Hello everyone. I just joined the club as my DP2M arrived yesterday! I owe thanks to Quentin Bargate and Lloyd Chanbers for making me pull the trigger. I've spent a many hours reading forum threads about the camera. Impressive images posted online by both Quentin and Lloyd show the capabilities of the sensor and lens. Also, thanks to Uwe for some great images and interesting comments and to Michiel for the wonderful Cuba images as well as the facades. I'm going to Italy for a month in June and facades and street scenes are one of the reasons I bought the DP2M.
While reading this thread, I've been taking notes on recommended camera settings and usage of SPP. I have the following shooting tips: exposure: +.3 to +.7 (I have yet to blow out highlights using +.7), ISO: 100 or 200 (400 in a pinch). I believe that, since I'm shooting RAW only, camera settings (white balance, color, sharpening, contrast, saturation) affect only the settings when SPP is entered and can be changed in SPP (although it certainly helps to have a good starting state). I'm hoping someone can verify this.
I'm planning to use SPP minimally and do most adjustments in ACR and PS (similar to how I process files from my Canon 5DII). I've downloaded the latest camera firmware and release of SPP.
I believe I've learned from various posts that the following are best done in SPP prior to saving the file as a 16bit TIFF:
- Set the white balance in SPP; make only minimal changes in ACR. I've found this part of the interface difficult, although AWB gets me close.
- Set the clipping points for highlights & shadows in SPP.
- Set the working color space in SPP to ProPhoto.
- Do some capture sharpening in SPP. Recommended setting?
- Do some noise reduction in SPP. Recommended setting?
Ideally I'd like to do these settings in a batch mode but I'm not sure it can be done, particularly for the clipping points.