MWGL Photography thread
- Thread starter jaxn slim
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Is anyone using something other than Adobe Lightroom to do their raw image processing?
I'm simply not going to pay $120/year to use their software.
Raw Therapee is open source and has a very large, loyal following. I've been trying to use it to process my raw photos, but I have to admit that it is overwhelming. It has 10,000 buttons, sliders, and knobs, and nothing is explained very well. It has an extensive wiki, but it is written from the point of view of experts in image processing.
There are some alternatives out there that look interesting. Luminar is cheap enough ($70) and looks promising.
There are other free alternatives besides Raw Therapee: Lightzone and Darktable seem to be the two most popular.
I'm simply not going to pay $120/year to use their software.
Raw Therapee is open source and has a very large, loyal following. I've been trying to use it to process my raw photos, but I have to admit that it is overwhelming. It has 10,000 buttons, sliders, and knobs, and nothing is explained very well. It has an extensive wiki, but it is written from the point of view of experts in image processing.
There are some alternatives out there that look interesting. Luminar is cheap enough ($70) and looks promising.
There are other free alternatives besides Raw Therapee: Lightzone and Darktable seem to be the two most popular.
dmn23
Duller than cardboard
Lightroom 5.7 and Fastone Image Viewer. I'll do most of my tweaking in Lightroom and then walk away, come back, and maybe just do some basic curves adjustments in Fastone.
parrotheada1a
Resident Pitmaster
The software that came with my Canon has RAW processing in it.... how it works I have no clue. I use Photoshop Elements 15 for .jpg's and it works great for me. If anything, I think it's overkill for many tasks. The thing that sucks about most of these new programs is the learning curve... and the cost of printed manuals and guides isn't exactly cheap either. IIRC I paid 50 bucks for the Adobe classroom book, and 30 for another how-to manual later on.
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jaxn slim
Your Worst Nightmare
I use the shit out of Lightroom. It and Photoshop together are worth every bit of $120/yr. If you process enough photos, the workflow tools like folder management and meta data tools like embedding keywords paired with being able to store your own presets allow me to edit hundreds of photos a night.
mongooz
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i don't have any software, other than what came with the camera. the only "processing" i will do is adjust contrast or color saturation occastionally. i do use filters on my camera. polarizer, and neutral density mostly.
Interesting. I get lots of free / subsidised stuff through being a teacher (not sure why spotify feel the need to give me 50% off but whatever
) I wonder if I get something on lightroom / photoshop.
OK photographers of Weinworld, I need your opinion. I'm not happy with my photos. I have a Nikon D3200 and two kit lenses which I bought new. One is a 55-200mm and the other is 18-55mm. They are both the cheaper Nikon lenses - no image stabilization.
My pictures just seem to lack detail, and are just "flat" and lifeless. Letting the camera convert to jpeg, or saving raw and doing the conversion with PC based tools makes little difference.
By all reviews I've read, the D3200 should be plenty sufficient for my needs. It has a bunch of megapixels, but when I zoom in to 1:1 on the raw images, it is fairly blurry - even on bright outdoor shots. I've attached a snippet of a raw file zoomed 1:1 with no processing.
Is it likely that there is something wrong with this particular camera? Can the autofocus mechanism get out of calibration? Hmm, I'll have to go shoot some manual focus shots for comparison.
Honestly, I think my old Canon S3 point and shoot took better pictures.
So here's where I need your opinion. Should I:
1. Dump the SLR and stick with iPhone snapshots and quit pretending to be a photographer?
2. Get a different camera?
3. Get different lenses? Unfortunately, the only other photographers I know have Canons, so borrowing a lens from a friend isn't possible.
4. Spend more time with various tools in my raw processing software?
Here's a snippet of a raw file from a bright daylight shot.
My pictures just seem to lack detail, and are just "flat" and lifeless. Letting the camera convert to jpeg, or saving raw and doing the conversion with PC based tools makes little difference.
By all reviews I've read, the D3200 should be plenty sufficient for my needs. It has a bunch of megapixels, but when I zoom in to 1:1 on the raw images, it is fairly blurry - even on bright outdoor shots. I've attached a snippet of a raw file zoomed 1:1 with no processing.
Is it likely that there is something wrong with this particular camera? Can the autofocus mechanism get out of calibration? Hmm, I'll have to go shoot some manual focus shots for comparison.
Honestly, I think my old Canon S3 point and shoot took better pictures.
So here's where I need your opinion. Should I:
1. Dump the SLR and stick with iPhone snapshots and quit pretending to be a photographer?
2. Get a different camera?
3. Get different lenses? Unfortunately, the only other photographers I know have Canons, so borrowing a lens from a friend isn't possible.
4. Spend more time with various tools in my raw processing software?
Here's a snippet of a raw file from a bright daylight shot.
I think the soft focus in you picture might be more an issue of the lack of IS on the lens, and perhaps a not so steady hold on the camera. It is super easy to move the camera a tiny bit when pushing down the shutter, and this looks like a soft picture at fast shutter speeds. I would start by putting the camera on a table or tripod and using the remote shutter or time shutter feature to see if it CAN take a clear pic when it is stationary. If this looks bad, then it is an issue of the gear. It isn’t odd to have some soft focus on zoom lenses, especially at extremes of f settings, zoon range, and on the edges of the lens. I would be surprised if it was the lenses, as nowadays the kit lenses from Canon and Nikon are really good quality, so you shouldn’t see these kind of issues. I’d start with the user error idea, then if the pics still look bad, it suggests a problem with the camera body, as it would be odd to have the same problem in two lenses.
Also worth looking at how you are focusing the camera. Is is a spot focus, a zone focus, etc. What f setting are you using? Is the depth of field sufficient to get in focus stuff away from the point of focus? What happens if you focus manually? What happens if you go with a high f stop and use a point/spot focus?
Just guesses on my part from my own experiences. I’m far from an expert on any of this
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xStonr
Kick Henry Jackassowski
Buy a better lens. The Nikon 35mm 1.8 DX or 50mm 1.8 lens won't set you back much at all. These lens are the sharpest you can get for the $$
parrotheada1a
Resident Pitmaster
I suggest checking to see if you can't use the camera like a point and shoot on full automatic with a tripod. One thing that I've found with my T6i is that I have to pre-focus the camera first before hitting the shutter all the way. It kinda sucks that I have to do it that way, but most of the time I am taking pictures of trains or other moving objects. Doing the pre-focus step gets me better shots.
Ok, I did a little experimentation. I took my camera out on the deck. The sun was shining, so there was plenty of light. I sat the camera on the deck railing to serve as a tripod. The deck railing is very sturdy, so no shake. I took pictures of a corkscrew willow tree about 50' away using both lenses at minimum and maximum focal length, and auto and manual focus.
The results were interesting:
1. At least for these shots, autofocus beat me every time.
2. On both my lenses, pictures at the MINIMUM focal length were VERY blurry. Maximum focal length shots were much better.
So I've found one problem already: I tend to shoot most all of my photos using the longer lens at the minimum focal length. I'm going to switch to using the shorter lens at longer focal length. I may try to buy a fixed focal length lens just for comparison. I think I'll also keep an eye on craigslist for better lenses.
I've got a nice 50mm lens from my old Nikon film camera, but the Nikon software guys decided that is a lens doesn't send f stop info to the camera, it won't let you use it.
Example:
55-200mm at 55mm
Same lens at 200mm
The results were interesting:
1. At least for these shots, autofocus beat me every time.
2. On both my lenses, pictures at the MINIMUM focal length were VERY blurry. Maximum focal length shots were much better.
So I've found one problem already: I tend to shoot most all of my photos using the longer lens at the minimum focal length. I'm going to switch to using the shorter lens at longer focal length. I may try to buy a fixed focal length lens just for comparison. I think I'll also keep an eye on craigslist for better lenses.
I've got a nice 50mm lens from my old Nikon film camera, but the Nikon software guys decided that is a lens doesn't send f stop info to the camera, it won't let you use it.
Example:
55-200mm at 55mm
Same lens at 200mm
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