[Leica] 200mm test

[douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp)]

Vince,

First off:

there's a good, and reasonably easy, trick in PS to give most photos a 
kick in the right direction before doing any more complex stuff.

Load your image into PS (I have CS2, but I think this applies even to 
Elements)

Go to Adjustments
Go to Levels

When the levels box is open, click on the white eyedropper (right) and 
move it to what you think should be white (the insulators for instance 
on the full frame shot, or the white rectangle behind the tree between 
the groups of people in the third)

Click on the white bit you think is right

Then take the black eyedropper (left) and do the same for what you think 
should be black (the triangular window under the roof or a part of the 
clothing of the woman in the left group of people)

You'll find that the balance, contrast and brightness now looks much 
improved.

Secondly:

There is also room for improvement in the sharpening, it is possible to 
get a decent rendition of the diagonal mesh behind the people - I use a 
PS plug-in called Focus Magic - it's pretty much one of the best there 
is - but it can still be improved in PS.

Be careful though, it is very easy to ruin a shot with too much sharpening.

Another plug-in you could play around with is a thing called "Auto 
Enhance" from DCETools or their "ColorCast Remover"  - they often work 
wonders.

If you want something with a more intuitive approach, I think (and many 
will agree) that Adobe Lightroom is the way to go. It does almost all of 
the steps you generally need in PS, but they are all shown in one panel 
with all the sliders and buttons. Since I bought it, CS2 only gets used 
for really complicated stuff with layers and the like.

Cheers
Douglas

On 16.05.2010 07:16, Vince Passaro wrote:
> Dr. Ted I know you're out there -- a savage hound on the dark moor -- but I
> want to ask all you others, do you remember a discussion thread about a
> month or so back on the Nikon 200 f/4 prime? As I recollect Jim Laird (?)
> was constructing a shoulder brace for use with this lens. Doug advised him.
> Several others kibbutzed, including me, to the effect that the lens is 
> quite
> light.  Well today it was so lovely I was testing my 200mm lenses out the
> front window. We live up the hill from a park with a big pond in it and the
> living room overlooks it. Tested Nikkor AF 70-210 1:4-5.6 D;  Nikkor 80-200
> 1:4.5 AI-S ; and the Nikkor 200 1:4 AI-S as previously mentioned.  All at
> F8.  RAW. ISO 400 because I was too dumb to remember to change it and since
> I used to shoot Tri-X almost exclusively I tend to leave it at 400 most of
> the time and not think about it. Roughly 1/500th of a second though this
> varied a little because the metering on the D40x is a little too bright so
> with the AF-D lens -- the only one with which the D40 can provide metering
> and aperture priority -- one keeps the EV adjusted to -.7.
>
> I swear to God Dr. Ted I was thinking about Leicas the whole time. I was
> thinking about selling the new kid -- he was right there with me and damn
> cute -- so I could put a down payment on an M9.
>
> Anyway the 200/4 knocked my socks off.  Here are three images from one 
> shot:
> The first just a JPEG straight up from the RAW file. The second cropped and
> enlarged almost to 100 percent and slightly adjusted in PS Camera Raw. The
> third cropped the same but with more work fixing the highlights, working 
> out
> a bit of fringing, color adjustment, sharpening, etc.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/toast+eatin_+bog+man/nikon+200mm+f4/
>
> Opinions, criticisms and advice most welcome. Particularly welcome is 
> advice
> on the processing. Everything I know how to do is in camera raw. I have
> hardly tried PS itself yet.
>
> Vince
>
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