Photographing Peeps with 645z

[Dshelly]

I'm curious to know what autofocus selection 645 users have been using to shoot people. Personally, I've had the most success using the Select mode. The other selection modes appear to be the default 27-point auto selection, spot, expanded area, and zone select modes.

Have only had this camera for a couple days. Still getting familiar with it.

[ndevlin]

I use user point selection. the other modes do work, but like all auto-AF have just a high enough rate of focusing on the wrong point at the wrong time to be incompatible with important work.

- N.

[Gel]

Same as Nick above. I select the AF point and shoot.

[Dshelly]

Of note – I had been struggling with soft images with 645z and had pretty much tried everything from shooting handheld, tripod, studio lights, daylight, different ISO's and apertures, etc. I spoke over the phone with a customer service representative at Pentax USA ( a nice guy, btw) and he was stumped. He suggested I try adjusting my lenses via AF micro adjustment, but this didn't seem to help much.

After scrutinizing the images I turned my attention to the metadata, and what I discovered was that the color profile (Natural) I was working in had the sharpening set at -5. I set the sharpening to 0 and finally I started getting tack sharp images on full body shots. Just this little change turned it into a very different camera, which now has that wow factor, in terms of detail.

[ndevlin]

Glad to hear you got that worked out, but are you shooting jpegs? Can't recommend strongly enough that you not do that except in some high-volume situations where you can't post-process practically.

If not, is Lightroom applying those silly in-camera settings somehow?

- N.

[Dshelly]

I only shoot in RAW.  Be a shame to shoot jpegs with a hi-res camera like the 645z.  At the moment I'm using the standard profiles that came with the camera. Haven't had a chance to work with these files in LR. I'm hoping that the pending LR update has Pentax profiles that offer direct tethering into LR and also for seamless processing of Pentax files.

[ndevlin]

I'm trying to understand how the jpeg processing settings in the camera are impacting the RAW file rendering in Lightroom.  Am I getting this right: you use the "embedded" profile and this is importing the sharpness and colour balance settings that you manually set on the camera and applying them to the RAW file?

If you change to the Adobe Standard or another profile, do you end up with sharp images?

Or are these settings somehow hard-scripted into the RAW?

- N. 

[Dshelly]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have yet to load the Pentax RAW files into Lightroom. I don't shoot jpeg, never have. My issue has been that my images straight out of the 645z have been a tad soft regardless of the selected aperture, shutter speed, ISO or the lighting (daylight, strobes). I was stumped about this and it wasn't until I looked at the metadata that I discovered one possible reason for the soft images.

When I shoot in Canon, I use the NEUTRAL picture style because it's rather flat and gives me more latitude when I futz with the color in Lightroom. On the Pentax I went to the Custom Image screen and found the Pentax Picture Styles (Portrait, Landscape, etc.) and selected NATURAL because it was the closest to a flat picture style that I prefer. So when I checked the setting on this picture style (Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, etc.), I noticed that the Sharpness was set at -5. So I reset the sharpness to 0, and this gave me the edge to edge sharpness that I was looking for when shooting full-body shots. About the only time I pull down the sharpness in a picture style is when I'm shooting video because it lends to a more filmic look.

So for now, the camera is working for how I shoot, which is primarily, handheld.

[Hulyss]

I thought that when you shoot raw, all settings applied in camera are just accessory (apart colour space). That mean that whatever picture mode you choose or tweaking you do on sharpness/sat... etc ON camera have no impact on the final raw. If you open the raw, it will show a picture with in camera settings but you have your hands on all. You can change from neutral to vivid without any lose or whatever, change your sharpness and so on. You can even shoot in B&W raw on camera and then work your colour inside the raw developer without any impact.

I ask because I work with cameras who work that way so it sound a bit odd for me

[Dshelly]

Yes, that's exactly how the Canon works, as well. You can change the RAW color profiles in Canon DPP or Lightroom. The color profiles adjust the settings (saturation, sharpness, etc.), which can be changed or directly modified within the same color profile. I was late in figuring out that the color profile setting I was using was the culprit for soft images - or so I think. I don't know - perhaps I'm wrong and just might grapple with the issue of soft images after more tests. But for now, the change in the color profile has seemed to have worked. I have not tried the other profiles to see if sharpness is an issue with them. I have noticed that the default for sharpness in most profiles is -4. I did buy this camera used, so the previous owner may have altered the settings in the color profiles.

[mcbroomf]

How were you viewing the images if you had not loaded them into LR?  On the back of the camera?  If that is so then you are most likely looking at the embedded jpg that raw files have, and this would be why it's affected by the -5 setting.  If not on camera what were you using?

[Dshelly]

I'm using the Pentax software that came with the camera. It's a bare bones utility, much like Canon's DPP, which is just fine to view the image and zoom in. Certainly not something I would use to modify a photo.