Shooting using RAW and Aperature Mode

[Tindomul]

So I decided to start using Aperature mode on my Nikon D40 dslr. I found that the colours of my photos are closer to true life. I wish I had known that a loooooong time ago. Here is an example. I took a photo of the flower of my Tillandsia cyanea in the beginning of March, I could not get a purplish colour on the flowers, instead they came out a vibrant blue. I think today I got closer to the true colour. The Raw image also helped me edit the colours better in photoshop elements.

Here are the photos from before (March)

Tillandsia cyanea-08 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

Tillandsia cyanea-07 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

And these are the photos from today using Aperature mode.

Tillandsia cyanea-12 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr
The flowers came out a little too lavendar in this photo

Tillandsia cyanea-11 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

I think this is the closest to real life.

Tillandsia cyanea-10 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

I guess any advice or comments are welcome. Even the flower stalk is showing its real colours in today's pictures.

[Paul Mc]

OMG!!!! Great colors!!!!

[silken]

Great pictures! Aperture Priority wouldn't technically make your colours better. But if you were shooting in an automatic mode before, your camera would have controlled a lot of settings. Then it was maybe selecting a different white balance setting or metering the scene differently which would affect colours. When you are in aperture priority, shutter priority or manual modes, than the settings are controlled by you for the most part and not over-ruled by the camera. You choose the aperture to get a depth of field that is good and the shutter speed is automatically chosen for a good exposure based on that aperture.
Using RAW will give you a much better quality and lots more control over white balance and exposure to name just a few things. If the colours are off, in RAW you can do a lot to correct it without degrading the photo quality. I shoot everything in RAW and use aperture priority most of the time as well!

[Tindomul]

Thanks Silken. I feel that I have had my camera for three years and have not used it to its potential. I did change the exposure levels on the camera as I was taking the picture and found myself playing with the fstop.
Any idea what f stops are great for flower photography??

[silken]

I have a Nikon D80. The first thing I did when I got it a few years back was read the manual and know where everything is. I think its important to do that. The f stops are the aperture settings. They usually range from something like f/1.4 all the way up to f/36. The small numbers such as f/1.4or f/2.8 have a very shallow depth of field (what is in focus from front to back), and a large opening in the lens to let the light in. The largest numbers such as f/36 have the largest depth of field so almost everything is in focus front to back, but have a tiny pinhole so you need a slow shutter speed to get a good enough exposure. Also a tripod which is good anyways.

It sort of depends on the type of flower picture you want as to what aperture (f/stop) to use. If you have a good flat bloom and only want it in focus, then f2/8 or f/4 might be good. If you have a cluster of blooms and want them all in focus or some leaves in focus, then you might go for something like f/8 or f/11. Most lenses have their best quality in the neighborhood of f/11 but it will not be an extremely noticeable thing. Remember when looking thru your lens, you won't see the true depth of field because when it's not actually taking the picture, it is always at the largest aperture, which is often f/2.8 or f/4 depending what lens you have. So it will be a shallow depth of field you see, even if your setting is for f/11 which will happen the instant you snap the photo. My camera has a 'Depth of Field Preview" button on the bottom right under the lens, but I don't know if your model does. With that you can hold the button while looking in the viewfinder and actually see the real depth of field you are getting with your chosen aperture.

If you are wanting to use your settings more and have better control of the camera. a book I enjoyed and found useful was called "Understanding Exposure' by Bryan Peterson. It was fun and easy to understand.

[stefpix]

I shoot RAW, but I feel sometimes the colors of JPGs are more accurate. Adobe has to reverse engineer the RAW files so there is an open interpretation. I find I have always to lower the magenta in Lightroom.

If you change one variable like the curves the colors may be affected too. Anyway I do not really care in perfect reproduction of reality. In the era of film photography different emulsions, papers etc gave very different results...

[ronaldhanko]

Silken is correct that shooting in Aperture Mode will not in itself change the colors - that it was probably other adjustments in Automatic Mode that were giving you colors you didn't like. To add to what he said, however, I shoot only in Aperture Mode when doing flowers because it gives me complete control over the depth of field - the higher the f/stop the greater the depth of field (but the less light). Depth of field is the area in focus from front to back of what you are photographing. If you only want a tiny bit of the flower to be in focus, a petal edge or a detail, then you use a low f/stop and if you want as much of the flower as possible to be in focus you use a high f/stop number. As Silken said, you don't need as much depth of field with a flat subject. What you'll find, however, is that the closer you get to something the more the depth of field decreases at the same f/stop. Thus, if I am using my macro lens as close as possible to a small subject I shoot at f/32 or close to that, but at that f/stop the light entering is so little (the shutter may be open from 15-30 seconds) that I have to use a tripod. Almost all my macro photography, therefore, even in the field is done with a tripod for that reason.

[silken]

I too use a tripod for everything I can. It just makes for a much sharper photo and allows you to use the small apertures (large f stops numbers like f/32) which will require a slow shutter speed. Once you get used to a tripod, you feel lost without it!

[Ray]

Adding an off-cameras shutter release is also handy to reduce the potential movement caused by pressing the button.

[tucker85]

Thanks for all the great information in this thread. I use a Nikon 3100 and almost always use manual mode. I'm not familiar with the term RAW. What does that mean?