re: Official Photography Thread. ♥

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" I agree. Check your exposure bias setting and bring it back to 0! I sometimes use exposure bias too ... [snip!] ... 0 a couple of times, I've learned my lesson. It's one of the first things I check before a shoot to make sure I have back at 0."

I don't even know what that is.  

Quoting Mrs.Dani:" I don't even know what that is.   "

Here is a picture I put together from Ken Rockwell's site showing where you find and adjust it on the D40:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/users-guide/controls.htm

Here is also a couple of links explaining what exposure compensation is and does:
http://www.lightstalking.com/exposure-compensation
http://www.mdavid.com.au/photography/exposurecomp.shtml

When I checked the EXIF information on your pictures it showed you were using an exposure bias of -3.67

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" Here is a picture I put together from Ken Rockwell's site showing where you find and adjust it on the ... [snip!] ... When I checked the EXIF information on your pictures it showed you were using an exposure bias of -3.67 "

Thank you for the information. I will definitely read and get that fixed. I haven't heard anyone mention that before brandi. I learn something new every day.

Quoting Mrs.Dani:" Thank you for the information. I will definitely read and get that fixed. I haven't heard anyone mention that before brandi. I learn something new every day."

I also found this talking specifically about have the exposure compensation set to a minus number when it shouldn't be. It may help you understand why you have noise in the picture:

"

An important point when using exposure compensation is remembering to turn it off when you are done (i.e. set the dial back to zero). I can't tell you how many times I have forgotten to do this and ended up over or underexposing big batches of pictures. The way this usually happens is that I am shooting at the end of the day in the dim light of evening and I use exposure compensation to darken the picture by a stop or two. Finally I finish and I am tired and ready to quit for the day, so I forget that I set the exposure compensation dial at -2. And the next morning I am excited by the dawn I am shooting so I forget again and ruin the whole dawn shoot by underexposing it. Not good. Get in the habit of resetting exposure compensation to zero the instant you finish using it.
Also, be very careful about using minus exposure compensation. For almost all normal daytime scenes, digital exposures need to be as bright as possible without blowing out the highlights. This means you need to make the bright parts of the picture as bright as possible without washing out the detail completely. In practice, this means being sure that white clouds or the bright colors of a sunset still have detail and are not blank white. The reason for this is that every time you stop the camera down one stop the sensor is receiving only half as much light and since the dark shadows have very little light to begin with, if you stop down once or twice or three times from the exposure the camera recommends, there will be very little of anything left in the dark shadows. At this point random electric signals overwhelm the picture you are tying to take and the result will be lots noise in the dark areas and poor image quality in general. "

that is from here:
http://www.hanselmannphotography.com/AllArticles/CamSetUp4.html

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" I also found this talking specifically about have the exposure compensation set to a minus number when ... [snip!] ... areas and poor image quality in general. " that is from here: http://www.hanselmannphotography.com/AllArticles/CamSetUp4.html"

Okay I see where you are talking about changing it. But I don't understand how to change it back. When I hold that button down and move the dial it changes the aperture... I think. It's not changing the -3.7

ETA: Nevermind I got it.

And honestly I don't remember ever changing that... unless I did it unknowingly.

Oh my god... I am kicking myself in the ass now. That was a huge difference in light.

I'm not sure how many of you are on but I just found this pic and was toying around with it tonight, I love how serious she looks but for the life of me something just isn't right and I can't seem to figure it out! Help?!?
**thank you**

Quoting Mrs.Dani:" Oh my god... I am kicking myself in the ass now. That was a huge difference in light. "

These are the real learning moments.

I once shot an entire shoot in small JPG. My camera is always set to RAW but somehow it was changed.

Now I ALWAYS check and double check before a shoot. I've just automatically go through all my dials when I pick up my camera, check the mode, check the ISO, the exposure compensation, check that it's on RAW and if I am using flash, what my flash settings are.

SS and aperture get checked off course also but they often change with each shot I take so I don't usually include them in my initial checking.

Quoting Lil Glo Worm:" I'm not sure how many of you are on but I just found this pic and was toying around with it tonight, ... [snip!] ... I love how serious she looks but for the life of me something just isn't right and I can't seem to figure it out! Help?!? "

It's a cute picture.

It's a bit dark for my tastes though and the white balance might be off ( I sometimes have a hard time telling about WB when the exposure isn't correct)

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" These are the real learning moments. I once shot an entire shoot in small JPG. My camera is always ... [snip!] ... get checked off course also but they often change with each shot I take so I don't usually include them in my initial checking."

Looks like I am going to be doing that now. I have no clue when it got changed to that.

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" It's a cute picture. It's a bit dark for my tastes though and the white balance might be off ( I sometimes have a hard time telling about WB when the exposure isn't correct)"

I'm not sure if this is even much of a difference?? This was taken right before we go hit with a massive thunderstorm so my exposure is off for sure this is way brighter than the SOOC even  

Quoting Lil Glo Worm:" I'm not sure if this is even much of a difference?? This was taken right before we go hit with a massive thunderstorm so my exposure is off for sure this is way brighter than the SOOC even   "

I took the pic and just adjusted WB a bit in LR (-14 by the temperature and -8 by the tint, this adds more blue and more green in the picture). I do it by eye so you need to judge if this fits her skin color better or not. I also tend to like my WB a bit cooler than some people like it so if it's too cool for you, just don't go quite as high as -14 (don't take out as much yellow as I did)

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" I took the pic and just adjusted WB a bit in LR (-14 by the temperature and -8 by the tint, this adds ... [snip!] ... some people like it so if it's too cool for you, just don't go quite as high as -14 (don't take out as much yellow as I did) "

I often prefer a cooler skin tone and a warmer background so I would actually mask a bit of the warm bokeh in the background back in from your picture if I was the one editing this.

Quoting Lil Glo Worm:" I'm not sure if this is even much of a difference?? This was taken right before we go hit with a massive thunderstorm so my exposure is off for sure this is way brighter than the SOOC even   "

It still looks a little off to me.

Quoting Cheryle [TOG]:" I took the pic and just adjusted WB a bit in LR (-14 by the temperature and -8 by the tint, this adds ... [snip!] ... some people like it so if it's too cool for you, just don't go quite as high as -14 (don't take out as much yellow as I did) "

That looks so much better! I only have PSE 10 so figuring out how to fix WB on there is something I haven't figured out yet!