-
Welcome to the new forums! Please read this first. For known issues we are working to resolve, click here.
D7i/Hi favorite settings
- Thread starter MRHAL
- Start date
arnold2002
Well-known member
Hi Hal
My favourite settings:
Sharpness - soft - Various people have analysed the behaviour of the D7HI and concluded that the soft setting simply applies less in-camera sharpening than the "normal" setting (i.e. it does not actually blur the image). I've also verified this myself. As a result, I set to soft and sharpen how I like it in post processing. I generally find that standard 6x4 prints dont need any sharpening even on the soft setting. When I enlarge, I sharpen in post processing. A side benefit of the soft setting is smaller JPEG file sizes, as the normal and hard settings accentuate the noise which then can't be compressed as much.
Contrast - -1 or -2 depending on the lighting conditions - Cos you can cover a greater dynamic range (lower contrast squashes up histogram). Again, I increase contast in post processing if required.
Saturation - When I use less contrast, I use +1 saturation to make the colours a bit brighter.
Regards
Arnie.
My favourite settings:
Sharpness - soft - Various people have analysed the behaviour of the D7HI and concluded that the soft setting simply applies less in-camera sharpening than the "normal" setting (i.e. it does not actually blur the image). I've also verified this myself. As a result, I set to soft and sharpen how I like it in post processing. I generally find that standard 6x4 prints dont need any sharpening even on the soft setting. When I enlarge, I sharpen in post processing. A side benefit of the soft setting is smaller JPEG file sizes, as the normal and hard settings accentuate the noise which then can't be compressed as much.
Contrast - -1 or -2 depending on the lighting conditions - Cos you can cover a greater dynamic range (lower contrast squashes up histogram). Again, I increase contast in post processing if required.
Saturation - When I use less contrast, I use +1 saturation to make the colours a bit brighter.
Regards
Arnie.
DAVE BRENCHLEY
Member
I'm with you on this one HAL, can someone with a year or two with the 7hi under his (or her) belt please advise us of their favourite settings for, say:
(A) GENERAL SCENERY OR BUILDING SHOTS - THE BEAUTIFUL BAY OR
AGE-OLD CASTLE
(B) MACRO STUFF - THE GARDEN ROSE OR 'MAGIC' MUSHROOM
(C) PORTRAIT - USUALLY NOT TOO STAGED
I've spent loads of time hunting through thread after thread, six people agree, then someone comes along and turns it all over. Someone MUST be able to say-
FOR GENERAL LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY MY MEMORY IS SET TO 1 AND THE SETTINGS ARE...............etc.etc.
Thanks on behalf of me, HAL (you were great in 2001!) and a thousand other
7hi users scrolling through their setting options.
DAVE BRENCHLEY
Member
Oh come on you regulars, share your secrets
*isteve
Veteran Member
Been lots of posts on this already, you could do a search.
My settings are roughly as follows...
Bright sunlight (high contrast) i'll set contrast -2 or -3, saturation +1 or 2 and ev -0.3
Cloudy outdoors I'll set contrast 0, saturation +2, ev +0.3
Macro, flash, indoor studio lights, all default
Usually have sharpening on normal. Works fine for prints but when viewng on screen and resizing I resharpen using Photo Blade.
Whatver your setting, outdoors I tend to expose to keep the sky details and then readjust the scene in PS if the foreground is too dark, I hate washed out skies in a shot.
Steve
My settings are roughly as follows...
Bright sunlight (high contrast) i'll set contrast -2 or -3, saturation +1 or 2 and ev -0.3
Cloudy outdoors I'll set contrast 0, saturation +2, ev +0.3
Macro, flash, indoor studio lights, all default
Usually have sharpening on normal. Works fine for prints but when viewng on screen and resizing I resharpen using Photo Blade.
Whatver your setting, outdoors I tend to expose to keep the sky details and then readjust the scene in PS if the foreground is too dark, I hate washed out skies in a shot.
Steve
Edward van Hazendonk
Well-known member
Hi Steve,
May I ask what kind of color space you are using with your Dimage?
I myself am using Adobe. This question triggered me because I tend to see the increase of saturation in your settings (this is not an attack but just to understand the camera better, I'm only using it for about half a year).
My settings are normally P and I occasionally play with the internal filters for sunset and portait (and of course ev).
Thanks,
Edward
--
Minolta Dimage 7Hi, Transcend 512 MB Ultra 30x, Vosonic XSdrive I, Sigma EF 500DG Super, Ansmann Powerline 4, Ansmann 2000 mAh 4x4
Barry Kernerman
Senior Member
Steve.
I noticed that you Sharpen images in Photoshop using PhotoBlade. Have you had any experience with NIK Sharpener Pro as well? I'm asking, because I would like to know which you would consider to be the better of the two plugins - price aside, as the NIK plugin is overly expensive.
Generally speaking, even if you don't have experience with NIK Sharpener, I would still be very interested in knowing how good you feel PhotoBlade really is and what, if any, it's advantages might be.
Barry
I noticed that you Sharpen images in Photoshop using PhotoBlade. Have you had any experience with NIK Sharpener Pro as well? I'm asking, because I would like to know which you would consider to be the better of the two plugins - price aside, as the NIK plugin is overly expensive.
Generally speaking, even if you don't have experience with NIK Sharpener, I would still be very interested in knowing how good you feel PhotoBlade really is and what, if any, it's advantages might be.
Barry
*isteve
Veteran Member
Only have a D7i, so sRGB space only!! Also use A mode almost all of the time, never P mode. Like to make sure I know what the aperture is as the lens is definately sharper at F5.6 +
Edward van Hazendonk
Well-known member
Thanks Steve, I'll learnt a lot on this forun (nt)
Thank's, but you must be mistaken me for someone else, I can't remember writing anything in this forum in 2001.
Regards
HAL
SassKwatch
Well-known member
I've only had the D7Hi since late last fall, but more and more I gravitate towards shooting everything in RAW format. Hence, I leave all the above settings at the default and, if the need is there, make any adjustments when the pics are opened on the computer.
For me , being so 'vision' challenged, I find that getting hung up on all those technical details in the field impedes any creativity that might arise. While shooting I try to limit the technical things to getting the correct focus and exposure. The remainder of the time I may spend with any given subject is devoted to composition.
--
-=Sass=-
*isteve
Veteran Member
There some really neat features of Photo Blade. One is that you sharpen edges and surfaces separately using a mask (which you can view and alter). This means you can get quite subtle effects without increasing surface noise. You can also control the sharpening artifacts such as halos and also use a negative "glow" setting which improves detail contrast. You can also use different types of sharpening mechanism. For the money its pretty good and offers a lot of control.
However, if you overdo the surface sharpening it will add noise like anything else though not as aggressively as photoshop. I'm still improving my technique, but as a filter you can use it selectively so you dont have to sharpen skies for instance!
Have no experience of NIK I'm afraid, but more than happy to recommend photoblade. Its good value and pretty bug free and works with just about any package.
However, if you overdo the surface sharpening it will add noise like anything else though not as aggressively as photoshop. I'm still improving my technique, but as a filter you can use it selectively so you dont have to sharpen skies for instance!
Have no experience of NIK I'm afraid, but more than happy to recommend photoblade. Its good value and pretty bug free and works with just about any package.
Allan Colby
Member
Where do you get Photo Blade? I tried a Google search but didn't find any obvious link. Do you know if it's compatible with PSP8?
-ac
-ac
DAVE BRENCHLEY
Member
hal - the film 2001 - there's a connection there!!! - oh, never mind, I take it you're another American with a missing humour chip.
a pickering
Member
wiren
Member
So you think the higher the f value the sharper the final picture? I have to try this, I thought f value only related to DOF...
--
wiren -
http://www.barpanaro.it
Did have one, but Bowman pulled it out, and I still have to wait 7 years to get it back.
Regards
HAL
*isteve
Veteran Member
Very few zoom lenses are as sharp wide open as they are at smaller apertures. The reason is because more of the lens surface is used so light is being focused from more dfferent angles across more curved parts of the lens and these are harder to bring to focus as exactly the same point as light from the centre. However very small apertures can also introduce diffraction problems. I think this lens has a distinct sweet-spot about F6.3 though I should run some tests to prove it.
With prime lenses this can be corrected almost totally, but with a zoom you would need different levels of correction for each focal length, so zooms themselves tend to have a "preferred" focal length as well as being more sensitive to Fstop. D7 is really good at 100mm but very usable almost everywhere except the extremes, which I try and avoid.
Steve
*isteve
Veteran Member
Well - since its called Focal Blade I'm not surpirsed - my fault entirely 
Try
http://thepluginsite.com/download785958095/index.htm
Steve
Tryhttp://thepluginsite.com/download785958095/index.htm
Steve
Keyboard shortcuts
- f
- Forum