***DSLR Thread***

[ValleyFan]

Originally Posted by FlyBoeingJets

I don't think I like it, actually.

:( That's no good. What about it, the IQ, focus, or just it being a prime?

[Unfiltered]

Originally Posted by FlyBoeingJets

I don't think I like it, actually.

Suck!

Originally Posted by ValleyFan

:( That's no good. What about it, the IQ, focus, or just it being a prime?

Yeah. What's your damage on it?

[FlyBoeingJets]

Originally Posted by ValleyFan

:( That's no good. What about it, the IQ, focus, or just it being a prime?

Well...I don't know about it.

Image quality is fine. Very sharp. AF hunts a little bit sometimes. HUGE flare issue when its wide open (understandably), but that dissipates at f's tighter than 2.2 or so.

I think it may just be that I'm so used to a more versatile arrangement of glass hanging off the front of the camera that I feel a little bit restricted. The digital conversion means this is essentially a 75mm lens, and is therefore not as wide as I remember a 50mm lens being.

It'll be a good portrait lens. It'll also do well with a stack of extension tubes behind it for macro stuff...especially in bright lighting.

Here's one of the first pics I shot:

[FlyBoeingJets]

Incidentally...

I'm back to having problems with Lightroom. When I export a DNG to JPG, they're turning out MUCH darker than the image looks in Lightroom.

A few weeks back, ValleyFan told me to switch to sRGB colorspace for the export. That fixed the problem. But now, its happening again even though I export in sRGB.

The only thing I can think of that might be happening is that a change in the camera might be causing it. Would it be possible that the camera shooting in sRGB (instead of Adobe RGB as I had it before) could be causing the issue?

It's pissing me off, majorly.

EDIT: I just shot two identical photos, one with in-camera settings of sRGB and the other with aRGB. They both exported from lightroom identically. Both significantly darker than the version in lightroom.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Here's a handy little exif-viewer program:

http://www.amarra.de/exif_uk.htm

[ValleyFan]

Originally Posted by FlyBoeingJets

Incidentally...

I'm back to having problems with Lightroom. When I export a DNG to JPG, they're turning out MUCH darker than the image looks in Lightroom.

A few weeks back, ValleyFan told me to switch to sRGB colorspace for the export. That fixed the problem. But now, its happening again even though I export in sRGB.

Do you have Photoshop? If you do, try opening the file that you exported from Lightroom that looks to dark, see if it still looks dark in Photoshop. If it looks good in Photoshp, then the image is getting assigned the right color profile, and what you are viewing it in is not color aware (doesn't solve the problem, but narrows down where it is). If it is too dark in Photoshop, go to Edit -> Assign Profile, see what the current profile it (it is what it will say next to the Working RGB: radio button). With that dialog still open, change it from the working RGB setting to Profile: and try pulling that down to some of the wider color spaces (Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB) to see if in the preview it looks like you are seeing in Lightroom. If this works, then it is somehow getting the wrong color space tag coming out of Lightroom, if it doesn't then we have an even deeper problem (at which point perhaps you could send me the RAW / DNG as well as the jpeg export)

[FlyBoeingJets]

The .jpg looks fine in Photoshop CS. It looks like crap in the .jpg viewer on this system (windows picture and fax viewer) as well as internet browsers, etc.

For a while since you gave me that first bit of advice, the windows pic viewer would display identical to Lightroom and PS. I don't know what the deal is.

Can you maybe suggest a better .jpg viewer?

I'll upload the .dng and the "clean" .jpg export and send you the links.

EDIT:

Here's the .dng: LINK
Here's the exported .jpg: LINK

[ValleyFan]

Originally Posted by FlyBoeingJets

The .jpg looks fine in Photoshop CS. It looks like crap in the .jpg viewer on this system (windows picture and fax viewer) as well as internet browsers, etc.

For a while since you gave me that first bit of advice, the windows pic viewer would display identical to Lightroom and PS. I don't know what the deal is.

Can you maybe suggest a better .jpg viewer?

Sweet, so that is good, no mismatched profiles. There are better, color aware jpeg viewers (ACDSee and others) but really you want to get it coming out of Lightroom in the correct profile, because you still won't be able to post a correct looking image on the web if it isn't in sRGB (most web browsers are not color aware).

Are all your export styles exporting the jacked up jpeg? If you right click on an image in Lightroom -> Export... and select the top export in that menu, be sure that under the image settings that the Color Space is set to sRGB. Check the resulting jpeg. Then do the same thing, but now when you have the export dialog open, pull down the Preset menu at the top of the dialog, and set it to the one that is giving you problems, and be sure that is still set to sRGB.

----

EDIT - I see what you are seeing, and it looks like it is a profile mismatch, give me a second to take a look.

Wow, that is weird, it seems that Photoshop and Lightroom have a different interpretation of sRGB than everyone else. I save it Adobe RGB and it looks great in something like firefox, I save in sRGB, every thing but lightroom and photoshop are to dark. I'm wondering if they have a different sRGB standard. Still looking.

[FlyBoeingJets]

I've been using only one export style, a custom export preset to send it to a .jpeg at 100% quality in sRGB at 600 pixels per inch. I looked through the other presets, and are all set to sRGB.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Just downloaded ACDSee and it displays dark there, also.

EDIT: So I played around a bit with ACDSee. I exported the same DNG (the one I linked to above) in all three color spaces (sRGB, AdobeRGB, and ProPhoto RGB) and found the Adobe RGB to be the brightest and closest to the pic displayed in Lightroom. The sRGB was darkest, with the ProPhoto almost identical to the AdobeRGB.

With a completely different DNG, I exported to .jpg in all three color spaces and found that sRGB was the brightest and matched the display in Lightroom exactly.

WTF!?!?

sRGB/Adobe/ProPhoto

[FlyBoeingJets]

With the afternoon to kill, I took a short drive over to Cal State Northridge to photograph their Men's Soccer match vs. Cal State Fullerton. I went with merely the hope to hone my sports-photo skills. Here's a couple:






In my opinion, sports photography is so much less about technical knowledge than it is about knowing the sport you're photographing. Where's the action going to be and when?

Soccer sucks (:P) but I had a good time taking pictures.

[nocturn]

2&3 are great action shots Glenn.

Did you burst for them or was it 1 for 1?

[ValleyFan]

Originally Posted by FlyBoeingJets

EDIT: So I played around a bit with ACDSee. I exported the same DNG (the one I linked to above) in all three color spaces (sRGB, AdobeRGB, and ProPhoto RGB) and found the Adobe RGB to be the brightest and closest to the pic displayed in Lightroom. The sRGB was darkest, with the ProPhoto almost identical to the AdobeRGB.

With a completely different DNG, I exported to .jpg in all three color spaces and found that sRGB was the brightest and matched the display in Lightroom exactly.

WTF!?!?

sRGB/Adobe/ProPhoto

OK, it is a gamma issue (with the cat pic). Here is what is up. Standard Windows gamma is 2.5, sRGB gamma is 2.2 (and for reference, standard Mac gamma is called 1.8 but it is actually 1.72, but that doesn't matter right now). I think what is happening is because we are both working on calibrated monitors (with gamma set at 2.2), Photoshop and Lightroom see that the monitor is calibrated down from 2.5 and boost the gamma slightly to compensate when viewing on the calibrated monitor. Windows (and most other applications) don't compare the gamma that is dictated in the profile with that of the monitor, so you are viewing a 2.2 gamma image in what Windows thinks is a 2.5 gamma space, and therefor looks dark. You notice this most in the cat picture because it is already dark to begin with.

With the candies, because they are pretty bright and colorful, you won't notice the gamma issue as much. So when you exported sRGB (which is the only color space that Windows picture viewer displays correctly in), the candies will look correct in sRGB, the colors will be right on, they might be just a touch darker, but right on color ratio wise.

When you export the candies as ProPhoto or Adobe RGB, they are going to look pale and washed out (this is happening with the cat as well, but since there isn't much color in that shot, it just looks lighter). The reason for this is that each of these color spaces can only define a color between 0 and 255. So in all spaces 255, 0, 0 is going to be red, but there is no common agreement on what color red is, or how red is red. So while a given shade of red might be defined as 255, 0, 0 in sRGB, Adobe RGB has a still deeper, more vibrant red because it has a bigger gamut, so it might define what sRGB considers the most possible red as 220, 0, 0 (as opposed to sRGB's definition of that shade as 255, 0, 0) because it needs more room to define that deeper more vibrant red. Now in your file you converted to Adobe RGB, you are calling out that color as 220, 0, 0, which is fine if the application displaying the image knows that Adobe RGB 220, 0, 0 is the same red as sRGB 255, 0, 0. Now if we simply drop the Adobe RGB tag and replace it with the sRGB tag but keep the numbers the same, we are now asking for an sRGB color which is 220, 0, 0 - a red which is a lot less saturated than the 255, 0, 0 red that we really wanted. This is what happens when you view a non sRGB image in a non color aware application, it just throws out the color space tag and assigns it to sRGB.

That was a lot of gabbing, but none of it solves the issue that we are seeing in the cat pic (and really all pics, but it will be more noticeable in the darker pics). I don't have an answer yet, but at least we know what is going on. I want to look at that cat pic on an uncalibrated PC monitor and a Mac monitor tonight to see what it does.

---Edit---
Hmmm, so on an uncalibrated monitor, the sRGB cat looks pretty good, and the dark tones in the ProPhoto image look posterized (which is slightly expected on this crappy monitor). Now I need to wait for the wife's Mac to come home. I'm glad you posed this, gamma is something I haven't given much thought to. Now we just need to figure out how to solve it