Basic Photoshop settings for RAW JPEG conversion.. EX2F?

ttbek wrote:

Petak wrote:

ttbek wrote:

Eoanthropus wrote:

Petak wrote:

ttbek wrote:

The wang measuring contest isn't really helping the OP here.

That's what I was trying to get at when pointing out to Petak that my posting what he asks for isn't going to get us anywhere.

Eoanthropus, posting samples converted with different RAW converters and discussing them is precisely what the original poster needs for choosing one. Calling this "wang measuring contest", on the other hand, is not a very useful contribution?

ttbek, I haven't labelled my samples for a reason - which one do you like better and why?

Ah, sorry, I downloaded them and figured it out before my other post just now. If you were going for a blind sample test, that is a measure of subjective quality. There isn't anything wrong with subjective quality, just be aware that that's what it is rather than objective.

For instance, some people prefer grainy film over the smooth look, etc... but assessing the noise levels would objectively say the other is higher quality.

To be fair with you I got bored by you philosophizing about subjective vs objective or whatever for the sole purpose of avoiding admitting the obvious. fine by me - the samples are available and whoever is interested can judge by himself, including you. Good luck.

A big problem with the camera is that the configurability is beyond pathetic for what is supposed to be a top end enthusiast camera and it just will not allow you to set an ISO limit and will never go over 400 in auto modes. Except sometimes you may get 800 in smart mode.

It therefore ventures in to very slow shutter speeds or just underexposes when higher ISO would be preferable. Any enthusiast compact worth its salt gives you the choice of the upper ISO level you prefer. This is all part of the rudimentary nature of the EX2f firmware which is pretty much the same as the EX1f from what I have read. I cannot agree that this is a feature of the camera to be praised.

The camera program assumes hand-holding by you. Therefore the 1/20th sec. shutter speed. With a small sensor camera like this ISO 400 is high -- very high and the camera program is reluctant to raise it any higher. Good call there by the camera. That leaves you with f/1.4 plain and simple. You need a smaller f/stop for this shot but what do you want the camera to do about that? Raise the ISO even higher -- hopefully not. Lower the shutter speed -- not if you're hand-holding the camera.

The camera program is doing the best it can in a really difficult (I'd call impossible) lighting condition.

Please explain. A well lit kitchen in daylight. Why wouldn't this be ideal lighting conditions? I've been so used to the older SL420 that I'm 100 percent confident this would not have been a problem. OK, 90 percent confident. 80? By "direct light source" do you mean the outdoors through the window or the lamp? It was almost 11:00 AM and the lamp was unlit.

The camera program assumes hand-holding by you. Therefore the 1/20th sec. shutter speed. With a small sensor camera like this ISO 400 is high -- very high and the camera program is reluctant to raise it any higher. Good call there by the camera. That leaves you with f/1.4 plain and simple.

In Smart mode the camera makes the ISO 400 "call", doesn't it? In either case I had Iso set to Auto at the time. To one of the original questions, can I rely on auto modes for satisfactory results? Or will I forever be tweaking them? I find them useful for very quick casual shots like postings to electronics forums, motorcycle forums, etc, etc. In "smart" with everything menu option set to automatic, the camera is making the "call" 100 percent. Should corrections be necessary in the menu set when the camera, in 'smart' has proposed to "easily capture the desired photo by automatically detecting the scene" according to the in-camera description?

Here is a small album of images from the older camera.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk27EWqW

I was a bit spoiled, even inspired to laziness, by this camera since these images always seemed surprisingly good for just leaving the camera in auto and snapping away. I never had cause to crop, enlarge, or peep beyond what my wsxga screen displayed to me. Close zooms on these do break down a bit quicker than EX2F images posted here. But the colors, perhaps a tad saturated, were spot on next to the subject. Sharpness, contrast, and some sort of indefinable, maybe film-like, good looks to my eye. There are few old barn photos that are similar to the kitchen shots. Bright sunlit sources in the frame, but for the most part the SL420 handled them. One with the brightest window on the outside sun is underexposed, but not even enough to render the shot useless.

These are among hundreds of images on my hard-drive from the SL420. So my first auto jpegs out of the EX2F, and up till present in fact, just don't compare.

I'd set the exposure compensation on the EX2F -.3 on at least a few separate recommendations which seemed borne out by consistent overexposed highlights in the jpegs. I can zero it and reshoot the kitchen shots, but I am pretty confident it will not make a great deal of difference.

petak, ttbek... after spilling so much ink in contest here, I hope you won't abandon me without replying to a few of the other questions I've brought up:)

??

ttbek wrote:

On the topic of the metering, the ND filter wasn't accidentally on was it? How many stops is the ND filter on the EX2F? 4? I wonder if the camera is turning it on in response to the bright window light.

It was off.   I had discovered the previous day, full sun shooting in the shade, how much the ND filter dropped the shutter speed from 1/60 to 1/15 on the same shot.  I intend to keep it off until I've learned how/when to use it.

But I'm intrigued. Could the camera be doing what you describe?  And there is, after all, a chance that I'd accidentally engaged it.   I'll try the shots again.   It's three hours later in the afternoon and unfortunately the sun is no longer entering the kitchen.  But it's full sun outdoors none-the-less.

frascati wrote:

The camera program is doing the best it can in a really difficult (I'd call impossible) lighting condition.

Please explain. A well lit kitchen in daylight.

Obviously not well lit or you wouldn't have required ISO 400 + 1/20 sec. at f/1.4. Again the darker rendition is also due to the -.3 exp. cmp which you set. If it were well lit the camera would have been able to lower the ISO, raise the shutter speed and stop down the lens. All of which it would have done. It could not. No other camera could have done otherwise.

Why wouldn't this be ideal lighting conditions?

The extreme bright windows included in the scene make the lighting condition the opposite of ideal -- in fact prohibitive. That bright light flares the lens and massively over-exposes relative to the other low ambient light in the room. SMART mode doesn't mean the camera can read your mind and tell which one you wanted correctly exposed.

I've been so used to the older SL420 that I'm 100 percent confident this would not have been a problem. OK, 90 percent confident. 80? By "direct light source" do you mean the outdoors through the window or the lamp?

The windows.

It was almost 11:00 AM and the lamp was unlit.

The camera program assumes hand-holding by you. Therefore the 1/20th sec. shutter speed. With a small sensor camera like this ISO 400 is high -- very high and the camera program is reluctant to raise it any higher. Good call there by the camera. That leaves you with f/1.4 plain and simple.

In Smart mode the camera makes the ISO 400 "call", doesn't it?

Yes.

In either case I had Iso set to Auto at the time. Again back to my point. In "smart" with everything menu option set to automatic, the camera is making the "call" 100 percent.

Except that -.3 exp. cmp that you set.

Should corrections be necessary in the menu set when the camera, in 'smart' has proposed to "easily capture the desired photo by automatically detecting the scene" according to the in-camera description?

No. But SMART mode doesn't mean the camera can solve impossible problems. Granted the marketing is a pack of lies for all these cameras. There are limits to what you can successfully photograph given expectation levels and standards.

Here is a small album of images from the older camera.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk27EWqW

And this small album contains equally bad photos that the camera was unable to deal with because the condition was prohibitive or that function really doesn't work well (AWB). The photo of the batteries totally sucks -- white balance and contrast are way off. The bright sun through the barn is a lot like your kitchen windows. The white balance on the BMW in the garage is terrible. White balance and contrast on the hibiscus is badly off:

This camera did not perform better than the EX-2.

I was a bit spoiled, even inspired to laziness, by this camera since these images always seemed surprisingly good for just leaving the camera in auto and snapping away. I never had cause to crop, enlarge, or peep beyond what my wsxga screen displayed to me. Close zooms on these do break down a bit quicker than EX2F images posted here. But the colors, perhaps a tad saturated, were spot on next to the subject.

No they weren't -- see above.

Sharpness, contrast, and some sort of indefinable, maybe film-like, good looks to my eye. There are few old barn photos that are similar to the kitchen shots. Bright sunlit sources in the frame, but for the most part the SL420 handled them. One with the brightest window on the outside sun is underexposed, but not even enough to render the shot useless.

And you didn't set a -.3 exp. cmp. Consider that, given the exposure in that barn photo, you had 5 full stops of additional light. That barn was 2^5 brighter than your kitchen.

These are among hundreds of images on my hard-drive from the SL420. So my first auto jpegs out of the EX2F, and up till present in fact, just don't compare.

I'd set the exposure compensation on the EX2F -.3 on at least a few separate recommendations which seemed borne out by consistent overexposed highlights in the jpegs. I can zero it and reshoot the kitchen shots, but I am pretty confident it will not make a great deal of difference.

Thank you very much for that. I went back and reshot the kitchen with better success. Wondering if indeed the ND filter had been on. Finished carefully shooting in Smart, Aperture priority RAW, and Shutter priority RAW. Forgot to switch to Jpeg for the S and A modes and neglected to zero the exp conpensation. But got informative results none the less. I'm getting a bit scatter shot here and ought to quit for the day, get some other things done, and get back to this tomorrow with a fresh mind.

First shot in Smart.

A bit dark but improving. 1/45.

RAW with minor noise, color, and white balance adjustments.

Best of four RAW shots. 2 each shutter and aperture priority.

Couple of questions direct to these shots now and I'll quit for the day.

Shutter priority would only get me to 1.6 @ 1/45. Faster and it rose to 1.4 and I was decided not to go there for these shots.

Aperture priority provided me 3.5 @ 1/45. All other settings equal. Sound right? Why is this? Shouldn't either priority begin at the same baseline working up/down from there?

Whoa!! The ceiling edge behind the fan and the foreground floor in the RAW image above. Barreling in RAW was noted in reviews and supposed to be corrected in the last firmware revision. 305224. I've installed that. I just confirmed the EXIF data on a shot. It is clearly more evident in the converted RAW image than in the Jpeg above it so even with a slightly different aperture setting there is definitely something amiss in RAW here. No?

Dunno. I'm getting few pics out of this that I'm liking. I can't be that far from getting this right in the images above. White balance is still eluding me. But I'm just not crazy about either one. And they probably are far better than what was coming out of the SL420. Maybe my expectations are just wrong here. These look too artificial, noisy (even with correction), and missing for want of better photo vernacular... realistic vitality. And if the barreling ends up being one more thing that needs post process for every image that alone will be a non starter for me. The camera will be returned or sold on confirmation of this.

I thought I'd read everything there was to know about this camera before purchase. But here, and elsewhere, I'm beginning to have some genuine (rather than the initial hastiness) remorse. Revisiting all of the EX2F threads here I'm reading them with a better gist between the lines and wonder if I should have heeded more cautions. I may have been lured by bells and whistles. The wifi, the 'super fast lens', the swivel 'super bright' OLED screen, etc. I'd given some thought to a few similarly priced, larger sensor compacts without all these extras, among them a 4/3 Olympus and the Canon eos-m aps-c with 22mm lens if I recall and wonder if I'd have been more satisfied. I seldom ever use zoom after all, but went for the EX2F finally.

I'll give it a rest and pick up again tomorrow night. Thanks so much again for all.