sptBetter to get it right in the camera. Photoshop is not a correction tool but rather a tool for preparing images for print. Yes, it can rescue poor exposure to some extent and correct other errors, but the result is a compromise. Right first time will give a better result every time!
spt🙂 Does anyone know if the Nikon has a similar function to the Canon for tracking a fast moving object and maintaining focus?
Yes it does. However, from my limited experience of the D70s I am not sure how effective it really is for fast moving aircraft, at least with a Sigma lens (70-200mm EX DG APO). It might work better with a marque lens, but I have no experience of this.
sptHandling is very important too. Try both if you can. Personally I have a Nikon D70s and find the handling excellent and I have no reason to doubt that the D50 is as good. Everything that you might want to alter regularly, apart from the focusing modes, can be accessed from buttons on the camera body eg ISO, white balance, metering mode. No rummaging around in hard to see menus on the screen, unlike some of the competition. In short it handles like a proper well thought out camera.
It is also generally observed that the current DSLR Nikons turn out sharper looking images than Canons, even with fewer pixels to start with. I think this is probably something to do with the strength of the anti aliasing filter. The downside of this is that my D70s does very occasionally cause slightly jagged edges on prints in very high contrast situations.
However, either of your possible choices are good cameras. So try both if you can and then make a decision. And buy a good lens to go with the body….the Canon kit lens is not a good performer. Nikon’s offering is very good.
sptFew have matched his achievements, which weren’t about what equipment he used, but about thinking, planning and arranging great shots. He made the shots happen.
Exactly. To which I would add knowing and understanding the limitations of your equipment and working within them.
sptHe neglected one thing though – dust. What a ******* that stuff is.
Just as much a problem with digital capture in my experience… Despite every care, variable position black blobs appear randomly on my digital captures. 🙁 And they are bigger and harder to clone out than dust on film scans.
Incidentally, there is a rather nifty history brush and dust and scratches filter technique that painlessly removes dust from film scans. It’s probably been aired here already, but Martin Evening’s Photoshop books contain a good description of the technique. Works best with a graphics tablet. More to the point, its quick and easy; something cloning never is.
sptI still get better results with film – spending money on quality lenses is a much better investment than another 4 Mp.
I agree! I have just bought a Nikon D70s and although the results are good and for ease of us it is excellent, there is no contest when its output is compared with scanned Fuji Provia 100F. This has far better tonal gradation; it can pick up paint texture! Well it can if I use a tripod… there is not alot between the two types of image capture if I stand and shoot movies handholding a big lens. (Tongue in cheek of course, but if the cap fits etc :dev2: )
The real benefit from using digital is the ability to fine tune white balance after the event, assuming you are shooting RAW as I do. Not something you can do with film and correction filters do not give such a fine level of control at the point of capture. I was never fully happy with the results I achieved using filters under cloudy conditions. The image was always slightly too warm or slightly too cold and Photoshop never always overcame these perceived shortcomings.
sptI have just bought the latest version and image quality is excellent. There are some shots of mine taken with this lens elsewhere on this forum. Mind you it is heavy…. I have no experience of using it for air to air work though.
sptNot sure who the middle aged balding guy with the camera is! Last time I looked he was about 25 and had all his hair.
Thanks for the positive comments.
Here’s a few more shots and nothing moving either!
sptSome excellent shots here! Good to see some different angles from the usual stuff posted here too.
Best wishes..
sptHere’s my complete workflow based on about 8 weeks use of a Nikon D70s and assuming Photoshop 7 or higher as the image editor…
1. Shoot RAW using auto white balance and matrix metering. Aim for an exposure that pushes the histogram as far to the right as possible without clipping the highlights. Under sensible lighting conditions the D70s achieves this 90% of the time using matrix metering. Otherwise, slight under exposure is best so as to retain highlight detail.
2. Using RawShooter Essentials, edit the downloaded folder of images to weed out the duds and also rans. Be ruthless. Only proceed further with the very best. This process is easier if a week or so elapses between shooting and reviewing.
3. Process the selected images using RawShooter Essentials. Camera set white balance and auto exposure almost always give a good start. Set sharpening to zero. Use noise removal to taste. It is not often needed with D70s files shot at ISO 200.
4. Batch convert using Adobe RGB as the colour working space (assuming this is what you use in Photoshop or whatever); File type TIFF; Bit depth 16 bit; Quality maximum and check sharpening (even though this was set to zero in the processing).
5. In Photoshop the images will look a little low in contrast and slightly soft (or very soft if you use a Canon!).
6. Still in 16 bit colour depth, use a levels adjustment layer to set a black and white point and adjust the overall brightness to taste.
7. Use a second adjustment layer (Hue and Saturation) to modify colour saturation if desired. I usually add +10 master channel saturation to landscapes, but do not alter aircraft shots.
8. Make any other adjustments you think necessary, e.g. colour balance, all by means of adjustment layers.
9. Create a new image layer incorporating all your adjustments: Shift + Ctrl + Alt+ N + E. Duplicate this layer. Apply Gaussian Blur at a radius of 20 to this duplicate. Alter the blend mode to Soft Light and the layer opacity to 10% – 20% according to taste. This subtly increases contrast and colour saturation.
10. Flatten the layers and apply the Unsharp Mask as follows:
Convert Colour Mode to Lab Colour.
Select Lightness Channel.
Apply USM, Amount 20, Radius 50, Threshold 0.
Select Lab Channel.
Convert Colour Mode to RGB Colour.
This gives a beneficial increase to the image dynamic range.
11. Finally crop and sharpen to taste. There are various good sharpening routines widely described on the Internet. Most involve use of the Lightness Channel in Lab Colour Mode, but there are other interesting and valid alternatives, such as High Pass Sharpening. Luminous Landscape is a good source of such techniques.
If posting an image on this or other forums, do the necessary resizing and conversion to 8 bit colour depth and JPEG on a duplicate of the original. Remember that Photoshop has a very useful save for web option (File>Save For Web), which allows fine control of file size and image quality. Also ensure that images for web use are in the sRGB colour space (Image>Mode>Convert To Profile). Internet browsers are not colour space aware (unless you are running a Mac) and assume an sRGB colour space. As a consequence, images in the Adobe RGB colour space look flat and washed out.
All this may seem rather time consuming, but my aim is the very best possible image quality, and there is no short cut to this. The basic Photoshop workflow can be created as an Action and becomes much quicker, with no need to remember things such as the USM settings. Whole folders of images can then be processed relatively quickly.
Hope this is of some help and interest. Comments and suggestions welcome!
sptI bought the D70s, purely to see how good this digital thing is you understand!! Whilst I still prefer the look of film, the D70s (and doubtless the D70 too) is a very accomplished camera. Under sensible shooting conditions it is very difficult to fool the auto white balance and the auto exposure. And the output is sharp without resort to third party modification…..
If there is a downside, it is that JPEG output tends to block up shadows and blow highlights. I shoot raw and process through RawShooter Essentials and the results are excellent, albeit ‘digital’ looking.
sptwhen it comes to reconstituting the image later as it is not always possible to “recover” the lost data.
It is never possible to “recover” the lost data. Once JPEG compression has thrown it away, you cannot get it back. That is why JPEG compression is never a good idea if image quality is your aim. I fail to see the point in spending large amounts of money on a 6MP or 8MP digital SLR only to shoot JPEG in camera, since the in camera processing throws away much of the quality advantage that buying 6 or 8MP gives you.
sptWho cares as most of what people shoot today is going to the carbage compound in the long run, wether it be on film or digital base.
Anyone who has any interest in the historical record should care! How much of the aviation pictorial record that is extant was taken by professionals who took care to preserve their archive of images? My guess would be a small percentage only. Take a look at the premier UK published historical aviation magazine. The majority of the period image reproduced are apparently taken by people who happened to have a camera handy; keen amateurs. I doubt they took any real steps to ensure the subsequent survival of their pictures. Fortunately, many such pictures do survive against the odds, and are easily accessible. They just have to be looked at, even as negatives.
In the same way, many of today’s happy snaps are potentially tomorrows valuable historical record. Storing an image as a digital file potentially reduces its future accessibility. It needs decoding to view and despite all the assertions to the contrary here, there is no guarantee that this will be possible in the future. The proprietary RAW formats that proliferate with almost every high end digital camera release, exacerbate that lack of guarantee.
It is surely not unreasonable to propose an open RAW standard that mimics the 35mm film standard, thereby improving potential future accessibility Adobe have already attempted to do this, so the argument that different sensors in different cameras preclude a RAW standard does not stand up? As I understand things, the only difference between RAW formats is how the data is encoded, but I stand to be corrected.
It is also wrong to underestimate the role of commercial pressure. It is not unreasonable to assume that there is a commercial awareness of a back compatibility problem, but if back compatibility compromises profit, I know which will win out.
Therefore, I believe there is a potential problem as many professionals argue. If those whose livelihood is photography are concerned, it is foolish for the rest of us to ignore the issue, or dismiss it as lightly as some have done above. And yes, this is not a digital v film argument, but rather an issue of the long term future accessibility of the digital image record. There are many ordinary everyday photographs extant from more than 100 years ago, but I suspect there will be proportionally fewer digital image files of the same everyday nature, extant and accessible in 100 years from now.
sptI agree too. 100k is plenty big enough. Try re-sizing to 700 pixels for the largest dimension and then use Photoshops File>Save For Web option. This allows control over the compression applied to the resulting JPEG, so any image can be compressed to a target size. I usually aim for around 96-98k.
Hope this is some help.
sptDPI is utterly, totally and completely irrelevant. It is a tag attached to an image and can be changed at will. Pixel dimensions are all important.
Thanks for putting me right on this. Today’s lesson well and truly learnt. 😮
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