k5 settings

Can anybody help me , has this his my first dslr i keep going through the manual picking things up, but the shadow and highlight reduction in d range should i be using this or when would should i use it and the in camera noise reduction i have on off should i be using this any help much appreciated

Hi Nipper, I will try and provide some light to your question, but settings in Photography have to be changed depending on different requirements. I personally would leave the highlight setting on all the time and set the shadow setting mid way. with regard to noise it will depend on what ISO settings you are using and why you are using them, the best thing is to just experiment with different settings. You can fine tune noise reduction to your personal taste which I think is very useful. As a general rule of thumb I don't tend to use NR at all unless I shoot above ISO 800. Having the ability to set custom noise reduction is one of the best things about the K5. I hope this helps a little, but the best guidance I can provide is to try different settings and that way you will understand your camera and the ways you want it to work for you.

Gareth

Thanks Gareth its just a bit confusing when theirs so many settings , has i said have'nt really used the nr but will give it a go now thankyou

The problem with highlight protection is it limits you to ISO200 when the camera can go down to ISO 80 and get even better DR overall in RAW.

Personally I don't think it is worth it.

Right ok don't think i will use it then , although i only shoot in jpeg has that any bearing on it ?

Yes, shooting in JPEG will give a much lowe dynamic range overall, however at least having highlight protection off you'll still be able to use ISO 80 and ISO100.

I would turn on the extended dynamic range in the shadows as that is virtually free.

thanks Dan

The problem with using both the extended shadow and highlight protection settings is they dramatically slow down rendering of images on your screen and clearing of the buffer. Bear this in mind if you need to check the screen often or shoot in bursts. I leave them off permanently and can only imagine I'd switch them on for high DR landscape scenes.