Is This A Common Problem?

I recently got Lightroom 4. It seems to be able to fix most problems (or mistakes). So now I've got lazy, and don't think too much about F stops,ISO and the rest. Does this affliction go away with time?

You're going down a slippery slope! Modern DSLR's and software are great for recovering errors, but there's still no substitute for getting it right in the first place. Also, if you're getting lazy about F stops and ISO, what about the composition?

Go out with a tripod and take your time about what you shoot!

Regards
David

All I can say is you must get it right in the camera first Lightroom and PS are there help you not make the photograph and David is right it a slippery slope.

I think composition is what I'm mainly thinking about and I forget about the rest till after I've pulled the trigger. Oh, it was a slightly tongue in cheek comment. I'm not too good at this tinterweb stuff. I mostly forget to use the

Oh yeah, I'm rolling my eyes at myself and not you two gentlemen who were kind enough to comment on my first post.

LOL

We're all pretty harmless on here and you'll usually get some decent advice from most questions

Best wishes
David

You've got the hang of the smileys. I will learn from you. .

Forget composition, you can crop in lightroom as well

Thanks David. Thanks Puma. Am I right in thinking when you take a RAW DNG any settings you put in the camera make no difference to the RAW image? Even high ISO, whats it called,noise reduction? I took some pics at a pub gig and going through them they all need noise reduction.It was dark. K5.
ISO 1600 are kind of acceptable, but above that there is a lot of work to do.

If it was dark, even a K-5 will struggle! Try using flash turned down a bit and a slow shutter speed of 1/25 or so (switch on slow synch in the flash settings). RAW images retail a mass of original data so you can change the sharpening, white balance etc. in post processing, or you can even retrieve colour back from a RAW image shot in camera with BW set!

You will need to reduce noise sometimes, the higher the ISO, the more noise and this is magnified in dark environments. RAW does not make you immune from image noise as this is generated by the sensor as it attempts to retrieve details from under-exposed areas.

Many people choose to shoot in JPEG as it is less work (camera does more processing), but I prefer RAW. It's a personal choice and neither is right or wrong.

Regards
David

Thanks Mike-P. I can't see the winky smiley? I didn't want to use flash. Didn't want to draw attention to myself. The band were proper pro's (2 from Barclay James Harvest and 1 from New Model Army) so they might not have minded. They were playing under an assumed name 'Katie and the Twinkles'.

You're not right.

The RAW format is just the data collected by the sensor without (hardly) any processing. ISO, f-stop and shutter speed, if used in the right combination, will give a properly "exposed" sensor. If the wrong combination is used, you'll end up with washed out colors or too dark a picture.

As a rule, you should always use the lowest ISO setting compatible with the available light.

As for f-stop, using a wide aperture will blur some part of the image, depending upon your focusing distance. With a small aperture, you get deeper depth of field (zone of sharpness).

As for the shutter speed, you can use it to convey a sense of movement with a (relatively) slow shutter speed that will somewhat blur the action against a sharp background, or use a fast shutter speed that will "freeze" everything.

I don't understand this 'rule'

What do you mean by compatible, or more to the point, what ISO would be incompatible to the available light.

I've used ISO100 in moonlight for long exposure nightshots.

OTOH i've used ISO6400 in bright daylight when I've wanted a really high shutter speed and large DOF.


Lightroom's noise reduction is excellent. Always apply it at the end of editing a pciture as switching it on, along with sharpening, really slows the program down.

It doestake time to edit a lot of photos. A tip: work out what noise reduction settings work best with each ISO setting. Then use the filter feature to select all pics with the same ISO, and you can apply the settings to all of them at once.


I've even automated this for my Lightroom setup. I wrote a plugin that automatically applies noise reduction values to each selected imaged based upon it's ISO and camera model. so after working through a 1,000 image shoot, I just select them all and start the plug. works a treat.

I cant say I agree with applying noise reduction at the end of editing, I always do it right at the start: better editing a file without noise than accentuating it during editing. I've never noticed it slowing anything down either. Sharpening should be the last action.