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Equipment Details
I have now had the experience of seeing photo sets from numerous photographers from many outings and have waded through the endless task of color correcting and re-mastering. On on the whole I am not displeased with the results, and I do appreciate all the time volunteered, and the difficult shooting situations. But I have intimately seen all the mistakes, bad or incorrect settings, misuse of automatic features and inattention to detail, and I am including my own work in the assessment of problems. Since the images from different photographers have to work together as a set it is best that we establish standards to follow at the beginning.Camera Settings
✓ Set to RAW format. No more jpegs! The exposure and color adjustment flexibilities in post-production are FAR superior. Shots that are junk as jpegs can often be saved if they are in the raw format.✓ Set to highest possible resolution (pixel dimensions).
✓ Set color temperature to daylight. DO NOT use automatic white balance. You can also do your own manual white balance with a card. As long as one setting is used for the day (or for a given situation/sequence). I always know when auto white balance was used because the sand and rocks subtly shift color from frame to frame or sequence to sequence. Imagine how much aggrevation you can save me trying to match all the photos in a set and also match them to what others have shot. It is better that you set to "daylight" even if the whole set will be slightly off. At least they will be consistent; I can uniformly color correct the set - that is not a problem.
✓ Setting Exposure Index (EI): You want to choose the highest quality setting you can for the conditions encountered (the lowest number is the highest quality but requires more light). In sunlight with a normal to wide lens you should be able to shoot at an EI of 50 and still have a high enough shutter to capture action. Longer lenses, overcast conditions or shadowed forests probably will require shifting up to 100 or 200 EI. I have shot at 400 on a shoot but later found the digital grain to be noticable when cropping in.
✓ Set the Color Space to "sRGB" - not critical but helps simplify my process.
✓ Make sure your meter mode is NOT on "spot metering" unless this is really what you want and know how to use.
✓ Set the file numbering to "Continuous". It can be confusing to get sets of photos from you where the numbering starts back at 001 for each CF card set of images.
✓ Set the Date and Time - Obtain the exact time from a time server on the internet. Sometimes it is helpful for me to compare the time stamp on photos from different people.
Equipment Notes
✓ If possible, you should have 2 camera bodies so that you can shoot with a variety of lenses and minimize how often you change them.✓ Be prepared to use a flash in sunlight, but use it so the effect of it is not obvious.
✓ Make sure you have more than enough battery power for the day.
✓ If you can, try to have enough CF cards for 1000 or more raw images (just in case!). Mark each one with your initials. Important! At the end of the day when I am downloading I could get cards from different people confused.
✓ If you have any kind of underwater shooting capability, please bring it along!
✓ Clean your CCD! Right now, the CCD in your camera has dirt on it. I can almost guarantee it. Every set of photos I get from people has these dirt specks, which I have to meticulously remove frame by frame. Often they are not visible when there is a lot of detail or if a wide aperature (f-stop) was used. The dust is mostly visible against open sky when a small aperature (eg f16) is used. The dust appears as soft blobs when a wider aperature is used. Before a shoot day, I always check for dirt in the following way: Set your camera to manual exposure and set the smallest f-stop (Highest number) possible. Experiment setting the shutter until you find a setting where the sky is pretty bright, a light grey or light blue. Use a normal to wide focal-length lens, not telephoto. Focus close so that birds and planes blur out and do not show up. Now shoot a frame of the open sky. Download to your computer and examine the frame to see how bad the situation is. The dirt specs should be pretty sharp and visible. I clean my ccd in a way that is not recommended but works for me. Use the setting that opens the shutter exposing the ccd to view. Do not touch it with anything! I use a compressed air blower that is less than half full (you do not want freon to expell out onto your ccd!). I carefully move in and position the plastic extension tube nozzle within 5mm of the ccd and gently expell air at the spot where I think the dirt is (remember, the image is upside down). Do not blow full pressure, do not let anything touch the ccd. Repeat the process until you have a clear image. Recently I had a stubborn speck that would not come off so I rolled up some lens cleaning tissue and gently rubbed one end on the ccd. That did the trick. Do all of this like brain surgery. Do this at your own risk. Don't blame me if you destroy your camera. Your alternative is to take it in to the shop (I did this once and got it back dirtier than before).
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