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Monitor Calibration Part 1

If you can not trust the colors displayed on your monitor, all other color management is a waste of time. Calibrating and profiling your monitor should, therefore, be your first priority. Luckily, it is the easiest part of the image capture, editing, and printing system to profile. The cost to do this ranges from free to expensive. If color accuracy and the ability to match your prints to your monitor are important to you, a decent hardware calibration system is essential. With a little work you can get good color from your monitor. If digital photography is your business, or you simply want the best colors you can get, the expense of a high quality calibration system is more than justified. (Continued...)

Labels: Pentax K100D, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:25 AM | Permalink

Monitor Calibration Part 2

The most basic calibration tool, other than ignoring calibration altogether, is Adobe Gamma. This is certainly better than nothing, but leaves much to be desired. The sole advantage is that it is free (once you purchase Photoshop). The primary problem is that your basic eyeball calibration is highly influenced by ambient lighting, how much sleep you've had, and how much coffee is coursing through your veins. Obtaining a consistent viewing environment is difficult under these conditions. If you are stuck with eyeball calibration, Norman Koren put together a set of charts that work better than those bundled with Adobe Gamma. (Continued...)

Labels: Pentax K100D, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:23 AM | Permalink

Location: Perhentian Island, Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D50 and Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX (kit-lens)

Monitor Calibration Part 3

Hardware based monitor calibrators provide far more accurate and repeatable results. The results of our ongoing tests and reviews of monitor calibrators is found here. To get the best results from your monitor, it is important to understand the steps involved. The first is calibration; i.e. setting your monitor to a well defined, standard state. You need to select a color temperature to work with.

PC video cards and monitors are usually shipped with a white point set to 9300°K. This gives a bluish tint to everything. It is often used for CAD work stations or in video games where maximum color contrast is desired.

For photography, however, color accuracy is more important. The next standard color temperature is 5000°K (or its close cousin D50). This is the color of lighting in art galleries, and approximates sunlight. On many PC monitors it produces white colors with a dingy, yellowish cast. For some Macs, it is a viable choice. A better choice is often 6500°K (or D65).

Most monitors reach useful brightness levels much more easily at 6500°K/D65 than at 5000°K/D50. Also, some monitors display reddish highlights at D50. Play with your monitor settings and decide which looks best. (Continued...)

Labels: AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX, Nikon D50, Perhentian 2007, Photography

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:19 AM | Permalink

Location: Perhentian Island, Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D50 and AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens

Monitor Calibration Part 4

If you have a LCD screen and your calibration system allows using the native white point, do so. This preserves the maximum possible color range on LCD monitors.

Next, select the gamma to use. The traditional value for older black and white Macintosh monitors was a gamma of 1.8. This also worked for video systems capable of only showing 16 colors. Almost all modern CRT monitors, however, have a native gamma of close to 2.2, which is determined by the design of the electron guns.

The farther you drag the video system from this optimal level, the more calibration artifacts such as shadow banding and posterization appear. Therefore, a gamma of 2.2 allows for the maximum range of colors your system can display. Ideally, amonitor calibration system allows calibrating to the native gamma. (Continued...)

Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Nikon D50, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:15 AM | Permalink

Location: Perhentian Island, Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D40 digital camera and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Monitor Calibration Part 5

After selecting a color temperature and gamma, the next calibration step involves setting the black (brightness) and white (contrast) levels to their optimum values.

Start by setting the black to zero and the contrast to 100%. On CRT monitors, contrast at 100% usually gives the most possible colors, but is sometimes uncomfortably bright. LCD monitors usually need the contrast reduced slightly to avoid blowing out all fine details. Your calibration software will guide you to getting the optimum level.

The brightness should be set so almost black is just barely distinguishable from pure black. Set brightness too low, and all your shadow details go dark. Set too high, the shadows get washed out. Again, follow the instructions in your calibration software. Most calibration software and/or hardware works best, however, if you start the adjustment process with the brightness and contrast controls set to their extremes. (Continued...)

Labels: Night, Nikon D40, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:13 AM | Permalink

Location: Perhentian Island, Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D40 digital camera and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Monitor Calibration Part 6

Once you have the screen levels set, the Red, Green, and Blue guns need to be balanced so neutral colors do not show a color cast. Do as many of these adjustments by using your monitor's display controls as possible (don't worry, your calibration software will give details on how to do this). Adobe Gamma or any of the hardware calibration packages can do everything by adjusting your video card alone, but the result is a reduced color gamut for your display. This is not good, as you will clip the purest, most saturated colors. (Continued...)

Labels: Landscape, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Philosophy of Photography, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:11 AM | Permalink

Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D40 digital camera and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Monitor Calibration Part 7

After the monitor is calibrated, a profile is made. If you used Adobe Gamma, the program merely writes out a profile table describing the adjustments you made made. If you used a hardware calibrator, the sensor measures a set of color patches to determine the limits of the monitors color display capability.

You can see which monitor profile Photoshop (version 6 and above) is actually using by opening Edit->Color Settings. Expand the RGB working space list, and scroll up. You'll see a line with "Monitor RGB - xyz." The file listed instead of xyz is the monitor profile Photoshop displays all images in. This is important to check, as some profiling software packages can write invalid profiles. If this occurs, Photoshop ignores the profile and displays in a default space that is guaranteed not to match your monitor. (Continued...)

Labels: Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:09 AM | Permalink

Me and Ayu get to stay at this bungalow during our visit to Perhentian Island.

Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Monitor Calibration Part 8

We have a pair of test images to help evaluate your monitor calibration. The first is a test of the black point and shadow performance. The second diagnoses incorrect gamma settings and provides an overall check of screen neutrality.

Notes:

• Before you embark on any monitor calibration journey, make sure your display is suitably warmed up. This entails having the display on (and not in screen saver mode) for an hour or so. Also, try to minimize any glare on the screen, or light shining directly at the display. This is particularly important if you are performing calibration by eye.
• The characteristics of a monitor change with time. It is a good idea to re-calibrate and profile your display every week or two.

Labels: Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:06 AM | Permalink

Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D50 and AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens

Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Nikon D50, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:03 AM | Permalink

Perhentian is the malay word for "Stop over"

Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia
Taken with a Nikon D50 and AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens

Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Landscape, Nikon D50, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 8:01 AM | Permalink

Our photos; we believe in it, and we think it has great value and that is what we want to show up in our work. Everyone who is looking at our photographs is also very subjective and they react to it through who they are and they get something from it and you never know if they're getting what we (want them to get.)

It's unreasonable to think that they are gonna get exactly what we want and what we got from the situation but we hope we can bring them close so they can feel and think more or less the way we do about that situation. Very often it's an important issue to us. It’s not just trying to make something look beautiful; we're usually photographing issues for a lot of reasons, most of them subjective, and with intent.

Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Landscape, Nikon D50, People, Perhentian 2007, Philosophy of Photography, Photography

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 7:57 AM | Permalink

This guide is a cut-n-paste from Bill's discussion on nikonians.org

I'll probably take some heat for saying this but...

AF errors original in the body and not with the lens.
AF, like metering, always occurs with the lens wide open so that's why aperture doesn't matter.
The decreased Depth Of Field (DOF) of the wider aperture is why AF errors are more apparent with fast lens.
Therefore I think you may have an AF issue with your D50 body.

There are many ways to test this; probably more than 50% of them are invalid.
All the tests that are valid have one thing in common; you AF on a target that is perpendicular to the camera, not at any angle.

Here are two variations:

1) On a tripod, with a focusing rail if available; AF on a target at the minimum aperture of the lens and then set the body to MF.
Take an image at the AF position.
Then move the entire camera away from the target a small amount and take another image.
Do it several times and then repeat moving the camera forward several times.
How much to move and how many images is not an exact science.
But with a target about 400-500mm away I'd say increments of about 5mm or 1/4 inch and about 5 images on either side of the AF position is a good place to start.
Examine the images, if they get sharper as you move the camera away or toward the target then AF accuracy is not perfect.
No camera is perfect, so the question is how bad?

For an example of what you might see look at A Technique for Measuring Relative Sharpness (2005-08-04 86/7071) on my web site.
The second chart in the initial post shows this nicely.

2) A variation on the "ruler shot".
Use a "lazy susan" or turntable and place a ruler so the face of the ruler runs through the center of the turntable.
AF at the minimum aperture with the ruler perpendicular to the camera and set the body to MF.
Rotate the turntable about 45 degrees and take your shot.
You should not be too close to the target with a wide angle lens because this will distort your perception of the result; but a gross AF will clearly show.

If your body needs AF adjustment it is best done my Nikon.
But if you're gutsy and the D50 is like the D70 then you can take a look at this AF Sensor Nerdvana Achieved

Good luck!!!
Bill

Visit me at: http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70

"AF Sensor Nerdvana Achieved"

PREFACE

I will preface this post by saying that in taking over 24,000 pictures with my D70 I have never had problem with an image that I attributed to an AF Sensor adjustment issue. However, in more exacting tests of image sharpness; I have known for some time that my D70 has been back-focusing slightly. So, as winter sets in; I have decided to adjust my AF accuracy. I'll outline what I did but this procedure clearly is not for everyone.

BACKGROUND

AF accuracy depends in large part on adjusting the AF mirror. The mirror needs to be adjusted so the distance from mirror to AF Sensor and the distance from mirror to CCD Sensor match.
The adjustment is performed by turning an elliptical peg that the mirror rests against in the D70 body. There are two pegs, the one closer to the CCD sensor adjusts the AF mirror, the other controls the Viewfinder mirror. The peg accepts a 2mm hex wrench.

The Viewfinder and AF mirror adjustments interact. If I were adjusting both I would do the Viewfinder first; but my Viewfinder seemed fine so I went straight to the AF mirror adjustment.

Obviously, to perform this adjustment you need a good way to judge sharpness. I use custom written software to analyze the raw linear data in NEF files to get an "objective" measure of sharpness.

See the cached Nikonian thread on my web site entitled A Technique for Measuring Relative Sharpness (2005-08-04 86/7071) (particularly post#7) for details.
(The average and standard deviation in Photoshop histograms could be used to approximate my technique.)

PROCEDURE

My D70 was mounted on an Adorama focusing rail (really a focusing stage) on a tripod.
My test target was alternating white and black lines on a vertically positioned LCD monitor.
(My sharpness measure requires a repeating high contrast image.)
I used a 50mm f/1.8 AF Nikkor at f/1.8 at a distance of approximately 500mm from the target.

To collect one set of data I would

1. AF with a half-press of the shutter
2. Switch the body from AF to M focusing
3. Move the body forward 3mm
4. Take 7 shots moving the body backward 1mm after each shot
5. Switch the body back to AF from M focusing

The result is 7 images (from -3 to +3) centered about the AF point.

I would compute sharpness for the 7 images and plot the result.
The desired result is a U-shaped curve with 0 as the sharpest point.
Lines that slope up are front-focus; lines that slope down are back-focus.
Turn the peg CCW to fix front-focus; turn it CW to fix back-focus.

I get access to the peg the same way as I would to do a sensor cleaning.
I lock the mirror up and I take the battery out.

RESULT

After a number of attempts (10!) I have reached AF Sensor nerdvana.

Here is the chart of my attempts:
http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70/gif/AFAdjustTry.gif

My first adjustment was in the wrong direction and then I moved slowly toward my goal.
This adjustment is quite sensitive and I think would be much more challenging without an objective way to measure sharpness.
Note that the final set of 7 images are visually identical when viewed at 100%

Here's a sharpness chart for the final cam position from -5mm to 5mm:
http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70/gif/AFAdjustCenter.gif

To state the obvious, I adjusted for the center AF Sensor; and the others are just along for the ride. If the AF Sensors are not all in the same plane then the off-center sensors will be out of adjustment. In that case I would imagine the camera would need Nikon service rather than self adjustment.

However, in my case things look pretty good. Here are sharpness profiles for all 5 AF sensors:
http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70/gif/AFAdjustAll.gif

And considering that my LCD monitor might not be perfectly square to the camera I think this results is excellent.

(Looks to me to be more square left/right than up/down.)

Bill

Visit me at: http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70

Labels: Landscape, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 7:53 AM | Permalink

They may love your stuff; they may love the story. That doesn't mean they are going to interpret it the same way you want them to. ‘This is what it means to me. This is the way I want you to get it; I want you to go from A to Z in my order of things not in your order of things.’

Labels: Landscape, Nikon D40, People, Perhentian 2007, Philosophy of Photography, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 7:50 AM | Permalink

Location, Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia

Taken with D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Labels: Landscape, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 7:48 AM | Permalink

Sasman and Azimim got that room on the first floor

Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia

Taken with D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Labels: Landscape, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:45 AM | Permalink

The famous photographer James Balog was once asked:

Were you looking at other photographers' work or nature photographers' work, or were you maybe more inspired by documentary photographers?

And he answered:

Well, early on I learned a lot from looking at other photographers' work, and I was inspired by people who were doing that modernist landscape thing--Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. I was inspired by what I saw in National Geographic. I also was inspired by Eugene Richards and Eugene Smith, their concerned humanistic photojournalism.

Over time, I realized that because of my core interest in nature, I really wasn't an urban photojournalist, which is what photojournalism is about--it's about things that happen in urban places to the human race. What I was interested in was what's happening out in the natural spaces and what's happening between people and nature.

It seems like a real shame that the environmental side of photography hasn't focused enough on this interface between humans and nature. That's a big story, and there's a lot to look at, a lot to think about, a lot to talk about. Yet most photography that's concerned with nature focuses on the pure wilderness experience. All those pictures look alike. The room for creativity and innovation and invention is in how we're conceiving of our place in nature. That's where the frontier is, and that's where I've tried to be.

Labels: Pentax K100D, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:37 AM | Permalink

Taken with D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens
Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia

Labels: Nikon D40, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:34 AM | Permalink

We sometimes call him "Datuk K"

Taken with D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens
Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia

Labels: Night, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:27 AM | Permalink

Taken with D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia

Labels: Landscape, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:25 AM | Permalink

The best pictures are uninvited. They're suddenly there in front of you. But they are there one minute and gone the next. I mean it is quite easy to take a photograph, but difficult to get the shot.

Labels: Pentax K100D, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:20 AM | Permalink

Taken with a Nikon D50 and Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX (kit-lens)

Location: Perhentian Island, Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia

Labels: AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX, Landscape, Night, Nikon D50, Perhentian 2007, Photography

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:14 AM | Permalink

Taken with Nikon D40 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens

Location, Perhentian Island, Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia

Labels: Landscape, Night, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 3:09 AM | Permalink

Taken with a Pentax K100D and Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro lens

Location: Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia.

Labels: Pentax K100D, People, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 2:32 AM | Permalink

A long exposure using the D40 from the beach in front of The Reff Chalets looking toward Coral View Resort. Just a few minutes before the storm.

Labels: Landscape, Night, Nikon D40, Perhentian 2007, Photography, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin at 2:21 AM | Permalink