I see no reason why you have to struggle with the images from your M10 with the Voigtlander lens. If you can edit your raw files in PhotoLab than you should be able to get good results assuming your original images was well framed, well exposed and well focused. These days I use a Nikon Z fc retro mirrorless camera and the lenses I use most often on it are various fast wide angle manual focus primes. including those from Voigtlander, TTArtisan and Laowa. I set ISO, aperture and shutter speed manually and focus manually. Editing my raw images in PhotoLab takes no more effort then it does when using an autofocus lens and all the internal features that support it. I agree with most of your points but that doesnât mean you canât achieve your goals using your Leica and your lens of choice. It just may take a greater amount of effort.
Now that I have gone mostly fully manual I have begun to enjoy photography much more than I have in years and I spend a greater amount of time considering each image before hitting the shutter button. The attached image was captured at Millbrook Village, a late19th century rural community restoration in the Delaware Water Gap in northwestern New Jersey. I used my Nikon Z fc with a very small TTArtisan 35mm f/1.4 manual focus lens. While I would have preferred to capture the entire building, the 35mm limited my framing because I could not step back any further due to a building just behind me. Even so I generally prefer prime lenses because they sometimes force me to view the world differently. This raw file was edited in PhotoLab 6.
I assume you know that many, if not most, manual focus lenses add their own character and color rendering into the mix and the results are often not the kind of clinical accuracy that many photographers seem to prefer today. While it may not be your cup of tea, I was happy with the results I got editing this image in PhotoLab and exporting it using DeepPRIME XD.
I assume âDXâ refers to only covering the APS-C sensor and not a full frame one. In which case, yes, though Pentax do not use that nomenclature. (They prefer an altogether more confusing approach.)
I do not disagree with this. I do disagree with being caught inside the airport fence and my only defence being âMike said the shot would be better this way.â
Hi Mark; I wouldnât disagree with anything you wrote, but what Iâm wondering about is in your words that I highlighted. From what I think I learned from @Joanna long ago, with my D750 anything and everything that might influence the image was turned off. I ended up with a box, with a lens in front of it, that captured the scene without in any way enhancing it. That was left for me to learn how to do.
One example - a year or two ago, I was taking photos of plants, and leaves, and flowers, and getting mostly âdullâ images that I needed to enhance with the PhotoLab tools. With help from people here, I learned what to do to improve the OOC images. But late afternoon yesterday, I tried the same thing using my D780, this time with the 28-70 lens, and was amazed at how much I enjoyed the results. I made some minor changes to add a bit of contrast and âbrillianceâ, and I was done. Iâll post two of them here.
(I have only watched half of what is explained in the 2 1/2 hour teaching video about the controls on the D780, and I suspect it is automatically doing things that my Leica does not do, leaving it for me to do.)
(I love your photo, the sharpness, the color, the saturation, everything. I only wonder why you cut off the left side of the building. Thatâs the kind of image I want to be able to create, from any camera, getting PhotoLab to bring out all the beauty, as you did!)
OK, here are two photos I took, with the related files. I didnât do very much editing - both images looked great to me before I did any editing, and both images looked better than what I remember seeing through my viewfinder on the D780. I suspect the camera is automatically enhancing the images âbehind my backâ. Maybe Iâll go back to the same spot, and take a similar image with my Leica which as far as I know doesnât have any automated controls to enhance my images. But this leads me to what Joanna said so long ago - I should disable any settings like that, and do the editing myself, using the tools provided by PhotoLab.
Or, I should just say the heck with it and let the D780 work its magic.
Use either the back button or the big ring on the lens.
Wrong! Your Nikon is only incredibly powerful if you set it to Manual mode and take control of it yourself.
Sure, Nikon try to second guess what will make a good picture in their auto modes but, in the end, it is someone elseâs opinion and algorithm. And donât get me started on so called AI modes. Artificial Intelligence is certainly artificial and, very often, not very intelligent.
Once your Nikon menus are set up, once and for all, you can fairly much ignore them. Here are a few shots of the top of my D850, with the relevant easy to use controls highlighted.
Press the metering mode button and use the back right wheel to change mode. I only normally only use either centre-weighted or spot mode most of the time.
On the Nikon, all you need to do is set the focusing mode to single point, press the back focusing button and point the central square in the viewfinder to the part of the image for critical focus.
If you are doing any more than this, you are using it wrong.
Yes, you might have to spend time setting up the menus for the very first time but, from then on, if you find yourself keeping on going back into the menus, once again, you are using it wrong.
Oh so wrong!!!
That is the easiest way to not get the results you thought you wanted.
Auto focus can settle on something passing in front of the camera or on the wrong part of the scene
Auto exposure can (and often does) find something either too bright or too dark and offsets everything else to be either over or under exposed.
Auto ISO can often lead to noisy images when it decides it needs to raise the ISO too far rather than changing either the speed or aperture.
Etc.
Ditto for the Nikon.
Rubbish!!! As I have just said, the Nikon is fully controllable - even more than the Leica.
As should taking photos with the Nikon. Do you really think all I do is point and shoot to get the images I do? I could say that is somewhat insulting. I take as much care using the Nikon as I do with my Ebony.
In Auto mode, you stood a fair chance but I would hardly call it a great photo - highlights are blown shadows are blocked, ISO is way too high and nothing is really sharp or clear.
Iâm sorry but you are deluding yourself. Either fly me to Miami or come over here and I will prove it.
Thatâll be because you left on some of the âmagic sauceâ in the D780 menus and, letâs face it, you were lucky, taking an appropriate subject in an appropriate light.
You do that and I, for one, will start ignoring your posts here
Several things you mention Iâve already done. I changed the focusing to where the Nikon focuses on one âred dotâ in the middle of the image. I aim the camera so the red dot is in front of the most important part, and press the back-button focus control. Done. Normally I just press that button once. If things are moving around, I just hold in the button, and make sure what I am focusing on stays in the middle of the image, for âfollow focusâ. The Nikon has a zillion focus controls, all of which are bypassed by doing what you just described. I havenât used manual focus, but I achieve the same effect by aligning the red dot with what I want sharp, and pressing the back button focus button.
Bingo! That sums things up nicely.
I havenât had the D780 that long, and I decided to watch that 2 1/2 hour video to learn what is going on inside the camera. I only made it half-way through the video. As of today, I donât know which settings are part of the âmagic sauceâ. I want to find a way to create multiple âmodesâ, one of which leaves all the magic sauce on, and the other that turns the D780 into an expensive box camera, like my Leica.
(The D780 has a huge amount of âmagic sauceâ that becomes active when I turn on. âLive Viewâ. Nikonâs latest tools for mirrorless cameras become active in Live View, so the camera will do things like follow a personâs eyes keeping them in perfect focus. I didnât buy the D780 for that reason, but I guess I ought to learn it anyway.)
I donât use âauto modeâ, but I know the D780 is doing a lot of things automatically, but it seems to be smart enough to avoid things like what you mention. I have control over what the auto ISO can do, but with the settings I have, the camera happily went to ISO 20,000 for my late-evening photo of Biscayne Bay, posted above. I was shocked that it got me the result it did - and Iâm not sure what I would have done differently than the settings that the camera selected.
More later - I need to think about all this, and I need to learn more about the D780. I want to know how it works, and what it can do, and why, and also how to put it into a mode where all the automation is turned off, and itâs up to me to make all the decisions. But before I can do any of this, I need to understand it better.
Mike, that is the reason I suggested that you took the D780 out for the next three months with you plus the two zoom lenses so that with a bit of luck you will have learnt the settings you would need in the camera. I also suspect that you would find that the Nikon can do everything that the Leica can do plus a lot more.
I enjoyed your recent photographs, especially your boat one. Sorry @Joanna. With your one Mike. The story I could see was that the boat was leaving it docking area and possibly going out to sea.
Nice to see that you are now taking pictures for yourself and not for that pesky publisher. You are now one up on me because I still cannot get that 36 x 24mm format out of my brain although it doesnât matter now as I am now fully back to 35mm.
If you read my post again, you will find that I indicated I shot that building with a 35 mm fast prime lens. I also mentioned that I couldnât get the whole building in the shot because there was another building literally just behind me and I couldnât move back any further. In fact, I was leaning against a porch post of the building behind me to give me greatest stability Even though I may have preferred to get the whole building into the frame, I am not unhappy about having part of it cut off. One of my goals was to capture the parallel peaks and angles of the darker higher and lower roof lines contrasted against the bright vertical white side walls.
Iâm glad you liked my picture, but frankly I didnât do anything magical in PhotoLab. Even the SOOC jpeg was very sharp and contrasty with that manual focus lens. To be sure I still made a number of significant adjustments, including bringing out the details of the porch area which in the original was in much deeper shadow. However, PhotoLab cannot make a silk purse out of a sowâs ear. When using PhotoLab the closer your original is to your goal for you image, the better the end results are likely to be.
Thanks for the reply, but you have part of it backward. The Nikon, out of the box, can do everything the Leica can do, and a whole lot more. It ha âmagic stuffâ (for lack of a better word) that tries to make my photographs perfect. The Leica shows âwhat was thereâ. The Nikon shows a highly perfected image of âwhat was thereâ. With both of the lenses Iâve been using, the Nikon knows what to do automatically to give me a perfected photo. I donât need to learn, and I donât need to mess with the settings - all I need to do is press the shutter release button. For most people buying the Nikon, this is wonderful - they will capture seemingly perfect photos, no input needed from the photographer.
What @Joanna wants me to do, and I fully understand why, is to disable all that âmagic sauceâ, so the camera does what I want it to do, not the built-in computers. Iâm not going to learn anything from the Nikon, other than to not interfere with what its computer wants to do. After years of effort, Nikon knows what the camera should do, and how to automatically adjust the settings. My dad would have loved that - he cared nothing about taking the photos, all he cared about is the pictures he got back from the printers.
A few years back, thanks to @Joanna and others in this forum, I was able to disable all the âmagicâ in my D750, so all it did was capture images, and any poor results were due to me, not the automation. Eventually I got better. With my D780, all Iâve really changed so far, is to disable all the âsmart stuffâ in focusing, and force the camera to work so I was in control - just as with my Leica.
Maybe it was a foolish thing to do, but I thought I needed to learn how the D780 works, in order to convert it to work as I want (as @Joanna prefers), but the training video I found is over 2 1/2 hours long. By the time I got half way through it, I lost my enthusiasm about understanding the D780.
My goal (eventually) is to set two user-modes. One would be just the way the camera is working now. The other would turn off any and all automation, so the âmagic softwareâ was switched off.
In the meantime, my heart is more into using the Leica M10, where I have to do everything manually. @Joanna probably wouldnât agree with auto-ISO, but part of me thinks I should control depth of field (aperture) and an ability to capture sharp images (shutter speed). On both the M10 and the D780, the ISO seems less important. Using ISO 20,000 on the Nikon (or ISO 5,000 on my M10, PhotoLab removes all the nasty stuff from using a high ISO. Usually, on the Leica, I specify shutter and aperture, and let the camera select a good starting point for ISO. Thereâs a simple control on the rear of the camera for ISO compensation which is needed sometime.
Thatâs exactly what was happening, and I took many photos to show each part - but I hoped the one photo I posted showed the whole story.
That is SO true. Iâm just scratching the surface of what the Nikon can do, and I donât understand how it works. But hereâs the rub - Joanna doesnât want me to let the Nikon do all that stuff. She wants ME to do those things. I agree with her, but I donât yet understand all those things this Nikon is controlling. (âŚwhich is why I want to watch that long video, and make notes.)
Where Iâm at right now, is I want my âimageâ to be inside the frame lines, and I mostly pay little attention to the frame. PhotoLab will take care of everything from then on. If I was shooting color slides, Iâd be in deep trouble⌠:-/
If the left side of the building was interesting enough, you could at least try to do a handheld panorama shot by turning the camera into portrait orientation and take two shots. Well edited and fully manual is not a question for you - excellent preconditions for that shot like that and Affinity Photo is really good with stitching.
Some times I also limit myself to one or two primes, as itâs improving my way to see and compose an image.
I also had a 35 mm and the left part in front of the synagogue was rather distracting, but I could not step back and had to try if I can get away with two pictures stitched together.
If the subject and circumstances suit, you can also use âPeaking Highlightsâ in Live View, which will allow you to see which edges are the sharpest as you manually focus. This is particularly useful if you want to check what is sharp in a limited depth of field shot.
Look in the manual for the mode dial on top of the camera and the U1 and U2 settings which, apparently, should do what you want.
With age comes reduced ability to absorb too much at one time. If you donât immediately need it, donât learn it. I have been using Nikon DSLRs for years and still donât know everything about them, apart from there are far too many menus and options to ever know them all.
Well, it will if you let it. Which is one reason I disable it. You could have taken that shot with a longer exposure (on a tripod) and got far better image quality and absolutely no noise.
I shot this in Santa Cruz, back in 2004, on my first ever DSLR, a Nikon D100âŚ
All taken at low ISO to minimise noise and retain as much detail as possible.
You see Mike, itâs not just me. But, rather than try to grind your way through that video, try looking through the online version of the manual, where things are conveniently separated into neat sections with hyperlinks to related subjects.
Thatâs alright. I sometimes try to be controversial or even extremist, in order to shake folks out their set ways. Although I thought that Anneâs idea was interesting too.
The D850 allows me to frame in 5x4 and square, the former being my favourite due to my history with LF film.
Donât forget Mike, your words, GIGO
You mean just like the Nikon D780 in manual mode?
Stop talking Leica. As @Prem and I have said, you are meant to be learning the Nikon. And learn how to work at low ISO on a tripod for night shots.
Youâve got that slight back to front. What I want you to do is to learn how to use the Nikon just like you would the Leica, where, according to you, you âdo all that stuffâ
Iâll have to try this - I donât enjoy using âLive Viewâ, and I have no idea how to use âPeaking Highlightsâ for focus on the D780. One more thing to try - but why would I want to do it that way, when I can align the dot over what is important to me, and press the back-button for focus? I doubt I will be able to do as well as the camera, and Iâll need to put on my ultra-close reading glasses to see the rear screen perfectly.
Yes - I can leave U1 as-is, and start switching everything off in U2. Good idea!
Ainât that the truth!!! But to turn anything off, first I ought to figure out what it does, and how to turn it off. I can go through the menus, one at a time, and start turning things off in U2. A good idea.
Had I planned it out ahead of time, yes, I could have the tripod set up, and everything set as I wanted it including ISO. Aperture would have been wide open, shutter would have been reasonable to keep things sharp, and ISO would be nowhere near 20,000. With nothing set up, and it getting darker by the second, I barely had enough time to get the shot I noticed while looking out my window. âGrab Shotsâ are not going to be perfect. I like auto-ISO, and if I select the proper settings, the camera will never use it, but if Iâm in a hurry, or forget, it is useful.
I love your evening, and night-time shots, each one controlled so well.
I will try that.
When possible, Iâm always aware of that, but I think even âgarbageâ is better than ânothingâ. If nothing else, itâs good (for me) to try things, and check the results. If I were smarter, I never would have even taken that almost-night photo, but I wanted to at least try.
It is my understanding that Manual mode (compared to Shutter Priority, or Aperture Priority) only involves the aperture, shutter, and ISO. The D780 has a bazillion other settings which are probably all turned on by default. I figured I need to turn them off, but then I thought I should first learn what they were, and what they did. Selecting Manual on the large dial will only affect the exposure.
Well, the Leica, âout of the boxâ doesnât do anything special. Nothing is pre-set. There is no auto-iso, and everything is in a neutral setting, where I set the ISO, Aperture, Shutter, and Focus. My D780 came with a lot of things pre-configured one way or another - but I bought it used, so maybe I should restore it to factory settings before I do anything else. I remember me turning off functions on my D750 that I knew nothing about, and had never turned on. I suspect that is the kind of stuff I need to switch off on my D780. I will check on this.
Nikonâs goal is for new users to take the camera out of the box, start taking photos, and giving them beautiful results. (I guess thatâs what Iâm getting right nowâŚ). Nikon has lots of choices for things, and I need to decide which ones to select. Oh well, Iâll watch some simpler videos, and try to find a video that works with the manual. That should be a good start.
As I said. That was the reason for my challenge of using your D780 and your two zoom lenses only, for the next three months. This would give you a chance to take a picture change the setting and take the same picture so that you can see the results. Once back at your computer you can then see which one is the better picture and set that setting to the appropriate one. Then over the next three months you will be able to adjust the menus, accordingly, depending on your picture quality. I hope Iâve explained myself better.
For me. My cameras are in permanent manual mode and very occasionally get switched to Aperture priority. my ME button toggles between spot and centre-weighted. Almost permanently in spot and my MF button is set to focus hold. All other menu settings are as I set them when I first set the camera and never get changed.
Maybe Iâve mis-understood. Until now, I thought the goal was to turn off every tool/setting on the camera that in any way enhanced the image. All the computerized editing would be gone, and the image I captured would be based on:
aperture
shutter speed
ISO
focus
Nothing would be done by the camera to in any way improve the image beyond setting those four things correctly and appropriately. My multi-thousand dollar box (camera) would only have those four functions, capturing a ârawâ image, which is essentially a summary of everything from the image sensor in the camera, with no interpretation.
Then, all the adjustments would be made in DxO PhotoLab, to edit that âflat, boringâ image into a wonderful image with the best color, contrast, sharpness, and all the rest, using the tools within PhotoLab to achieve this.
For those of you involved in this discussion, in this thread, do you agree?
Is this the goal, the âstarting pointâ in processing an image?
Let us be clear: The goal is to get the image you like.
Everything else are just means that can lead you there.
Different people might use different means/tools too.
Whatever you set in camera does not matter, if you know how to expose and frame your shots and as long as you shoot RAW. There is even some leeway in exposure and framingâŚbut weâre way off-topic all over again.
Those items listed under âPhoto Shooting Menuâ are probably the main settings to consider.
I thought there were menu settings, and sub-menu settings, and sub-sub settings.
You know, if this is realy the case, I can simply shoot in Manual mode, selecting an aperture, and shutter speed, and ISO, and my D780 will still continue to give me these beautiful results, and I should just smile and relax. It is the only camera that has ever worked this way for me. Maybe I am completely off-base, and a new 2022 Nikon D780 really is this good âout of the boxâ. I donât understand, but Iâll gladly accept this.
Because, for some shots, where limiting the depth of field is important, the Peaking highlights indicators show you, not just the point of sharpest focus but, also, what is sharp both in front of or behind that point. Particularly important for portrait and macro shots.
Try to consider the difference between âtaking imagesâ and âmaking imagesâ. Had you been using your Leica, you would have had to take the time to set it up - why not with the Nikon?
And, assuming you have a tripod adapter plate permanently attached to each and all your cameras, it shouldnât take more than a minute or so to clip the camera on, frame the image, adjust the exposure and take the shot. I have one tripod set up (extended) in the house and another in the boot (trunk) of the car.
Shooting in manual mode shouldnât take that long, as long as you have developed your âmuscle memoryâ for how to adjust the four essential settings.
From long experience I would disagree.
If you were smarter, you would have been more prepared, since you have taken this kind of shot before and obviously like so doing.
And focusing.
So, you obviously need to change things to how you work.
Thatâs exactly what you need to do. but use the online manual rather than that darned video.
Well, acceptable results, but still only if you know what you are doing when it comes to framing, focusing, adjusting exposure compensation, etc.
Nope. You are more than likely getting what the previous owner liked.
Donât bother with videos, they can be biased as to the presenterâs style of photography.
Well said. Just what I do.
If you want to be as in control as you were with the Leica, possibly.
I would like to think that when I used Nikonâs two-button reset to reset all the camera settings it brought the camera back to âas newâ. Thereâs also a two button reset that sets the whole camera back to Nikonâs settings.
The sales lady at B&H checked, and told me how few images had been taken. Everything in the box looked like it had never been un-wrapped.
I also went through the full list of menus, and didnât find anything that looked wrong.
I learn faster from videos. Ken Rockwell also made a review, and pointed out things he does for his method of shooting.
If you watch just a little of that 2.5 hour training video, youâll appreciate why I like it, even if you donât. He completely explains everything in depth. Some parts, such as Live View, I fast forward through. Other parts I had to repeat two or three times.
Change âwouldâ to âshouldâ.
From now on, one thing will change, and another will not.
Nikon: Iâll go through the settings, and make sure it is set the way I think it should be, and when I see beautiful results on my screen, I will be happy, not puzzled.
Leica: I will continue to use my M10, for the types of photos it was designed for.
Also: I will continue to shoot B&W, and await your reaction to how well I might have done.
Oh, and I will take your advice to try to find new photo opportunities.
âŚand anyone here who offers me another âphoto challengeâ will get my results within a day or two.
Indeed. A check on your image of Biscayne Bay showed a shutter count of only 243 - fairly much brand new apart from a few test shots.
I would highly recommend that you deactivate Active D-Lighting, as all this basically does is to do a sneaky exposure adjustment to lighten the shadows. Something that can then interfere with working in PL. And, yes it does affect the RAW file as well as the JPEG.
You might also like to deactivate both the long-exposure and high-ISO noise reduction as this really isnât necessary when youâve got DeepPRIME. It also means that, after a long exposure, you have to wait for the same time as the exposure before you can take the next shot.
By the way, your high ISO shot of Biscayne bay shows an exposure of 1/25 second - too slow for handheld and explains the lack of sharpness. Such are the perils of auto-ISO and âgrab shotsâ.
