D80 v. Fuji S9500: Comparison

[birsay]

As promised, here are two sets of comparisons of D80/Fuji S9500 pics for comparison of their relative exposure. I mentioned in my original post over in the "Say Hello" forum that I found the shadow areas of the D80 images somewhat darker than I had been used to with the Fuji...based on these images, what does the forum think?

I know that the quality of the D80's images far exceeds the Fuji, but in the first pair, the Fuji has exposed the shadow of the track at bottom left and the trees at the right fairly well, while the D80 has exposed both a tad on the dark side....on the other hand, the Fuji's sky at the horizon is almost blown, the D80's isn't. I assume therefore that the D80 is taking into account the highlights and ensuring they don't blow, while the Fuji is doing the opposite, blowing the highlights to get the shadows more correctly exposed...is this a correct assumption? Certainly the respective histograms suggest this.

Apologies that these are not scientific comparisons, but they're the best I've got. I think the Fuji's WB was set to Cloudy, the D80 to Auto, and they were both taken with Program AE. I'll post some other 'dark' D80 shots tomorrow - grateful for your comments on those too.

Regards,

Birsay

I would say the all round quality of 1 & 3 exceeds 2 & 4 comfortably (not quite clear which is D80, so I am not rooting for it per se)

However, you will find you have a very fine degree of control of this in post-processing to get exactly what you want, and especially I think (being a Canon+DPP man) if use Nikon NX and shoot in RAW, see thread

http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=1341

[birsay]

Thanks for the quick comments; the D80 images are 1 and 3, as you determined (sorry I didn't annotate the images).

I use PS2 for post-processing and ACDSee for image management, so yes, post-processing will certainly work, I'm just trying to determine if the D80's images are under-exposed, and therefore the camera may be at fault (only had it since February, so still climbing the learning curve!) or if how it's exposing is what others (D80 owners in particular) would judge to be OK.

Regards

Birsay

To some extent exposure in landscape shots is as subjective as composition. Try setting the mode to Manual and centre-point only exposure reading then waft the centre point around the subject area (as you may wish to do to choose the most important focus point to lock onto), you will find a considerable variation of over/under exposure read-out. In manual mode, YOU then make the choice of the appropriate exposure.

If you set the mode to a camera programme such as landscape, the camera decides for you.

The beauty of shooting RAW/NEF is that you have a 2nd go when postprocessing using the basic data collected by the sensor. This is different and less likely to lead to noise and un-natural colours than if you 'comb' out pixels using levels or shadows/highlights in PS. That is because the camera sensor collects the info for both over- and under-exposure cases. NX is a higher precision tool set for then teasing out what you want than is PS.

[carman]

I was interest in this so I downloaded the images and had a play in Adobe Lightroom, my favourite RAW converter. I think the Nikon shots were slightly under exposed , a plus in digital, the Fuji shot was slightly over exposed. I was actually impressed with how little difference there is. I am about to buy a 9600 for those times I don't want to use an SLR. I guess that starting with RAW in both cases would give good images. The 9600 seems to me to convert to mono easier than the D80.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by carman

The 9600 seems to me to convert to mono easier than the D80.

All easy peasy in NX. Never tried Adobe Lightroom.

In my opinion NX is the best converter for RAW images taken with Nikon cameras. Worth every penny.

Don

[birsay]

Hi Carman,

For family snaps, the S9500/S9600 is great, and I've really enjoyed using it...I'm torn between selling it to recoup some of the cost of the D80 and keeping it as a second camera...choices, choices

I agree, it's better to have some shadow to play with in an image than to have blown (and hence unrecoverable) highlights; I'm just trying to find out if the D80 pics *should* look a bit on the dark side...if the general consensus is "yes", then I'm happy.

Regards

Birsay

[Birdsnapper]

I think that the Nikon is slightly under-exposed, but playing about in PS, I lightened the image, which still remained quite rich, and retained the details in the sky. I think that it gave a more pleasing image than the Fugi.

[Don Hoey]

I don't have a D80 but cannot see any problem with the exposure on those images.

You might care to check this link to the DPR review of the D80 http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/page19.asp

Don

[carman]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

All easy peasy in NX. Never tried Adobe Lightroom.

In my opinion NX is the best converter for RAW images taken with Nikon cameras. Worth every penny.

Don

Unfortunately I use Olympus. I used to use Rawshooter until Adobe bought Pixmantec. I'm very happy with LR though. I thought the shadow detail on the 9600 image gave a more pleasing mono with least effort. I'm sure both are good when you know how.