Exposure, HDR, and Fill-in Flash…

Taking Bryan Peterson’s advice, I have decided to go “manual” on my DSLR as much as possible.  It has been a very interesting learning experience so far (that’s another way of saying I have been pulling my hair trying to understand and experiment how I can get the _shot_ the way I envisioned with my own eyes.

For example, I was trying to take a couple shots of my living room to work on getting familiar with coming up with the correct aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (and hopefully eventually move onto getting the creatively correct combination).

First problem I ran into is getting the right amount of light into my camera so I can get a “correct” exposure.   With ISO set to 100 (yes, Auto-ISO is off), I realized I will need a very slow shutter (1/2 second) and the largest aperture I could to get enough light through.  But a 1/2 second shutter requires a good stable tripod (and pretty much remote trigger) to avoid the fuzziness as the result of camera’s movement during the exposure.  Increasing the ISO to 400 made it possible for me to capture the correct exposure at 1/10 second shutter and f/11 aperture.

As you can see from the picture above, the side lighting from the street gave the objects plenty of shadow and texture, but perhaps a little too much shadow.  At the same time, the tremendous lighting difference between the object in-door and out-door made it impossible for me to capture both objects in-door and out-door.

Well, almost impossible.  With Nikon D5100’s build-in High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging capability, I should be able to combine shots with different exposures and get more details out of both the dark and bright areas.  So that’s what I did.
 
Clearly this is an improvement – we can now see a lot of details that wasn’t available before.  Do not despair if you don’t have HDR as part of your camera, auto-exposure bracketing and some post-processing by software (even the lowly Nikon ViewNX2) will give you the same result (or better, some have argued).

At the same time, I can’t help wonder how it would look like if I just use fill-in flash to illuminate the room…  With camera still configured for 1/10, f/11, and ISO 400, I popped the flash and snapped a frame.

As it turns out, flash did illuminate the room very well and bring out a lot of details inside the room.  The downside is the out-door objects remain over-exposed and I lost a lot of shadow that, in my opinion, really adds to the atmosphere (or the character) to the picture.

What did I learn today?   HDR is a very nice feature to have when you are shooting a composition of great light contrasts.  Flash is okay if you want to “freeze” the moment.

As I am writing this, I realized I have left out two more parameters to experiment: White Balance and lowering the aperture to dampen the effect of the flash (the flash was triggered even though I have already achieve correct exposure with my setting).  Oh well, I guess that would be something to experiment tomorrow.

From stills to video

Both of my D90 and D7000 can capture video but are they the best tool for it?  I have tried using my D7000 a few times and did not get good results.  The problem is in the auto-focusing system.  I have read that while shooting video, you should not use auto-focus.  Why?  Because the lens' auto-focus system (even with AFS) keeps on hunting every now and then, and it is very loud.  The D7000 picked up clearly the sound of the motor on my Nikkor 18-200mm AFS lens.  So, I shut off the AF system but then, manual focus was a bit tough to use.  Perhaps I should have reduced the aperture.

I was not too impressed with the video capturing capability of the D7000 so for the dragonboat race festival in June, I decided to purchase a used Canon HD Vixia HG20 camcorder.  It used to cost $1000 in 1998.  Today, one should be able to find a used one for $500 or less--talk about the speed of obsolescence vs. price!

When I first used the HG20, I was somewhat disappointed in the movie format.  It saves the video in .m2ts (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) format. I thought Flickr and YouTube do not support this format but from reading a couple of articles, it appears that they do.  I will test that out one of these days.  For now, I use a combination of two software in my workflow to produce video.  First, I use Pixela's ImageMixer 3 SE ver.3 to transfer the m2ts video from the camcorder to my notebook, then use the built-in Video Editor to cut the video.  Second, I use a free software called "Free HD Converter" to convert the .m2ts files into MP4 format.  Here is a sample video converted to 640x480 at 24fps with "Free HD Converter":

(The video is of Chris unpacking his D5100 for the first time.  The D5100 and the two lenses were packed in a black Nikon camera bag.)

This HG20 is what I am planning to take with me on my winter camping trip.  It's got a hard drive so while it is running, it will generate heat, hot enough I hope to keep the battery from freezing up.  I have two batteries so there should be enough for capturing at least a couple of hours, but even if I can get one hour out of them, that would be more than enough.

My first DSLR rig…

Much thanks to Photon, I was able to get Nikon’s latest hobbyist DSLR camera, D5100, at substantial saving from what I would have to pay for it here in Canada (I shall save my rant about the pricing gouging in Canada for a future blog entry).
The camera comes in a kit with a handsome Nikon bag (that is able to hold the body with one lens with room for another lens, battery, memory cards and filters).  Though it is a nice case, I can’t help to want something more stylish, lower-profile (i.e. not advertising to everyone that I am carrying a DSLR), and more out-door friendly.  After much searching, I went out and got myself a Case Logic SLRC-205 case.

This is a real nice case, but it’s not available in Canada (somehow Case Logic decided to exclude Canada from the list of regions that it will market this product), but thanks to B&H and its very affordable custom-clearing service, I was able to get this at a very reasonable price.  It has a nice suspended compartment that will hold the body with its medium size lens, with additional pocket for a second lens (or bottle of water, or sandwich), another one for battery and memory cards, and one for something thin and small.  Essentially, I can fit my entire rig into it. 

In addition to the Nikkor 18-55mm lens that came with the kit, I have also acquired a 55-200mm VR ED IF lens.  Yes, the 55-300mm VR ED IF lens was very tempting, but simply can’t justify paying that kind of money at this time. 

And of course I got a UV filter, both as a “protective” filter for the lens and for those occasions where I might hike to somewhere UV is an issue.  Clearly I will need a second battery – nothing sucks more than having a nice camera that stops working because it has no power (and no, I didn’t want to buy generic ones off eBay when I can get the real thing for $34).

 

So far, all the above were acquired from B&H, with the expensive/heavy stuff ship to Photon’s brother to save on taxes and shipping.

While waiting for the gear to show up, I found out Future Shop (a Canadian national retailer of electronic/computer goods, fully owned by Best Buy) was having a sales on the Duracell SDHC Class-10 16GB cards at $25CAD a-piece, so I grabbed two.  

Then I stumble across another local computer store chain that are clearing out its camera accessories and was able to pick up a Hoya Super HMC Circular Polarizer filter for $38 and a Slik monopod 350 for $30 (yes, the prices are comparable to B&H’s regular price, but I didn’t have to pay shipping to Canada and the custom brokerage)

 

So you have it, my new DSLR rig.   Hopefully I will have something worthwhile to share with you in the near future.

Nikon D5100

It has been over a month since my friend bought a Nikon D5100 and got it shipped to my younger brother in the States.  Well, my friend will be in for a surprise when I drop by this morning with the D5100.  I just asked last night to borrow his ladder for a couple of hours this morning when I did not need one.

So I had a look at the D5100.  It feels very ergonomic.  The grip is well designed to fit nicely in the palm and fingers of your hand.  It has sort of smallish footprint and is quite lighter than the D300 I used to own.  Light is good when traveling or hiking up a hill.  The back of the D5100 has a big, bright articulate LCD screen.  This screen is big!  There is a fair degree of freedom to swivel it around.  It can swivel 180 degreees and pushed back flush against the body of the camera and operate just like a normal LCD screen.  For protection while storing away the camera, the LCD screen can be swiveled back 180 degrees so the LCD screen faces the body of the camera and its back faces out.  And one other thing I like about the design of the camera is the fact that the shooting mode dial is in the middle of the camera as opposed to the left of the camera as designed on the D80, D90 and D7000.  The dial on these latter cameras tend to get knocked out of position by accident.

I did not try the shutter release to take sample pictures.  It's Chris' camera.  He gets the first shot.

Nikon D5100

Wow, not even a year since I bought the D7000, Nikon came out with the D5100. Well, it is not meant to replace the D7000 but heck, it is one nice camera, with an articulate LCD, 1080p video at 30 fps, and a built-in HDR rendition. If these features were added to the D7000, the D7000 would be the ultimate camera to date.

Anyone looking to buy a D5100 or a D3100, there is a special going on at Best Buy's. Save $50 on a D3100 and D5100 package. It's the best price I have seen in Toronto. Sale ends May 26, 2011! (BTW, I do not work for Best Buy's.)