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D100 Underexposure solved here

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I agree somewhat that the camera has no problem, I've been taking great photos with it since I've had it and am simply surprised at all the complaints. However, with almost every photo I've taken, I've had to lift the curve slightly. What I've done here is automate this time-consuming part of my workflow so that it is now in-camera.

This "solution" is more for those people who have a problem with their out-of-camera photos and want slightly more of a point and shoot, although you can never substitute good technique with any custom tone curve.

So, if you have no problem with your exposures, don't use my curve.
SoftD100 said:
Apolinario said:
My past thread had a dead link in it but I've fixed it and made a
website where you can download my custom tone curves:
http://www.geocities.com/kisskissbangbang_97

samples:
+0 EV curve



+0 EV curve again



+0.7 EV curve



original message thread:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=3630611

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
 
Thanks Apolinario,

Thanks for your curves - I for one believe that the D100 HAS got a flat, neutral out of camera image on Nikon default settings. It's meant to be that way - it isn't a problem. But I am always happy to try out someone else's custom curves. Thanks for sharing Apolinario - remember - you cannot please all of the people - all of the time. And some users of this site have a nice way of expressing their opinions. Keep up the good work Apolinario !!
Apolinario said:
This "solution" is more for those people who have a problem with
their out-of-camera photos and want slightly more of a point and
shoot, although you can never substitute good technique with any
custom tone curve.

So, if you have no problem with your exposures, don't use my curve.
SoftD100 said:
Apolinario said:
My past thread had a dead link in it but I've fixed it and made a
website where you can download my custom tone curves:
http://www.geocities.com/kisskissbangbang_97

samples:
+0 EV curve



+0 EV curve again



+0.7 EV curve



original message thread:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=3630611

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
Click to expand...
 
Sorry for the confusion. The first two photos don't use my +0.7 less curve. They simply use my +0 EV curve. The shots on the left of both of those first photos are using Nikon's default "Less" contrast setting. They were taken with the exact same exposure. The reason why they seem underexposed is because of the lack of contrast. However, if you look very carefully, they show better shadow detail. My 0+ EV curve simply adds just slightly more contrast to the photo without losing detail.

Here's a link to the orginal photos on pbase since it's kind of hard to see with a small jpg the difference:

http://www.pbase.com/atmabini/d100_tests

The last photo that I had posted is the only one showing the +0.7 curve at work. It is actually the +0.7 contrast curve. I didn't post any shots yet with my +0.7 less curve. I may take some more shots today and post them.
 


It may be hard to see with a small jpg, but there is more saturation (particularily of yellows and reds) in the photo taken using the custom tone. There is also significantly more contrast than the less contrast photo and more shadow detail than the normal w/ ev +.7.

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
 
Apolinario said:


It may be hard to see with a small jpg, but there is more
saturation (particularily of yellows and reds) in the photo taken
using the custom tone. There is also significantly more contrast
than the less contrast photo and more shadow detail than the normal
w/ ev +.7.
Click to expand...
Apolinario,

I'd mostly stayed out of these more recent "custom tone" threads but I am so glad that people are learning to harness the potential of this extremely powerful feature of the D100. I remember being baffled by the lack of proliferation of similar custom curve experiment threads in the hands of the "pros" when the feature was added to the D1x, either the pros remained silent on it's use or (I am leaning towards this option) many of them just didn't get how to tweak the curve to adjust the cameras internal tone response. ( I'll admit that playing with Photoshops "curves" tool took some time before I gained facility at achieving a desired result.) It is very obvious at least to me that the custom tone image (top right) is highier in saturation, more open in dynamic range from dark to light and has better highlight retention (look at the back white wall on the house to the right in all 4 images, the custom version has a smoother more continuous grade) than any of the others. I am curious to see the actual shape of your curve, can you provide a screen shot of the curve as it appeared in NC3 prior to your exporting it to the D100? I'd like to see just how subtle your tweaks where, it would also be instructive to those that have difficulty adjusting their curves on where to tweak it to achieve a desired result. (ie. mid shadow opening, deep shadow opening, highlight retention..etc.)

As a challenge, you should make a few "extreme" custom tone curves, that can be applied under normally very difficult exposure situations. Example, a curve that is specifically made to enhance dynamic range in "pin hole" type scene (dark forground surrounding aperture to bright background) such as an indoor view of a dark room with a window view shot, maximizing DR distribution across the scene without overexposing the scene outside the window or underexposing the scene in the room. I have a feeling that creating a specific curve to maximize rendition of this shot and then comparing it to the cameras "default" and exposure compensated settings would definitely convince many of the power of this technique. In fact I feel these extreme exposure situations are exactly the ones Nikon intended to allow the dedicated amateur (or pro in the D1x's case) to address by adding the custom curve option in the first place. In essence allowing you to put the cameras Dynamic Range where you need it in the image.

Keep experimenting, it puts you on the fast road to perfecting your photographic craft with this (or any) camera.

Regards,
--

 
I totally agree, would you please take a screen shot of your excellent curve??? I'd personally like to see it to learn from you. Thank you.

Jack
 
Thanks for the comments. I specifically introduced a shallower curve at the high tone end to hold highlights. I am very excited about the results so far.

About your challenge to develop curves for other difficult situations, I would do that, however, my NC3 trial just ended! I'm stuck with my curve, which, luckily, I think I finally got right. Also, I think banks of curves would be great for the D100 in tethered-studio conditions when you can change the tone setting right there, however, without enough memory in the D100 to hold more than 1 custom tone curve, it's impractical for my purposes.

By the way, out of principal, I refuse to purchase NC3. I mean, why did Nikon underexpose their photos? They say it's to hold in highlights, however, my custom tone curve shows you can do that without underexposing photos using a simple non-linear curve. I just completed more conclusive tests and found that the D100's normal tone settings with 0 EV are indeed underexposed after taking repeated photos of evenly lit walls (I must have looked really strange doing this!). The histogram of those shots is consistently centered at a point 1/8 less than the midpoint. My custom tone histogram is an almost perfect bell shaped curve that is centered exactly at the midpoint (18% gray). Interestingly, the normal tone setting with +0.7 EV falls slightly above the midpoint whereas the less contrast tone setting with +0.7 EV falls almost right on the midpoint, but with a sharper peak than the distributed peak my custom tone produced. I think one of the reasons why they Nikon did this is so that we would all have to buy NC3. If it wasn't, why wouldn't they have included NC3 in the D100 package? This does not justify pirating, as some people seem to have done, however, I simply will not spend another $100 or so just because of the principal. I refuse to be prey to marketing schemes like that. The same was when I had purchased my Canon S10 and they told me I had to buy a rechargeable battery and a battery charger at an additional cost. Marketing schemes such as those are not what I would expect from a reputable company. They're just about at the same level as those shady San Francisco camera stores whose owners force you to buy wide-angle lenses and battery chargers and cases with your camera or they won't sell it to you.

That being said, does anyone know of any cheap programs out there that allow you to edit photos without altering exif data. The main program I use is actually Adobe Photoshop LE (I got it free with my Wacom pen tablet). It erases all my exif data, however!
David SL said:
Apolinario said:


It may be hard to see with a small jpg, but there is more
saturation (particularily of yellows and reds) in the photo taken
using the custom tone. There is also significantly more contrast
than the less contrast photo and more shadow detail than the normal
w/ ev +.7.
Click to expand...
Apolinario,

I'd mostly stayed out of these more recent "custom tone" threads
but I am so glad that people are learning to harness the potential
of this extremely powerful feature of the D100. I remember being
baffled by the lack of proliferation of similar custom curve
experiment threads in the hands of the "pros" when the feature was
added to the D1x, either the pros remained silent on it's use or (I
am leaning towards this option) many of them just didn't get how to
tweak the curve to adjust the cameras internal tone response. (
I'll admit that playing with Photoshops "curves" tool took some
time before I gained facility at achieving a desired result.) It
is very obvious at least to me that the custom tone image (top
right) is highier in saturation, more open in dynamic range from
dark to light and has better highlight retention (look at the back
white wall on the house to the right in all 4 images, the custom
version has a smoother more continuous grade) than any of the
others. I am curious to see the actual shape of your curve, can you
provide a screen shot of the curve as it appeared in NC3 prior to
your exporting it to the D100? I'd like to see just how subtle your
tweaks where, it would also be instructive to those that have
difficulty adjusting their curves on where to tweak it to achieve a
desired result. (ie. mid shadow opening, deep shadow opening,
highlight retention..etc.)

As a challenge, you should make a few "extreme" custom tone curves,
that can be applied under normally very difficult exposure
situations. Example, a curve that is specifically made to enhance
dynamic range in "pin hole" type scene (dark forground surrounding
aperture to bright background) such as an indoor view of a dark
room with a window view shot, maximizing DR distribution across the
scene without overexposing the scene outside the window or
underexposing the scene in the room. I have a feeling that creating
a specific curve to maximize rendition of this shot and then
comparing it to the cameras "default" and exposure compensated
settings would definitely convince many of the power of this
technique. In fact I feel these extreme exposure situations are
exactly the ones Nikon intended to allow the dedicated amateur (or
pro in the D1x's case) to address by adding the custom curve option
in the first place. In essence allowing you to put the cameras
Dynamic Range where you need it in the image.

Keep experimenting, it puts you on the fast road to perfecting your
photographic craft with this (or any) camera.

Regards,
--

Click to expand...
--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
 
Hi
Apolinario said:
So, if you have no problem with your exposures, don't use my curve.
Click to expand...
The "problem" I evaluated is more subtile. If I meter a gray subject I expect it to be in the center of the histogram but this does not happen. To compensate this I have to either correct EV and/or use a custom curve either in camera or in NC3 depending on the circumstance. Matrix metering is no good reference to check exposure problems.

I don't belive cameras from different production charges really differ. For several reasons I have replaced my fisrt D100 and my second is absolutely the same concerning exposure...

Contrast is another thing that can differ from shot to shot and this is not corrected in camera as well. In this case a single custom curve alone does not help. Even more subtile, contrast differs with used colourspace too. I was somehow surprised to see in NC3 that using my custom curve on shots with ColourSpace produced slightly differnt contrast than Colourspace III. Even changing colourspace in NC3 later didn't change this effect of the initial colourspace selection during shooting.

I sometimes think the in camera and NC3 workflow has some magic differences even when the same curves or settings are used...

Regards, A. Schiele
 
A not well known but superlative and cheap photediting package that is in some ways superior to even PS7 is Digital Light and Color's Picture Window 3.

This comes in two versions (standard and pro) with the pro version adding some extra features such as full 16 bit per colour editing (for all editing features!), automatic resampling/upsampling during printing to perfectly match image to printer driver, full colour management.

The standard version costs about $50 and the pro version about $90

You can download a trial version and view the extensive turtorials and white papers at http://www.dl-c.com .

You can also read an independent user's experiences with the package and more tutorials on Norman Koren's excellent and informative site: http://www.normankoren.com
 
Thank you. I will check this out.
DMillier said:
A not well known but superlative and cheap photediting package that
is in some ways superior to even PS7 is Digital Light and Color's
Picture Window 3.

This comes in two versions (standard and pro) with the pro version
adding some extra features such as full 16 bit per colour editing
(for all editing features!), automatic resampling/upsampling during
printing to perfectly match image to printer driver, full colour
management.

The standard version costs about $50 and the pro version about $90

You can download a trial version and view the extensive turtorials
and white papers at http://www.dl-c.com .

You can also read an independent user's experiences with the
package and more tutorials on Norman Koren's excellent and
informative site: http://www.normankoren.com
Click to expand...
--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
 
Apolinario said:
I agree somewhat that the camera has no problem, I've been taking
great photos with it since I've had it and am simply surprised at
all the complaints. However, with almost every photo I've taken,
I've had to lift the curve slightly. What I've done here is
automate this time-consuming part of my workflow so that it is now
in-camera.

This "solution" is more for those people who have a problem with
their out-of-camera photos and want slightly more of a point and
shoot, although you can never substitute good technique with any
custom tone curve.
Click to expand...
ahh there is the crux of it , good technique !!
Apolinario said:
So, if you have no problem with your exposures, don't use my curve.
SoftD100 said:
Apolinario said:
My past thread had a dead link in it but I've fixed it and made a
website where you can download my custom tone curves:
http://www.geocities.com/kisskissbangbang_97

samples:
+0 EV curve



+0 EV curve again



+0.7 EV curve



original message thread:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=3630611

--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind
Click to expand...
 
Hi

I am not sure what you want to show, but concerning my experiences with my D100 your "uncorrected" shots with your D100 look pretty ok.

The corrections you show are detail nuances but not what I experienced from my D100 concerning exposure or even "problems" with exposure.

How is you methering method? Where is your garypoint in the historgram when you shoot a gray card??

Regards, A. Schiele.
 
David,

Like you, I have stayed out of these custom curve threads because I don't understand them! LOL...

But I do agree with you that there is a lot of hidden abilities that haven't been harnessed to the fullest yet with the D100.

I also like the idea of an custom curve bank a lot!
David SL said:
I'd mostly stayed out of these more recent "custom tone" threads
but I am so glad that people are learning to harness the potential
of this extremely powerful feature of the D100. I remember being
baffled by the lack of proliferation of similar custom curve
experiment threads in the hands of the "pros" when the feature was
added to the D1x, either the pros remained silent on it's use or (I
am leaning towards this option) many of them just didn't get how to
tweak the curve to adjust the cameras internal tone response. (
I'll admit that playing with Photoshops "curves" tool took some
time before I gained facility at achieving a desired result.) It
is very obvious at least to me that the custom tone image (top
right) is highier in saturation, more open in dynamic range from
dark to light and has better highlight retention (look at the back
white wall on the house to the right in all 4 images, the custom
version has a smoother more continuous grade) than any of the
others. I am curious to see the actual shape of your curve, can you
provide a screen shot of the curve as it appeared in NC3 prior to
your exporting it to the D100? I'd like to see just how subtle your
tweaks where, it would also be instructive to those that have
difficulty adjusting their curves on where to tweak it to achieve a
desired result. (ie. mid shadow opening, deep shadow opening,
highlight retention..etc.)

As a challenge, you should make a few "extreme" custom tone curves,
that can be applied under normally very difficult exposure
situations. Example, a curve that is specifically made to enhance
dynamic range in "pin hole" type scene (dark forground surrounding
aperture to bright background) such as an indoor view of a dark
room with a window view shot, maximizing DR distribution across the
scene without overexposing the scene outside the window or
underexposing the scene in the room. I have a feeling that creating
a specific curve to maximize rendition of this shot and then
comparing it to the cameras "default" and exposure compensated
settings would definitely convince many of the power of this
technique. In fact I feel these extreme exposure situations are
exactly the ones Nikon intended to allow the dedicated amateur (or
pro in the D1x's case) to address by adding the custom curve option
in the first place. In essence allowing you to put the cameras
Dynamic Range where you need it in the image.

Keep experimenting, it puts you on the fast road to perfecting your
photographic craft with this (or any) camera.

Regards,
--

Click to expand...
 
alfred_schiele said:
alfred_schiele said:
So, if you have no problem with your exposures, don't use my curve.
Click to expand...
The "problem" I evaluated is more subtile. If I meter a gray
subject I expect it to be in the center of the histogram
Click to expand...
WHAT , your smoking crack, just because you meter grey doesnt mean the histrogram is in the centre,what if 2/3 of the subject is black ??,
think your theory again

but this
alfred_schiele said:
does not happen. To compensate this I have to either correct EV
and/or use a custom curve either in camera or in NC3 depending on
the circumstance. Matrix metering is no good reference to check
exposure problems.

I don't belive cameras from different production charges really
differ. For several reasons I have replaced my fisrt D100 and my
second is absolutely the same concerning exposure...

Contrast is another thing that can differ from shot to shot and
this is not corrected in camera as well. In this case a single
custom curve alone does not help. Even more subtile, contrast
differs with used colourspace too. I was somehow surprised to see
in NC3 that using my custom curve on shots with ColourSpace
produced slightly differnt contrast than Colourspace III. Even
changing colourspace in NC3 later didn't change this effect of the
initial colourspace selection during shooting.

I sometimes think the in camera and NC3 workflow has some magic
differences even when the same curves or settings are used...

Regards, A. Schiele
Click to expand...
 
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