Nikon shooters question specifically d700 ans a shot of my new rainbow

djberg

djberg

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the reason for the question:


DSC_3547 by dj.berg, on Flickr

what am i missing to grasp here is how do you get sharpness out of your camera sensor? it seems that the far sides of my sensor's color recognition is unable to handle the actinic light spectrum.

even while shooting at 1/400th it looks like i shot at 1/25th.

any one have any insight to this? please and thank you.
 
just to get a few things out of the way before they get asked anyway:

1. perpendicular to glass when shooting?
2. pumps on or off?
3. auto white balance/ custom/ or manual
4. RAW or JPG?

I shoot canon so no specific help, but someone is going to ask this, even though I will say judging by your flick'r album you know what you are doing with the camera. BTW nice vintage style fly reel....
 
Ussually perpendicular, pumps on(didn't think it would effect shooting faster than 1/100th), always shooting in full manual (wb I have come to find pushing the camera up to 10k {max kelvin}, lowest iso possible to shoot around f4, always trying to stay above 1/250th, and of course raw. Using lightroom 4, but this shot was a combo of in camera hue shift, lightroom and a touch of windoes live editor...

Yeah thanks that's a willow, I got it as a gift, too fancy for me. But an absolute work of art, hand turned by a guy in tiawan or korea, I can't remember.
 
You removed the EXIF so I can't tell what you did. Beyond what's above, f stop, metering, focus points, tripod, lens??
 

Untitled by dj.berg, on Flickr

i'm still learning the new flickr but full exif here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/djberg/11382751706/meta/

exif info can be found by clicking on the 3 dots bottom right of the screen while photo is centered.

i would say windows live editor removed it, as for the rest of the questions:

metering, is spot.

focus point single on the nem

lens 50mm 1.8

tripod? shooting over 1/250th? usually tripod for anything under 1/100th

i will also add in my af sensor has a tendency to like shinier objects while focusing... something i have always dealt with...
 
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First, get off of f2. Using a 50mm at 50mm gives a fairly shallow DOF. That will help with focus some. I also shoot with flashes. Even the on camera one. This also helps with WB. You should also be able to drop the ISO quite a bit. Here's a shot with D200, 105mm macro, f9.5, ISO 100, 1/45 shutter and on camera flash.



IMO, a tripod can still help when shooting a tank. What you're trying to do is limit the amount things that can affect the shot. I too shoot a lot without one, but if I can use one with a shutter release, I will just to keep that off the table. Also still yes to the pumps. You can see shimmering caused by current and light in a tank. You mentioned about the 700 spoting on shimmering objects, (I know you said focusing, but the metering applies also). Turning the pumps off and letting things settle will help aviod that.
 
standard 75 gal. and oh boy. off camera flash and mmmm love me some strobist playing! the fish are gonna hate me. and yeah f2 is shallow, must have been trying to "freeze" the shot abit more(faster shutter), but with no success. i'll try the strobe and iso drop, any tips on shooting actinic with strobes? but on the side of my d700, 2000 iso is "usually" flawless, it's not until you gey up by 6400 that you really start seeing it.

also on a side note, if i leave my halides on, i can shoot with no issues what so ever. this scenario is only for actinic lighting only.
 
Youre asking a camera to do what it just cant do. The ambient light of actinics only is starving your camera for light. So everything you can do to remedy that is going to degrade the image quality. Your camrea does handle hi ISO well, so I would start there. I know youre trying to increase shutter speed by going wide open at F2, but I personally dont like going in that direction to remedy low light. If you go with a flash, youre going to lose the reason why you want to photograph under actinics. The only way your going to start getting any decent results is use a tripod, a remot shutter release and start playing with ISO 2000 and up. Your 700 will do fine with it. I would go down to at least f4 or more like f7 to get a better field of focus. Turn all the flow off until everything is nce and quiet. And then shoot, shoot, shoot. I personally like to shoot in manual and intentionally underexpose anywhere from 1 to 4 stops. This will gain shutter speed too.
If I understand your display, you have it on spot metering. That mode bases everything involving light on your focus point, which is tiny. Go to matrix metering or even center weighted. Play with all of this until you see youe results moving in the right direction.
 
thanks guys and, yeah there's gotta be a way to get the coloring out of things maybe running strobe filters(color screen things)? like how they say you should use a green filter for shooting in florescent lighting, i donno i've seen some beautiful shots of rainbow nem's with all the colors, but my halides wash out almost all of the coloring other than the reds and blues.
 
The problem with just shooting actinic is the light is too unbalanced. You also have to remember, the camera's sensor doesn't adjust to different lighting conditions the way our eyes do. In your last three pics shutter speed plays probably the most important roll, as you are stopping something that has a fast motion. The one thing that helps with all three shots is distance. You are far enough away to have a good DOF using a fairly large aperture. The two with all the white also help you keep the speed up.

The first one, (my personal favorite by the way), The speed isn't very important. You are supplying the light. This gives more control. Most of what I shoot normally is with a macro. I have a few. Light becomes almost null when you are shooting a short distance from your subject. This is one of the biggest reasons I use flashes. It can also help use a lower f-stop to get the DOF you want. It can also allow more creativity.



You are going to have to play with what you have and work from there. I'm used to using my flashes when shooting most of the time. One more.

 
Man stop already, this reefing thin is eating my money as we speak. Looking at those are mot helping my urge for new glass. ... need macro...........

Btw. Tack sharp n geourgus!!!
 
Your 700 has a screw drive. I still have a Nikon 105mm AF-D and a Sigma 50mm AF that I still use most of the time. I have a Nikon 105 AF-s VR, but taking a thousand dollar lens out in the boonies when the others are just as sharp makes no sense.
 
You can also look into extension tubes. This was with a full set of tubes, my 105 AF and off camera flashes.

 
Right and that's some seroius macro. Too bad I couldn't get closer with my 80-200. My fav glass as of right now.
 
djberg said:

Untitled by dj.berg, on Flickr

i'm still learning the new flickr but full exif here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/djberg/11382751706/meta/

exif info can be found by clicking on the 3 dots bottom right of the screen while photo is centered.

i would say windows live editor removed it, as for the rest of the questions:

metering, is spot.

focus point single on the nem

lens 50mm 1.8

tripod? shooting over 1/250th? usually tripod for anything under 1/100th

i will also add in my af sensor has a tendency to like shinier objects while focusing... something i have always dealt with...
Click to expand...

1. Stop using vivid (VI*) on your picture controls. You want Neutral. When you use CaptureNX, this info gets transferred to the raw processor (unlike LR)

2. Shoot 14-bit NEF at smaller aperture and try underexposing by about 2-3 stops while exposing for the highlights. You can then slowly bring up the shadow areas without blowing out the highlights of the actinic.

3. I didn't read the entire thread but if you haven't been already, try LR as your post-processor since it doesn't "bake in" the picture controls. AWB on the D700 is quite good so I'd use AWB and not preset WB, especially when dealing with tanks.
 
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Xtm is on point with his post. Shot the d700 and 50 1.8 and I can tell you the edges will always be soft wide open. The lens doesn't get sharp till about 5.6.
 
The only other thing I would point out is that you WB'd for 10,000K when shooting under actinic...there's a huge problem right there as to why your colors are funky. Other that that, everything else that folks have said is spot on. I'm personally not a fan of my 50/1.8 but that's just me and I'm not shooting full-frame.

On the who Vivid color topic...I use this often but not when colors are wacky like with actinics. It's just my habit for my style of shooting. If I'm not using that I prefer "standard" as I don't like how "neutral" outputs and what I need to do post-processing to get it where I want it. MIND YOU: I do NOT get a lot of time to fuss with my photos if I get any time at all (I've got about a 3 year back-log at this point thanks to my kids) so any time I do get I may only get through 2 or 3 of my RAW files. I'm also only an amateur so take my $.02 for whatever value it may have at this junction.

Good Luck and Happy Shooting!
 
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