Understanding camera settings...

[nac]

You mean something like screwdriver???

I don't know where exactly. As this is DX lens, it should be G lens.

As I see some of the Nikon lenses, aperture ring is placed as the first ring (from the body). Like this one...
*img833.imageshack.us/img833/2605/nikkorlens.jpg

The image you posted, the lens connecting side (to the camera body) is at the top and I don't see any aperture ring there.

I read, FSLR can't control aperture of DX lenses (there may be some exception, I don't know). They can with adapters, but again have to be crude to set Av. So I think it's better to use non G lenses for those cameras rather than having tug of war with the lens.

 

[sujoyp]

nac I was showing you the aperture lever which is at the top....at 10:00 of clock

what the film slr cn do is pull the lever as per the requirement....if we pull the lever with handswe can see the full pull will open the whole aperture

yes the aperture ring is there near the mount....but i dont see any use of aperture ring now other than reversing it or use ET for macro (that too is difficult i have tried)

dx lens vigneete badly on fx dslrs so its said to use fx lenses on it ....also fx lenses r costlier

lets take an example u buy a 24-120 fx lens for maybe 40k or a similar focal length 18-105 for 14k

 

[nac]

If one have never seen a mango before, it's little hard to show him the mango in a photograph. The same here with aperture lever for me... Since I have never seen it before, even when you say 10 O'clock I am seeing similar thingy like the one in the 2 O'clock.

I guess these images will people like me understand about the placement of aperture lever.

*img827.imageshack.us/img827/5862/20ais28rearconv.jpg

*img853.imageshack.us/img853/7823/49926490108facb9498o.jpg

Thanks Sujoy...

 

[sujoyp]

he he he yeh right...the 1st pic of a nikon AIS lens which can be recognised by meter coupeling shoe...and now you know the lever too, the step down lever

 

[nac]

Little weird question this time...

I have loaded CHDK in my camera. RAW doesn't seems to be impressive. I don't know how cameras (which have this feature) produce RAW image, but this CHDK RAW is like a dump. Not actually a proper RAW image which we get from cameras which can take RAW image. I heard so high of RAW images, but with CHDK RAW it doesn't seems so.

Am I missing something here? Using wrong setting or something...

What are the factors to be considered while taking RAW files for getting a quality one? (other than faster memory card)

 

[marvelousprashant]

@nac

There is nothing like good quality RAW

A raw image contains loads of information ( leading to large size )
I have edited some raw images from DSLRs and they contained lots of shadow details. A part of image that was completely black due to shadow yielded lots of details without any color loss or noise when I overexposed that part,

Another RAW image of the moon looked ordinary but responded vwry well to increase in sharpness.

From what I have experienced - when I increase sharpness in JPEGs the image becomes noisy hence only fine adjustments can be done. Same with exposure. Underexposed dark areas in JPEGs often become purple (color loss) and noisy on overexposing.

In RAW I could increase the sharpness to much greater levels before noise started appearing.

 

[nac]

There is nothing like good quality RAW

So we can conclude as this is the ability of CHDK in SX130 and rather than wasting resources shooting RAW we can just stick with jpeg, right?

A raw image contains loads of information ( leading to large size )
I have edited some raw images from DSLRs and they contained lots of shadow details. A part of image that was completely black due to shadow yielded lots of details without any color loss or noise when I overexposed that part,

Another RAW image of the moon looked ordinary but responded vwry well to increase in sharpness.

From what I have experienced - when I increase sharpness in JPEGs the image becomes noisy hence only fine adjustments can be done. Same with exposure. Underexposed dark areas in JPEGs often become purple (color loss) and noisy on overexposing.

In RAW I could increase the sharpness to much greater levels before noise started appearing.

You are talking about RAW and jpeg from the same or similar camera, right? Coz you shouldn't compare RAW from DSLR and jpeg from compact.

 

[marvelousprashant]

So we can conclude as this is the ability of CHDK in SX130 and rather than wasting resources shooting RAW we can just stick with jpeg, right?

No. I think you should shoot more before arriving to this conclusion. RAW shooting can be painful at times though. But CHDK forum users say they do get better quality images.

You are talking about RAW and jpeg from the same or similar camera, right? Coz you shouldn't compare RAW from DSLR and jpeg from compact.

I am talking about RAW and JPEG from same camera under same setting. both from SLR

 

[nac]

Ok then... For time being I am turning off RAW shooting. I'll turn on when I am little more convinced that CHDK RAW of SX130 is reasonably better than jpeg.

And Thank you...

 

[sujoyp]

I never shoot in RAW ...its a real pain ....when u take pic in RAW it dont apply any of the software features inbuilt in camera like noise reduction, exposure, sharpness, contrast etc..

if somehow u r planning to shoot in RAW and just converting it into jpeg without any processing then you r wasting your time with RAW...u have to apply all the desired settings to get the effect

 

[nac]

Sujoy, But this CHDK RAW doesn't seems to be capable enough to get desired/better effect than jpeg.

Distortion and noise reduction - Both these are done faster and better in the camera than the software in my PC.
And right from WB everything have to be done in the PC for every RAW. Batch processing will reduce time. But for that we need to know the effective settings to correct the wrongs and enhance the RAWs better than jpeg.

Fill flash:

When I was reading about "How to do this perfectly with compact cameras?" I came across this and I didn't understand "setting flash exposure down (in numbers) one f-stop" than Av.

Is it setting flash exposure compensation down to -1???

 

[sujoyp]

yes there is flash compensation for inbuilt flash....donno if u have it or not but my DSLR have it...

 

[nac]

Yeah, SX130 has that option. I was confused with "f-stops" in flash exposure. Now it's clear... Thank you...

 

[kool]

how to take such pic with canon sx 150 ?

*farm2.staticflickr.com/1395/1485167355_8a1031b7d0.jpg
Rain Drop by John Watters, on Flickr


*www.rachel-rose-portrait-photography.co.uk/_images/impacts/People-Portrait-Photographer-Rachel-Rose-UK-1.jpg

*www.digitalpicturezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/bokeh-photography-25.jpg

*www.digitalpicturezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/bokeh-photography-19.jpg

*net.onextrapixel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/rain39.jpg

*farm4.staticflickr.com/3177/3024953945_ed49358018_b.jpg

*www.forwardedemails.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/amazing-photography-29.jpg

 

[Anish]

@nac: Dude, does the CHDK work well for the sx130? Coz, i am about to try it on mine
Any precautions to take?

 

[marvelousprashant]

@kool
1st image is very easy. Find a wire with rain drops hanging. Move the camera as close as you can (macro range at widest angle) and the background will automatically blurred/ reflected in drops

2nd image Find a blonde girl in a garden on sunny day. Keep the girl a 50cm and trees/shrubs around 4m. You will get some background blur commonly known. Those circles are light coming through tree leaves

3rd image Go to a place with lots of traffic with a bicycle. Park the bicycle on pavement and use macro mode to focus on the bell. the background blur/circles are headlights/streetlights.
#Pro Tip : Stand under streetlight as you wont be using flash

4th image Ask someone to stand in the middle of the road with a cell phone in hand. Rest is same. Focus on the guy and background will be blured

5th image : Fly to HongKong. Your camera needs exposure bracketing (CHDK provides that) and a tripod. Take 5 images at -2,-1,0,1,2 exposures. Use Photomatrix to merge them.

6th image : Find a guy with still hands. Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Departed" and John Watson in Sherlock are the two guys whose hands don't move. If you don't find them or are on a low budget find any guy to hold a forcep. Use diwali lights in background for bokeh. Use burst mode or take many shots until you succeed

7th : Find a girl and convince her to go to Sahara Desert, Egypt in a SUV. Park the SUV somewhere and walk 10-20m away. Then ask her to bend and open her mouth. Frame your shot. The farther the object, the smaller it appears. Technically this is the easiest shot of all

Still reading? Those background circles are blurred lights coming from various sources. For experimenting, use any light source like bulbs or street lights. In manual focus, set focus to closest (~5cm) and background lights will be blurred. Once you know how to do this... you can use this funda in various settings. Some of the above shots may be impossible to replicate but you can do other interesting and creative bokeh shots

 

[sujoyp]

@marvelousprashant Great answers

 

[mastervk]

Little weird question this time...

I have loaded CHDK in my camera. RAW doesn't seems to be impressive. I don't know how cameras (which have this feature) produce RAW image, but this CHDK RAW is like a dump. Not actually a proper RAW image which we get from cameras which can take RAW image. I heard so high of RAW images, but with CHDK RAW it doesn't seems so.

Am I missing something here? Using wrong setting or something...

What are the factors to be considered while taking RAW files for getting a quality one? (other than faster memory card)

RAW images have more information ..If you shot your photo in jpeg you will get images processed by your camera image processing s/w with sharpening and other corrections..so by default jpeg will look better than RAW..

RAW is unprocessed image..you have to work on them to make them look better than jpeg...thats why many professionals like them because they dont want to loose any information and want to process these images..many professionals think that jpeg is good enough and dont shoot in RAW (like Ken Rockwell)..
if you want to process images yourself in photoshop/GIMP/lightroom you can shoot in RAW..but in general they will not come out looking great without any processing..

 

[nac]

Find a blonde girl in a garden on sunny day.

Ask someone to stand in the middle of the road with a cell phone in hand.

Fly to HongKong.

Find a guy with still hands. Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Departed" and John Watson in Sherlock are the two guys whose hands don't move. If you don't find them or are on a low budget find any guy to hold a forcep.

Find a girl and convince her to go to Sahara Desert,

Still reading?

You bet...

Mastervk, Thank you... The thing, is even after processing, jpeg seems to be better. Working on RAW images take time to get a desired result while the same is done (jpeg) by the camera very quickly.

Anish,
It's still in beta stage. Don't try features which are giving errors and crash. I haven't used much, so I can't say a lot about CHDK.

 

[kool]

@kool


Still reading? Those background circles are blurred lights coming from various sources. For experimenting, use any light source like bulbs or street lights. In manual focus, set focus to closest (~5cm) and background lights will be blurred. Once you know how to do this... you can use this funda in various settings. Some of the above shots may be impossible to replicate but you can do other interesting and creative bokeh shots

thanx now i understand the importance of manual settings. But wanted to learn AV/TV/ISO mode, which still don't know how to use combining all these 3.