X-A1 jpeg settings

I would be grateful if forum members who have the X-A1 would share their jpeg settings for shadow and highlight tone along with NR, Sharpness, Colour etc and any other suggestions to get the best out of it.

My biggest gripe is how small the icons are on the screen which necessitates the need for reading glasses when shooting in order to read shutter/aperture etc

Found these from another post

6. This will be personal preference. I like DR200 for the dynamic range. I think 400 goes too far and you give up too much of ISO. Auto ISO is at 6400. Nothing above that is really any good for me. The minimum shutter for that is dependent on the lens. NR is -1. H tone is -2. S tone is -1. Color is 0 and sharp is +1.

Any thoughts ?

Donald M Mackinnon said:

Found these from another post

6. This will be personal preference. I like DR200 for the dynamic range. I think 400 goes too far and you give up too much of ISO. Auto ISO is at 6400. Nothing above that is really any good for me. The minimum shutter for that is dependent on the lens. NR is -1. H tone is -2. S tone is -1. Color is 0 and sharp is +1.

Any thoughts ?

Click to expand...

Yeah. The first sentence from the other post is true. The next two sentences are garbage, based on my experience with the camera. I set DR to auto. The vast majority of the time, the A1 uses DR100 or DR200. A DR400 selection is rare, even with landscapes having a fairly wide dynamic range. So it seems that the DR of the scene has to be extreme for the camera to select the DR400 option. And if it does, so what? It's doing you a favor. As for the other settings, it's entirely up to your taste. No one can force you to like avocadoes.

The only useful suggestion I can give is to use the default settings (I do use NR set to -1), and shoot Raw+JPEG. Then I you don't like the JPEG, redevelop the Raw in camera. It's easy to do - you can see individual changes, discard and choose another setting. Eventually, you may discover permanent settings that suits your taste.

Everyone is going to have their own preferences in terms of Jpeg settings, but for casual family shots with my X-E2 (mostly what I used the camera for) I've settled on this:

Provia

Auto ISO 3200 1/100 min shutter speed

Auto DR

NR -2

Shadow and Highlight Tone both -1

Sharpen +1

Color 0

Basically, this gives me good results most of the time with little need for post-processing. I tried all default settings, but found that I often wanted to lift shadows, recover highlights, and sharpen after-the-fact so now I let the camera do it for me. Provia gives nice warm skin tones, but isn't the most accurate color profile.

If I'm going to do more "serious" photography, such as the odd formal portrait or landscape, I shoot RAW.

I took the camera out this afternoon and am quite pleased although the settings were incorrect and I don't really know what shadow and highlight were at.

I suspect shadow may have been set to plus 2 but any way I will shoot with default settings as well as trying these and take it from there. To be continued.

Many thanks for the advice,much appreciated

Like you I had read the forums and thought about what the best settings were for my camera. i set it up.

Last week all that got turned on its head. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with one of NZ's leading photographers. We talked about camera settings. His view is that there is no one correct setting. It changes depending on what you want to achieve for each and every shot. Sometimes you want a lot more contrast and therefore increase the shadows and highlights to increase the tonal contrast. Some sometimes you want to reduce the shadows but keep the highlights etc. Mike's underlying philosophy is that you 'make' a photo which reflects what you felt at the time. You control ALL the settings as needed and there is no perfect setup. You tell the camera what you want it to do. Incidentally he makes the image with JPEG and uses it as his reference when recreating it in RAW. He did state though that sometimes the JPEG is good enough to put in competitions.

So let's say, it was an interesting day out in the field. I know have to put the time in to perfect what he was saying. By not relying 'standard' settings I fell I am creating better shots which are more in line with what I want to achieve. The disclaimer is I still have a ling way to go, but it is a fun journey. So my advice is give it a try rather than have the same settings for each shot.

Daft as this sounds please advise me, to lighten the shadows do I set shadow tone to plus or minus ? and is this the same for highlight tone ?

In fact how does highlight tone work? think I understand shadow but highlight I assume helps with highlight clipping, would somebody be kind enough to explain,

Many thanks

Dumbo

Donald M Mackinnon said:

I took the camera out this afternoon and am quite pleased although the settings were incorrect and I don't really know what shadow and highlight were at.

I suspect shadow may have been set to plus 2 but any way I will shoot with default settings as well as trying these and take it from there. To be continued.

Many thanks for the advice,much appreciated

Click to expand...

Don, those photos are underexposed. It's not a highlight or contrast issue. Looks like exposure comp was set at -1 or worse.

vajrasattva said:

Like you I had read the forums and thought about what the best settings were for my camera. i set it up.

Last week all that got turned on its head. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with one of NZ's leading photographers. We talked about camera settings. His view is that there is no one correct setting. It changes depending on what you want to achieve for each and every shot. Sometimes you want a lot more contrast and therefore increase the shadows and highlights to increase the tonal contrast. Some sometimes you want to reduce the shadows but keep the highlights etc. Mike's underlying philosophy is that you 'make' a photo which reflects what you felt at the time. You control ALL the settings as needed and there is no perfect setup. You tell the camera what you want it to do. Incidentally he makes the image with JPEG and uses it as his reference when recreating it in RAW. He did state though that sometimes the JPEG is good enough to put in competitions.

So let's say, it was an interesting day out in the field. I know have to put the time in to perfect what he was saying. By not relying 'standard' settings I fell I am creating better shots which are more in line with what I want to achieve. The disclaimer is I still have a ling way to go, but it is a fun journey. So my advice is give it a try rather than have the same settings for each shot.

Click to expand...

All true. That's why I shoot Raw+JPEG and redevelop in-camera if necessary. Out in the field, I don't have time to **** around with many settings because invariably I'll forget to reset for the next shot.

Donald M Mackinnon said:

Daft as this sounds please advise me, to lighten the shadows do I set shadow tone to plus or minus ? and is this the same for highlight tone ?

Click to expand...

+ to increase highlight/shadow, and - to decrease highlight/shadow. Using in-camera Raw develop will help you understand the options because you can experiment to your heart's desire.

Donald M Mackinnon said:

In fact how does highlight tone work? think I understand shadow but highlight I assume helps with highlight clipping, would somebody be kind enough to explain,

Click to expand...

Doesn't help with highlight clipping. Just lightens or darkens details in the highlights. Clipping is based on exposure. If you overexposure the highlights to the point of clipping, then there won't be any details to lighten or darken.

Hi Donald. A good question. I had to think about this myself before answering, so I took some shots of my mum's dining room. I chose this as there is some nice filtered light coming through the curtains and lost of darks and shadows. Details of settings at the bottom of each shot.

All shot in monochrome mode and the highlight/shadow settings adjusted. Automatic exposure with no EV changes but as you see they are all pretty close. I think the exposure changes as you change the setting not surprisingly as the overseen changes to be either darker or lighter. The focus is on the edge of the table by the chair with the cat on it. Yes, I am aware of limitations in this type of comparison.


highlight -2, shadow -2




highlight -2 shadow 0




highlight 0, shadow -2




highlight 0, shadow 0




highlight +2, shadow +2




highlight 0, shadow +2




highlight +2, shadow 0

Hopefully these demonstrate some of the effects. Personally out of all of these, number one (highlights -2, shadows -2) most closely resembles my view of the light in the dinning room. All a matter of taste. I think it can be some up with, if you want to contrast the difference between shadows and highlights at the expense of details - crank them both up to +2 which widens the tonal range at the expense of detail. If you want a wider tonal range with less extremes (i.e. more grey rather with less black and white) to show increased details, turn them down to the minus settings.

More discussion on this would be interesting.

Jane.

Shadow tone -1, default crushes shadow detail and -2 starts making things look odd and flat.

Color -1, matter of taste, but I find colors particularly greens and reds over the top. Changing color settings results in a very subtle change.

NR -1, good starting point but it depends on the image and ISO. The reality of it is that Fuji is doing a good job of creating a good looking image by removing noise at the loss of some detail. Again the change in NR is pretty subtle.

Highlight tone is good at default.

Sharpness I'm on the fence with default or -1.

Remember to shoot raw + Jpeg and you can adjust these settings in camera afterwards very easily.

Mirfak said:

Donald M Mackinnon said:

I took the camera out this afternoon and am quite pleased although the settings were incorrect and I don't really know what shadow and highlight were at.

I suspect shadow may have been set to plus 2 but any way I will shoot with default settings as well as trying these and take it from there. To be continued.

Many thanks for the advice,much appreciated

Click to expand...

Don, those photos are underexposed. It's not a highlight or contrast issue. Looks like exposure comp was set at -1 or worse.

Click to expand...

These were all shot with spot metering to avoid blown highlights,previous shots were showing b/h when reviewed.

Donald M Mackinnon said:

Daft as this sounds please advise me, to lighten the shadows do I set shadow tone to plus or minus ? and is this the same for highlight tone ?

In fact how does highlight tone work? think I understand shadow but highlight I assume helps with highlight clipping, would somebody be kind enough to explain,

Many thanks

Dumbo

Click to expand...

I was confused by the shadow setting at first. Seemed to me that going more negative would make shadows darker, but in fact makes them lighter. Remember the X-A1 has darker shadows by default than all other X cameras. You must keep it at -1.

That makes two of us then, reason I asked in the first place, because I also thought positive would have lightened the shadows,

"every day is a learning day"