5700 mountain shot settings

Nigel Best said:

As a complete amateur and after years of taking rubbish photos in
the mountains, I finally opted for a 5700 which I find is
absolutely stunning. I am particularly interested in taking shots
of glaciated peaks which on cheep cameras normally come out grey to
varying degrees dependent upon the mountain weather. I am keen to
program a couple of user profile sets on my 5700 to reflect key
conditions i.e. snow cap in bright sunlight, snow cap in cloud.
Can anyone advise of the basic settings I should be using?

Nige

Click to expand...

FJBrad said:

Nigel Best said:

As a complete amateur and after years of taking rubbish photos in
the mountains, I finally opted for a 5700 which I find is
absolutely stunning. I am particularly interested in taking shots
of glaciated peaks which on cheep cameras normally come out grey to
varying degrees dependent upon the mountain weather. I am keen to
program a couple of user profile sets on my 5700 to reflect key
conditions i.e. snow cap in bright sunlight, snow cap in cloud.
Can anyone advise of the basic settings I should be using?

Nige

Click to expand...

The camera's metering system is geared around 18% grey. This works
for a great many shooting situations except where the subject is
either black and non-reflective, ie a graduation gown, or white
and/or highly reflective, ie snow.
The camera will tend to overexpose a scene containing dark,
lightsucking elements, and conversely will underexpose a snow scene.
Therefore it's a good idea to use exposure compensation in
situations where you know this is likely to occur. It used to be a
guessing game with film, even if you had a good meter, but now the
LCD gives one instant feedback.
Learn how to evaluate an exposure using the histogram preview. It
is more reliable than a visual assessment using the image in the
LCD alone.
If you're shooting snowcapped peaks, you'll be dealing with a very
broad tonal range, so shooting on a tripod and taking a number of
bracketed exposures will allow you to blend one image from the
seperate images later using layers to capture more detail in
shadows and highlights. Density masking is another postprocessing
technique that can help.
--
FJBrad

Click to expand...

Fox67 said:

I have some examples on my gallery : I shoot in A mode without any
problem.

Good luck

Pascal

--
C P 5 7 0 0
Visit my gallery at :
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fox67

Click to expand...

Nigel Best said:

FJBrad,

thanks for that - I'll practice with the histograms, in terms of
shot format, I have been sticking to RAW format to give me the
freedom of post processing exposure comensation on my pc. On
practice shots to date, images which look awful seem to improve
considerably in the Nikon editor far more than in Adobe Photoshop
albeit at the expense of time and disc space.

In terms of noise reduction, white balance and saturation what
would you recommend for mixed rock, snow and ice?

Click to expand...

Nigel Best said:

FJBrad said:

Nigel Best said:

As a complete amateur and after years of taking rubbish photos in
the mountains, I finally opted for a 5700 which I find is
absolutely stunning. I am particularly interested in taking shots
of glaciated peaks which on cheep cameras normally come out grey to
varying degrees dependent upon the mountain weather. I am keen to
program a couple of user profile sets on my 5700 to reflect key
conditions i.e. snow cap in bright sunlight, snow cap in cloud.
Can anyone advise of the basic settings I should be using?

Nige

Click to expand...

The camera's metering system is geared around 18% grey. This works
for a great many shooting situations except where the subject is
either black and non-reflective, ie a graduation gown, or white
and/or highly reflective, ie snow.
The camera will tend to overexpose a scene containing dark,
lightsucking elements, and conversely will underexpose a snow scene.
Therefore it's a good idea to use exposure compensation in
situations where you know this is likely to occur. It used to be a
guessing game with film, even if you had a good meter, but now the
LCD gives one instant feedback.
Learn how to evaluate an exposure using the histogram preview. It
is more reliable than a visual assessment using the image in the
LCD alone.
If you're shooting snowcapped peaks, you'll be dealing with a very
broad tonal range, so shooting on a tripod and taking a number of
bracketed exposures will allow you to blend one image from the
seperate images later using layers to capture more detail in
shadows and highlights. Density masking is another postprocessing
technique that can help.
--
FJBrad

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

FJBrad said:

Nigel Best said:

FJBrad,

thanks for that - I'll practice with the histograms, in terms of
shot format, I have been sticking to RAW format to give me the
freedom of post processing exposure comensation on my pc. On
practice shots to date, images which look awful seem to improve
considerably in the Nikon editor far more than in Adobe Photoshop
albeit at the expense of time and disc space.

In terms of noise reduction, white balance and saturation what
would you recommend for mixed rock, snow and ice?

Click to expand...

Shoot only with ISO 100 set manually...auto ISO will take you into
noisy sensitivities, I think. The NR setting on the camera is only
useful in slow SS settings of 1/8sec or slower. For WB auto should
work most of the time, if you get into a situation where deep
shadows may result in a blue cast, try the WB on the cloudy
setting. I usually just try to get close in the camera, and
fine-tune the color in PS, but if you want dead-on accuracy
in-camera, do a manual WB.
Saturation is a function of lumens in the scene and correct
exposure. You can't really modify the ambient light for shooting
mountains, so just carefully pick the time of day. It depends on
what effect you're after as to time.

Hi Nige,
I don't work with NEF, so I don't know how much detail you can
tweak out of over or under areas of an image, but my gut tells me
that you'll get the most detail with the least amount of noise the
less you tax the CCD's ability to capture it, so bracketing is
still your best bet. Maybe combine the two methods (bracket and
raw)?

Member said:

FJBrad said:

Nigel Best said:

As a complete amateur and after years of taking rubbish photos in
the mountains, I finally opted for a 5700 which I find is
absolutely stunning. I am particularly interested in taking shots
of glaciated peaks which on cheep cameras normally come out grey to
varying degrees dependent upon the mountain weather. I am keen to
program a couple of user profile sets on my 5700 to reflect key
conditions i.e. snow cap in bright sunlight, snow cap in cloud.
Can anyone advise of the basic settings I should be using?

Nige

Click to expand...

The camera's metering system is geared around 18% grey. This works
for a great many shooting situations except where the subject is
either black and non-reflective, ie a graduation gown, or white
and/or highly reflective, ie snow.
The camera will tend to overexpose a scene containing dark,
lightsucking elements, and conversely will underexpose a snow scene.
Therefore it's a good idea to use exposure compensation in
situations where you know this is likely to occur. It used to be a
guessing game with film, even if you had a good meter, but now the
LCD gives one instant feedback.
Learn how to evaluate an exposure using the histogram preview. It
is more reliable than a visual assessment using the image in the
LCD alone.
If you're shooting snowcapped peaks, you'll be dealing with a very
broad tonal range, so shooting on a tripod and taking a number of
bracketed exposures will allow you to blend one image from the
seperate images later using layers to capture more detail in
shadows and highlights. Density masking is another postprocessing
technique that can help.
--
FJBrad

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
FJBrad

Click to expand...