Shooting in raw ?

mteam

mteam

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Name
Jack
Edit My Images
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Hi I'm a newbie to shooting in raw and not sure I'm doing it correctly

I'm taking pics using matrix metering and when I check the screen on the camera all looks good but when I get them home and open them in acr they
look underexposed and washed out am I doing something wrong ??

I can post a raw file if needed

tia Jack
 
Posting a RAW may help.

General advice: Don't trust the screen on the camera too much, trust the histogram. If all the tones are bunched up in the middle with broad swathes of nothing either side, then the photo is likely to lack contrast.

ACR will render the image differently anyhow. You camera possibly applies its own profile to the preview image it shows (it may boost the contrast and saturation for example). Canon cameras call it 'Picture Styles', I'm not sure about Nikon. ACR will ignore these (but Nikon's Capture NX will probably take them into account).
 
When it comes to raw the shooting stage is no different. 'Developing' the raw files is where you may see the benefit in more detail and less lost if you got the exposure wrong.

Metering decides the exposure in all but manual mode. Matrix will look at the whole scene and pick an average brightness to expose for. So some very bright thing in an otherwise dark scene can make for under exposure. Partial or spot will set the exposure based on just the middle of the frame. If matrix is not giving you the reults you want try partial. Point the camera at what you want exposed properly in partial (or whatever the Nikon equivalent is) and press the exposure lock button... then recompose and focus to take your picture.

edit. this may help you - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=210392

As mentioned above the washed out look is mainly because the camera applies processing to make a jpeg and you have to do that yourself with raw
 
Thanks

I thought i'd give the matrix metering a try out until I get to grips with the camera a bit

It may just be that I'm use to viewing jpegs out of my previous camera and not sure how to process the raw files the best, I shall go and look for a tutorial

I've added a link to one of my rawfiles if anyone would be willing to see if they think the exposure is out

Rawphoto

thanks Jack
 
A little underexposed,the 70 tends to that anyway.

Some quick adjustments bring the image together better.
 
Didn't look under exposed on my screen in fact 'auto levels' in NX brightened it up a little. Not a lot needs doing to this at all.
 
As has been already said raw images are not processed in the camera so you need to do it with the computer. Contrast, Saturation, Sharpening etc.
The image you see on the camera is an embedded JPEG which will have the settings applied.
Most programs will not read the Nikon camera settings so you have to process the image yourself.
Capture NX2 however can read all the camera settings and apply them to to the image.
One great advantage of raw is that you can make greater changes in post processing without deterioration of the image.
I downloaded your NEF file, opened it in NX2, resized it and saved as a JPEG.
No processing applied apart from your camera settings.
DSC_2497.jpg
 
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