Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, ISO 125,  f/1.4, 1/60 sec, +2/3 EV, IS on

Been playing around a bit with a Pentax FA 50 f/1.4 lens I’m borrowing. This shot was taken almost directly into the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows on the front of our house. So far I am finding the FA 50 to be a bit soft for my taste wide open (as you can see here) but the autofocus and extra 2/3 stop advantage over my old A series 50mm f/1.7 are nice. There does seen to be a fair amount of purple fringing in a lot of my shots but I have yet to really test the lens with anything more than some plinking around. I don’t think I’m going to do my usual full-on User Review for the FA 50. I’ll probably just do some anecdotal comparison to my old 50 f/1.7 for those people who either have an older manual focus lens and are thinking of upgrading or for those people who are considering their first fast fifty.

BTW, this image was imported into Lightroom using my standard import settings for my K10D. I then selected “daylight” for the white balance and nudged the blacks slider up to 16 to dial in a bit more contrast. Lastly, I cropped it square and rotated it slightly clockwise to adjust for level on the left side of the frame.

After shooting digital for 10 years I finally started shooting RAW exclusively in September 2008. What took me so long? Probably the same thing that keeps most amateur photographers from shooting RAW: the added time and complexity of post-processing RAW images. That all changed when I discovered Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s customizable default development settings. By creating a custom set of image adjustments I get Lightroom to do most of the work for me as I import my images. I often refer to my “default import settings” in my blog posts so I figured I should share what those settings are. Here are the settings that I have found that work best for me and my Pentax K10D in Lightroom v1.4 and make shooting RAW work so well for me:In order to create a set of custom develop settings you should start with Adobe’s default settings. To do so, select an image, enter the Develop Module and simply click on “Develop” in the menu bar then select “Set Default Settings…”

When the dialog box appears select “Restore Adobe Default Settings.” You will need to do this for each camera you use with Lightroom. To do so, simply find images shot with each camera and repeat this process (use the Metadata Browser in Library mode to find images shot with specific cameras). Obviously, don’t do this if you have previously saved custom develop settings you want to keep :-/

Once you have established a baseline for your develop settings it’s time to apply the adjustments you wish to make to ALL future images you import into Lightroom. I emphasized “all” because these settings should only serve as the basic image parameters you start with. Keep in mind that RAW files imported into LR do not retain any of the custom image settings that you apply in-camera (ie: sharpness, saturation, contrast, etc.). To automatically apply in-camera settings to your RAW files at import I’m pretty sure you have to use your camera manufacturer’s proprietary RAW software. Personally, I’d rather not be futzing with in-camera image parameter settings while I’m shooting and instead focus my time and attention on focus, composition and exposure. By creating this baseline default development setting you’ll only have to spend time adjusting white balance and applying creative effects.

The first area to adjust are the Basic settings. Be sure to leave the white balance (WB) default set to “As Shot.” Otherwise, LR will override your in-camera “auto” setting to whatever you select here (you are shooting in auto WB, right?). Once you have imported images adjusting white balance shot-to-shot will be one of the few things you will have to do. Of course the WB eyedropper makes this quick and easy and you can efficiently copy and paste settings to entire batches of photos shot in the same light. Sure beats having an entire batch of JPEGs shot at the wrong setting ;-)

Next, I like to dial in a bit of Clarity. I can’t really say what Clarity does but it seems to help define edges and brings out subtle details and gives images more depth. Too much Clarity can create distracting dark halos around edges much in the same way an over-processed HDR image does.

I also like to bump the Vibrance slider up a tad to make the color pop a bit more. I prefer using the Vibrance slider over the Saturation slider as Vibrance seems to be more subtle and does not blow out highlights as bad as Saturation does. This is a highly personal setting as many people prefer more neutral (say: “flat”) color. For me, I like my colors to pop. +25 is my baseline setting. I often go much higher :D

The only thing I do with the Tone Curve adjustment pane is to set the Point Curve to “Medium Contrast.” This seems to give the best overall balance to my images. Any other adjustments I make here are done on a case-by-case basis.

No default changes here. I only use the HSL / Color / Grayscale sliders to tweak specific areas of specific images (mostly to make a specific color pop or to tone map grayscale images).

Again, no default changes here. Thus far in my Lightroom usage the only thing I use Split Toning for is to warm up the occasional B&W image.

I do make a few changes to the Detail settings. I generally like my images to be sharp. However, I hate the look of “sharpened” images. I have found that dialing in a moderate amount of Sharpening at a relatively small radius gives the right look. A handful of Detail does just what you’d expect- pops detail- without over sharpening the overall image.

In my experience, all lenses impart some kind of CAs to images. Unfortunately, they don’t all do it in the same way at all times. The only default setting I have found that works well is setting the Defringe to All Edges. I like to use the Lens Corrections pane to add vignetting to some of my images for creative effect. However, I don’t always do this so I leave the Vignetting settings alone for my default settings.

I don’t know much about what is going on here. Logic would dictate that the specific camera model setting (Pentax 1.00 in my case) would be the way to go. However, my images are all jacked up if I use anything other than ACR 4.4. I’m sure that there’s some pretty useful fine tuning that can be done here but I just keep it on ACR 4.4 and close this pane so I’m not tempted to mess with it ;-)

Now, simply go back to “Develop”–>”Set Default Settings…” and this time select”Update to Current Settings.”

Now the next time you import a batch of RAW images Lightroom will apply your custom develop settings as the default baseline. This will keep you from having to hit every adjustment pane for every image- freeing you up to focus more on composition and creativity while still giving you the most control possible over your images!

There are few things more beautiful than a good sunset or sunrise photograph. However, if you’ve ever tried to do it you know it can be frustrating. How many times have you seen a beautiful sunset like the one above only to have your photo turn out something like this?

There are a couple of easy things you can do to get great sunset photos. First, turn off your flash. The only thing the flash is good for during a sunset is to add fill to illuminate a foreground subject. Unfortunately, getting the right mix of fill flash and background exposure can be very tricky:

Not a very inspiring photo (though after the number of rum punches I had I didn’t care). For now, let’s just turn the flash off and focus on capturing a brilliant sunset photo.

Next, set your white balance to auto. You can also try daylight but I have always found the auto setting gives the best mix of deep blues, pinks, reds and oranges.

I like to shoot sunsets with a wide angle lens to get as much of the sky in the picture as possible. This ensures a full mix of colors from the darkest indigo blues overhead to the brightest pinks and oranges at the horizon. Usually I leave only a strip of ground/foreground across the bottom to anchor the photo- letting the sky dominate the scene for maximum impact.

The main challenge with sunset photos is getting around the camera’s matrix metering’s natural tendency to balance exposure across the frame. The camera doesn’t know what’s going on and tries to balance the dark foreground with the bright background. The washed out example at the top is what you get when you just point-n-click. To get a decent sunset exposure you either need to dial in some negative exposure compensation (usually -2/3EV to -1EV). An easier method is to just aim the camera at an unobstructed portion of the sky, focus, lock exposure, recompose, and shoot. I typically use a little of both.

For the best sunset photos I typically like to wait for the sun to be fully below the horizon. That beautiful glowing orange ball of the sun absolutely wrecks exposure on a camera and typically results in pretty disappointing shots. Also, some cloud texture in the sky helps provide a good mix of colors. Be sure to look behind you as many times clouds away from the setting sun pick up some awesome colors. Finally, some good foreground silhouettes can help add additional visual interest (especially helpful if the sky itself is not as dramatic as it could be).

A medium aperture like f/8-f/10 is best to ensure the best detail and sharpness across the frame and eliminate vignetting typical at larger apertures when shooting at a wide zoom setting. Since I generally like to wait for the sun to drop fully, there’s typically not very much ambient light. This means I either need to be shooting on a tripod at a low ISO and slow shutter speed or bump the ISO up to prevent camera shake. These samples were all shot hand-held at ISO 200-400 and f/8 and f/10 at around 1/4 second. The combination of the K10D’s in-body IS and the wide focal length meant it only took a few tries to get sharp shots (wider zoom angles can be hand held at slower shutter speeds than longer ones).

Typically a properly shot sunset photo doesn’t require much post-processing. Since I shoot everything in RAW I have to tweak sharpness and saturation on all my photos in Lightroom. I can also play around with the white balance a bit to get the best pop from my images- though the as-shot (Auto) setting worked best for these images. Often I find the fluorescent WB preset works well for sunsets for some reason.

While a DSLR gives the most control over all of these settings, I have gotten wonderful sunset photos with a pocket camera by simply turning off the flash and using the focus, recompose and shoot method. Here is a collection of some of my other sunset photos on Flickr.

The most difficult part about getting good sunset shots is being at the right place at the right time with your camera. I hope this helps you get that great shot the next time that happens!