TG-6 cosistenly overexposus

RetCapt wrote:

Have you given any thought to using a Hoodman Loupe?

I have indeed, and I did consider getting one. But, frankly, I find the original too costly, like 3x a ClearViewer.

So in the meantime I went with a cheap rubber hood that has a very simple fixed lens incorporated (can't be detached, hence I won't be able to lose it). That's what I have been using in bright conditions so far, and it does help a lot.

The hood comes with a frame that is supposed to be glued (argh) around the LCD screen, but (luckily) there isn't enough room on the TG-6 for that. Theoretically, one would hook the rigid frame at the base of the hood into the rigid frame on the camera when needed. I left off all frames, instead, as the rubber hood can be placed over the screen and held in place with my eye/forehead when composing. Works quite nicely, and the hood can then be simply dropped anytime because it hangs from my neck on a lanyard. Also, without the frames I can also use it with the screens on other cameras to review shots when in plain sun.

Still, I think the TG-6 will be my very last camera without a viewfinder.

Someone in the other thread about TGs and lack of viewfinders wondered if it has something to do with one's eye colour. I have no idea, have never researched that possibility, but they may have a valid point. I have light blue eyes, and even in younger years, when my eyesight was still exceptionally sharp, I had serious problems with viewfinder-less cameras, or reading while at the beach, for that matter.

RBEmerson wrote:

What to do? Simple, with 128, 256, and 512 Gb SD's available , shoot JPEG and RAW. No processing needed except for a winner of an exposure.

You certainly make a very good case for RAW, and I do agree.

Although I must say that your Grand Canyon photo doesn't strike me as particularly ugly. I'd certainly be very happy with it to remember a holiday by.

RetCapt wrote:

IIRC it was $80 when I bought it, and I did not think it was worth over $60.

I'm in Europe, min. price I could find was ~165 USD. That's a lot.

With her strong element of common sense, she told me, in quite blunt terms, that I was letting $20 stop me.

Right she was, indeed!

My first E-mount body, which I still use, also had only a screen. This one tilts, so most of the time I am fine holding at waist level.

Hm, unfortunately, eyesight tends not to improve with age...

But there are some occasions where eye level viewing is best.

Oh yes.

The other is that I don't know if there are even any such cameras still in production outside of the 'tough' genre.

You mean cameras without viewfinders? Plenty, as far as I can tell, really.

But if some brilliant engineering team in Tokyo were to develop a camera I just had to have, and it did not have a viewfinder, I would go for it knowing I could attach a Hoodman.

Right, essentially my case with the TG-6.

I shoot exclusively in RAW (RX10), which is fine for me. Chris, thanks to her camera tech, will be shooting both. Again, with big chips, backed up with a 5 Tb HDD, there's no compelling reason to worry about running out of space. And, yes, there's a second SD tucked in her camera carrier.

Don't misunderstand me, I like that image, too. My point is, working from RAW a) the results could have been better (so says my internal critic), and b) getting to what you see took more work than it would have with RAW.

I cropped this heavily, and worked hard to clean up dirt on the petal in the lower left. It took a while, and got down to the point where even this RAW exposure was slightly pixelated (400%+). NTL I was able to keep the texture despite some heavy work to get rid of black dirt spots.

Daffodil - Skippack, PA

Finally, I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a better exposure to start with, I grabbed this in a hurry when I should have been in burst mode, with EV bumped up.

I cropped for composition. I'd liked to be able to raise the rider and horse a little higher in the frame, but there were a bunch of cowboy hats across the bottom of the frame ( we were well up in the stands, looking over The Good Seats). There's some bleaching on the horse. Other than trying to fix that, I worked over the dirt, and brought up some detail for the rider and her horse (mainly the wrappings, and IIRC the saddle blanket and saddle). The setting is West World Rodeo Arena in Scottsdale, AZ. We were at the rodeo for the Scottsdale Parada del Sol, an annual big deal. The rider and horse were competing in barrel racing (slalom around three barrels marking a triangle, then run like hell for the finish line). These guys were seriously moving!

Barrel Racers, Parada del Sol Rodeo, Scottsdale, AZ

YIKES! After re-reading the above, I completely missed my point about JPEG v. RAW.

The daffodil was ultimately exported as JPEG, but a RAW exposure to start. The barrel racer was a JPEG exposure, lacking the depth to get the horse's hair right. I might have been able to retouch(!) out the hats at the bottom of the frame, but, working from a JPEG...? Nah.

So, the daffodil exposure, using RAW format, benefited from the depth and capability to get well into the exposure to correct problems. The barrel racer JPEG? Not so much.

There! Got that sorted out. I hope.