Setting Up Your Camera for Shooting JPEGs
Many digital cameras can take photos in two formats, RAW and JPEG. While shooting the RAW format offers the absolute best accuracy and resolution, the in-camera processing that’s available on many cameras these days is optimized for JPEGs, which makes that format a good choice.
Overcoming the limitations of JPEGs
While it’s true that JPEG is a lossy format (some detail is lost in any conversion from RAW to JPEG), the JPEG format uses what’s called “adaptive compression.” This type of routine compresses least in the areas of the greatest detail and most in areas without detail. So in a landscape with agility equipment and a dog in the foreground and a large blue sky, most compression would take place in the sky where there’s little or no detail. The variable compression technology is apparent when you look at the JPEG file sizes and notice that they vary from frame to frame. That’s because the amount of detail varies from frame to frame.
Grain in a photograph is most noticeable in unsharp areas, such as broad expanses of out-of-focus background. The JPEG format helps with grain by compressing those broad unsharp areas the most and effectively concealing the grain that would be present in a RAW format version.
Camera setup for optimum results
Use these camera settings for shooting JPEGs:
- Set all the camera controls to the highest quality and least compression. For example:
- Set the file size to large or largest.
- Set the quality to fine or finest.
- For colorspace settings, use RGB or Adobe RGB. If neither of those is available, use sRGB.
- For indoor action photos, set the ISO to the maximum rating. Depending on the camera, that could be 1600, 3200, or 6400. Virgil’s D3 goes to 6400.
- For outdoor action photos, set the ISO as necessary to get a shutter speed of about 1/2000th of a second.
- Turn on the in-camera processing.
- Be sure to use the high-ISO or grain-reduction technology, if it’s available.
- Use auto white balance, which works in many locations where the color of the light varies across the ring. Then use software like Adobe Lightroom to adjust the color afterwards for each particular area of the ring.
- For capturing multiple action frames, set the frames-per-second rate to 6 or more, if that’s available.
- For indoor action, open the aperture to the maximum setting. You’ll probably want to set exposure manually for these types of photos. One of our earlier articles talks about the problems with auto-exposure. See Indoor Exposure Exposé http://pawprintspet.com/Exposure%202.html for tips on setting the exposure manually.
- At this point, you’re ready to shoot some action photos. Pick a spot by the ring that gives you a number of opportunities to photograph. Jumps and other obstacles where the dog is coming toward you are the best.
- Preset the zoom to the right length for the obstacle.
- Position the focus sensor on the dog, and activate it, usually by holding the shutter button halfway down. Do that well before the point you want to photograph. Start taking pictures before the point that most interests you, pan with the dog, and keep taking photos until the dog is through that obstacle. Then release the shutter button again.
Regardless of what happens, don’t get discouraged. Expect to throw away at least half of what you shoot. In each burst of pictures, you should be happy to get one good image, although that doesn’t always happen.
Finally, if it’s too dark to capture sharp action, try shooting the “action” where the dog isn’t moving, such as the start-line stay, the table, or the moment on the teeter when the dog pauses and the teeter starts to tip. Many dogs also pause at the top of the A-frame.
If you try these techniques, Virgil and I would be glad to hear about your results. Please email Rebecca@PawPrintsPet.com or Virgil@PawPrintsPet.com to let us know how these ideas works for you or to ask any questions you might have.
PawPrintsLife Blog
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
