Steve'sDigicams

2many · Apr 7, 2008, 11:16 PM

Harriet,

All those birds are probably going to be nesting in that area, I would check back every once in a while.

Terry

ennacac · Apr 8, 2008, 9:08 AM

Those are nice Harriet. How does the K20D do with highlights and what settings are you using for your shots?

The flying shot is a Raven from the profile and I hae no idea what the bird on the wire is.

Tom

mtngal · Apr 8, 2008, 1:16 PM

I'm still trying to sort out the highlight issue. These were taken with matrix metering - should have switched to spot and metered off the birds (I wasn't really thinking about technical things at the time, just how cool it was to see so many different egrets) and the birds are blown out quite a bit (egrets are just about impossible for me to get right). I was using P mode as I often do, and I think I was using the extended dynamic range. I need to spend some more time to get comfortable with the how the camera meters and when to use spot vs. matrix. Also, when to use Ev - so often on the K10, the blown highlights would flash but when I'd look at the picture in Lightroom it wouldn't be blown at all (and the ones I took with a -Ev were definitely underexposed), so I started ignoring the warnings. I haven't turned on the clipping warning yet - something I should do because it was quite accurate on the K100 and DS. I'd be interested in seeing if it is more accurate on the K20.

In general, the camera does pretty well on it's own. Yesterday's pictures looked a wee bit underexposed when the camera was faced with lots of glare and bright sunlight, but that's pretty typical of all of the Pentax cameras I've had (and the conditions I was shooting under), it errs on the side of caution. It did not do that when I was taking pictures Saturday (bright sun but no hazy glare)- exposure was right on and Imostly just cropped and resized, maybe a bit of USM on some (but not onall of them). Since I've been shooting in jpg, I haven't been using Lightroom - just reviewing them in Bridge and doing and pp in CS2. I've been pleased so I don't know when/if I'll switch back to raw. I don't really want to shoot raw+ until I can afford bigger flash cards (I'm using a 2GB Ultra II at the moment).

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Apr 7, 2008, 11:16 PM	#11
2many Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Costa Rica Posts: 533	Harriet, All those birds are probably going to be nesting in that area, I would check back every once in a while. Terry

Apr 8, 2008, 9:08 AM	#12
ennacac Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 4,198	Those are nice Harriet. How does the K20D do with highlights and what settings are you using for your shots? The flying shot is a Raven from the profile and I hae no idea what the bird on the wire is. Tom

Apr 8, 2008, 1:16 PM	#13
mtngal Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Frazier Park, CA Posts: 16,177	I'm still trying to sort out the highlight issue. These were taken with matrix metering - should have switched to spot and metered off the birds (I wasn't really thinking about technical things at the time, just how cool it was to see so many different egrets) and the birds are blown out quite a bit (egrets are just about impossible for me to get right). I was using P mode as I often do, and I think I was using the extended dynamic range. I need to spend some more time to get comfortable with the how the camera meters and when to use spot vs. matrix. Also, when to use Ev - so often on the K10, the blown highlights would flash but when I'd look at the picture in Lightroom it wouldn't be blown at all (and the ones I took with a -Ev were definitely underexposed), so I started ignoring the warnings. I haven't turned on the clipping warning yet - something I should do because it was quite accurate on the K100 and DS. I'd be interested in seeing if it is more accurate on the K20. In general, the camera does pretty well on it's own. Yesterday's pictures looked a wee bit underexposed when the camera was faced with lots of glare and bright sunlight, but that's pretty typical of all of the Pentax cameras I've had (and the conditions I was shooting under), it errs on the side of caution. It did not do that when I was taking pictures Saturday (bright sun but no hazy glare)- exposure was right on and Imostly just cropped and resized, maybe a bit of USM on some (but not onall of them). Since I've been shooting in jpg, I haven't been using Lightroom - just reviewing them in Bridge and doing and pp in CS2. I've been pleased so I don't know when/if I'll switch back to raw. I don't really want to shoot raw+ until I can afford bigger flash cards (I'm using a 2GB Ultra II at the moment).