Struggling a bit with new kit

The image data that I have found is that most images are 2240 X 1480 JPeg’s with file sizes of about 1.2 – 1.5 MB, clearly not big enough.

OK, well first up you’re not shooting at maximum resolution because 2240×1480 equates to around 3mp – I presume even Nikon have gotten beyond 3mp by now! :diablo: So first, ramp the quality setting and resolution up to maximum.

I have used this lens for about 12 months or more on film cameras with no problem and have owned various long lenses (300/400mm) over the years and have not had problems with hand held camera shake and I always used 100 asa, sometimes 50.

Yup, and I used by Canon 100-400 IS with 64ISO film and never felt I had a problem. But I KNOW I can’t reliably hold that lens at 400mm against a fast moving subject at the 1/250 I used to be happy with. Bang the shutter speed up to whatever you can get – shoot aperture priority close to wide open (but maybe not fully wide open if the lens is a bit soft there) if necessary to force the camera to pick as fast a shutter speed as possible – with a minumum 200ISO equivalent you should be looking at 1/1000th or so on bright days which should give you a chance for unshaken pictures (just beware stopped props though, although that may be for later initially).

I went to OW on Sunday and gave the gear a good airing, I used my Nikkor 80-400VR on the body, took about 250 images, most of which are poor by comparison to my film based work.

DSLRs are not designed to delivery perfect results out of the box – the images may well look a little soft, especially if you look at them at 100% resultion/magnification, and they’re likely to be slightly flat for colour too. With a DSLR you have to expect to do some work in Photoshop after the event (unless you really ramp up the in-camera sharpening and saturation, which as has already been stated is a BAD idea) – certainly some messing with the colour balance and levels will be desirable, and a pass with the PS unsharp mask filter will be required to.

All you’ve learned in the past with film SLRs is valid for DSLRs. This isn’t a dig at you, but don’t justify what you are doing now by your success in the past. We’ve all done it, and its only when we finally realise that there’s a new set of rules to learn for digital that we start to achieve success. The main issue is that with DSLRs there’s a whole new set of tools and techniques to learn and most of those are practiced with Photoshop or PaintShopPro on a computer, and not on a camera – if you feel that’s not for you, then you need a digital compact and not a digital SLR.

Finally, if all this talk about levels, colour balance and unsharpening is baffling to you right now, there’s other topics on this forum that have started to touch on digital workflow and I’d recommend you look at those too.

Andy

Sorry Jur,
I should have answered you as well.
I appreciate that the focal length is increased on a DSLR, however I had hoped that the VR function would handle that.
I have used this lens for about 12 months or more on film cameras with no problem and have owned various long lenses (300/400mm) over the years and have not had problems with hand held camera shake and I always used 100 asa, sometimes 50.
I have been presenting my work to audiences for about ten years now in the form of slide lectures and have always got great comments back about the quality. So I think this current problem is my lack of understanding of taking digital images rather than my lens or my photographic technique.
I welcome your comments and help and lok forward to getting some first hand advice on the ground at OW from some of you.

Thanks for all of the feedback guys.
To answer a few questions:-

I’m sure that the VR is working (this is Nikon’s version of Image stability), however I will try some shots with it turned off. The ‘limit’ I mentioned is the function that limits the focal lenghth that the autofocus has to work in, ie if you are only using the lens at the long end it will only have to AF in that range.
The image data that I have found is that most images are 2240 X 1480 JPeg’s with file sizes of about 1.2 – 1.5 MB, clearly not big enough.

I am going on holiday this weekend so i’ll spend some time trying some of the advice thats been offered here.
I’m not new to avaition photography, i have been at it a long time and with good results, some of you may recall that I was one of the original picture posters on this forum, I backed off when some of the digital experts came on line.Its just that I have expectations and have seen the quality that can be achieved and as yet am not acheiving it.
Your advice is very useful, so thanks to all.
I have even started to read the handbook this evening!!

oist you!

hmm i do mostly portraits now so i have the luxury and need to shoot using RAW.

Personally, I wouldnt do either of the things matt has suggested, you dont need to put up the sharpen value within camera (if anything take it down…..your camera wont process the image as much and will give you more free reign in your choosen gfx package)

and I wouldnt bother shooting in raw, max res jpeg is just as good for us non-pro’s (and for some pro’s so I hear) and of course doesnt eat up anywhere near as much space.

as a digital beginner I just ‘shoot first ask questions later’ after I’ve got the camera settings I want……….

if its not got whirly bits on it I use shutter priority, stopped down twice, as i hear thats where a lense works best (and i can see the difference between fully open and stopped down a bit). if it does have whirly bits I use shutter priority and depending on how lucky i feel, somewhere between 100 and 250th

just go to the local airport or wherever and snap to your hearts content, i needed it to get the hang of my 500mm non stabilised lense……

philo have you tried in the camera settings to put the sharpness to above normal?

also have you tried shooting it in RAW and then changing it in paintshop?

Please find attached efforts

The in-flight shots aren’t so bad, but you obviously needed to correct the brightness and apply some USM (unsharp mask) afterwards. See my quick and dirty examples.

I have always used shutter priority, I suppose I have got used to working that way and I can control shots of prop aircraft better that way, ie keeping it down at 1/250th or slower.

Remember that on your DSLR the focal length of the lens is virtually multiplied by factor 1.5. That means that if you were OK e.g. in handholding a 200mm lens on your analog camera at 1/250, you should shorten the shutterspeed to 1/400 or 1/500 with the same 200mm lens on your DSLR to prevent unsharpness due to camera shake.

You should be able to get the exif info from any freebe exif viewer such as this one:-

http://home.pacbell.net/michal_k/exif_v.html

I think if I were you I would try and keep the shutter speed above 1/400 until you have got used to the combination of D70 & 80-400 vr. Are you sure that the VR is working ok?

Jonathan

you can still get the exif info under the original files, within their properties pages (right click-properties-etc)

Wannabe-Pilot,
I would if I could, I’m using PaintShop Pro(& not very well at that !)

Phil

I have always used shutter priority, I suppose I have got used to working that way and I can control shots of prop aircraft better that way, ie keeping it down at 1/250th or slower. It works well for static, although I have often used apeture priority when altering DOF tp push backgrounds out.
I’m using the VR lens and setting it as always on limit so focus should be no problem.
I cant tell what the individual shot diagnostics are as they are all off camera and not saved in the camera software either. I would suspect the Jungmann and Fury shots to have been using a shutter speed of around 1/250th, matrix metering, ISO set at 200 (wont go lower) and image size set at fine -medium size.
Any help appreciated.

Philo, any chance you could post us the EXIF data on those shots? (in Photoshop – File > File Info and select ‘EXIF’ from the drop down list.)

Please find attached efforts

Hi Phil,
I think you are going to need to give us some idea about what you mean by ‘poor’? Are they out of focus or noisy etc? Can you post some examples for us to look at?

Jonathan