversion and I bought the black up badly to bring it well in. Also the whites to show that a channel is clipping.

I'll sort another out probably some time tomorrow.

John
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[ajohnw]

John,

Do you process with ViewNX or another program? Also, when you view in camera does the highlight warning display and looking at the exif data for the linked shot, it shows EV: +2/3. Were these settings used on most of the clipped shots? And finally, my experience with Nikon cameras; they always expose to the right; but then again I need to play around more with metering, I usually used matrix and should give spot metering a bit more use.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/489946...7675203523295/

Sometimes it needs positive, The heron is an example and it needed a touch less. Not much white in that shot. My conclusion is that the metering is a bit odd. Take the deer for instance and it looks after itself. The sunlit grass behind some would be too much for most cameras. White's are generally a pain in the *#!!. I've casually taken a number of shots to try and get some idea of what it will do.

The church window was an easy guess. Throw in some bright white and there seems to be no telling what it will do. I don't think there is a facility for bracketing and compensation isn't easy to apply except probably in manual. I'll try that next but I think it will need to be a situation where there is no chance of blacks causing a problem.

I'll try and pull in the best shot of a swan from raw if I have time tomorrow but having looked at most / all that way I doubt if it will improve them significantly. The house on the other hand may well pull in ok but I thought that the jpg was fine.

I may be able to find out what the sensor bit depth is but I'm fairly sure it's better than a typical compact.

From raw I use rawtherapee. For this camera adobe vivid seems to give the best looking natural colour and a better looking histogram. Might not be too good when there is skin about. I can't use the Nikon software without sticking it on my laptop. Might try that out of curiosity.

John
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[Black Pearl]

Sometimes it needs positive, The heron is an example and it needed a touch less

I don't understand why would that need a positive correction - its a pale grey bird against a slightly darker background. I'd have left the metering alone or more likely knocked it down a touch knowing I'd be keeping highlight detail and be able to apply a touch of correction to the shadows. I fail to see how the camera has done anything unusual.

I'll try and pull in the best shot of a swan from raw if I have time tomorrow but having looked at most / all that way I doubt if it will improve them significantly

The swan was always going to have over exposed areas. Its basically a strongly side lit white bird on a darker greyish background and any pretty much any camera is going to blow the highlights if left to its own devices. Thats not an issue with your Nikon thats just a typical camera reacting in a typical way to a typical high contrast scene.

The house shot is perfectly acceptable. Those bright white panels are just that - bright white - so the metering has looked at the whole scene and set the exposure accordingly. If you took a spot reading from the white areas the rest of the shot would be pitch black.

[ajohnw]

I had a year long love/hate affair with the V1. I agree Nikon should not have sacrificed IQ for pixel count. Adding the compromised IQ to poor ergonomics made it a total bust for me.

The biggest problem with the V2 ergonomics is exposure compensation. The tiny multiway at the back. The V2 also has more pixels than the V1 and even tests show that it's noisier. Think it's 10 and 12mp. I've taken a couple of hundred shots with it and doubt if another trawl through the manual will reveal anything. I thought I would have noticed a highlight warning.

The optics are pretty good eg full frame



Direct crop



There is an or 2 examples in the album of the results of cropping out specks in the frame. The 2 small zoom lenses are ok too but not as good as the 75-300mm but then they wouldn't be usually pushed so far.

To me the house in the album sums up the metering. It's tries to be clever and capture the important aspects. In dim conditions it tends to give dim results as well. Brighten up and noise is more of a problem. So what if it looses some whites for social photography and scenes etc it often wont matter. When raw is looked at there isn't much headroom at all and it varies.

Something else as well. From reading another thread I noticed mention of exposure compensation in auto. Never use it but it is there. Another thing I checked was DOF in auto as my son went to the USA with a 5DIII for a couple of months and took loads of photo's just using auto. Some of the shots surprised me - foreground objects pin sharp. It was clearly accounting for them. The V2 show what it reckons will be in focus on auto. Doubt if it takes so much care about them though. The 5D also took sane decisions on what to set for night shots. ISO and speed balance. Could be a useful method of getting a feel for a newly bought camera. The shots have left me with and if in doubt use it feeling. The manufacturers have always put a lot of effort into producing good jpg's. A good jpg usually means a better raw. I might give it a whirl on some of my cameras out of curiosity. V2 though - in auto why would some one spin the thumb wheel ? It does nothing yet by pressing silly small things exposure compensation is available.

I cross posted with Robin however have explained why I did what I did and one or two other things. However having used dslr's since they were available at reasonable prices and compacts before that and many other cameras I clearly have no idea what I am doing where as Robin seems to be with me when I take the shot.

John
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[ajohnw]

I always take a number of shots with a new camera to see what it actually does. I generally shoot under any conditions. Golden hours etc I am seldom about so they get a hard time.

In the V2's case I am probably well over 200 shots and usually by that time I have a good idea what a camera will do under different circumstance. Not this one yet. A more constructive comment about handling cameras that do this sort of thing is to see if the various jpg modes help. Unlikely but they may. The other one has already been mentioned, using Nikon's raw developing software. The method they use differs from others and it can make a difference. This the swan straight from raw using some generic curves that are about for ufraw that function in the same way. (One's the white wedding that I know some on here have used - not sure if they are still around though)



The hot pixels may be down to no shutter and a rather fast shutter speed. Not sure but I haven't noticed them before. On that one its shoved the main body whites way down. On others it wouldn't and for me so far it's not been possible to judge what it will do

One thing for sure some mirrorless cameras would handle the highlight clipping easily. It's even possible to measure it. Getting a usable shot though is a different matter but all I was doing was trying it out on every shot I have posted.

I'll persevere anyway but now have serious doubts. I some times shoot with some one who is using a 7DII and 150-600mm sigma sport. It does have it's attractions compared with that set up.

John
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[Black Pearl]

Upload the RAW file to Dropbox or similar and lets see it in its native state...

[ajohnw]

You wont get much out of the clipped areas Robin. There is some vague broad feather detail in them in places. That's about it really.

https://filebin.net/g1qikvsar5jafd74

It will be available for 2 months.

I can't wait to see your results. I could do a number of things with it but am not convinced it's worth the effort.

John
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[Stagecoach]

I could do a number of things with it but am not convinced it's worth the effort.

John
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I would fully agree with that statement John, some shots just will not work with whatever gear you use. Here's from the RAW using basics.




And from your example above in Post 9 and comment .............

This the swan straight from raw using some generic curves that are about for ufraw that function in the same way. (One's the white wedding that I know some on here have used - not sure if they are still around though)

I would throw that procedure away

[ajohnw]

Was that using the Nikon raw converter Grahame? I was thinking of putting the software on my windows laptop just in case but you look to have got as much as could be obtained from the shot and the colouring is pretty similar to what Adobe icc profiles can give and has detail as I have seen. Maybe a touch more in places but very little more.

Nice processing though.

We do get plenty of cloudy days in the UK which might help. Some other shots make me wonder though. This one was taken in a wetland reserve that's not far away but in real terms is a series of lakes.

To be honest much of what I have done with the shots is down to annoyance. Even clipping in the viewfinder would make it far more usable. Less pixels even more so but the paying customers seem to want high numbers even when it's clearly not a good idea. I may have to buy the panasonic 100-400mm so that I can match it on m 4/3 but info suggests it's hopeless at 400mm.

Whoops - Didn't notice the last comment. UFRAW is intended to get it in not fully pp it. It's a tedious route and I spent less than 5mins on it. All that can be there is in it. Apart from exposure the only adjustments are 2 curves along with a good clipping display facility.


John
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[Black Pearl]

Its a test shot so no you're right spending time getting it bang-on isn't the point but much of the highlight detail has (remarkably) been captured in the raw data and fairly basic Lightroom tweaks can clean the image nicely.

I still think a little compensation when it was taken would have helped but again you were testing a camera to see how it reacts - good thing is it reacts exactly as it should to a given scene so further use can be predicted...

[Stagecoach]

I used ACR and PSCC John. In ACR I dropped the highlights and then lifted the shadows, some selectively.

I have just tried the RAW in View NX and using the 'highlights protection' slider to max basically gives the same results but of course you do not have the option for selective work.

[ajohnw]

Thanks Grahame. I have CS6 on my laptop but I'm not at all keen on win10 so only really have the machine for if I must use win for some reason. Just can't get on with CS6.

Anyway a little more detailed work, but not much. Mostly RawTherapee, bit of gimp - quick selective dodge and a tiny bit of wavelet based very fine detail enhancement, overdid the hint of an eye for a laugh, Truly most done really with RT, more than adequate for the feather detail etc and could do more but thought some selective work would be better. It's also a bit crude at enhancing very fine detail.



One other package figures as well. I use something called Fotoxx to finally resize and sharpen. I can set that up to pass back and forwards to RT and the GIMP plus others if needed but haven't bothered.

I should mention I like it a touch darker like this and carefully adjusted it down. I should have added a vignette that no one would notice as well.

John
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