That's what I get for venturing out of my comfort zone

[tc95]

David,

Thanks...I did a shoot for a friend a few weeks ago...and had that UH-OH moment too...forgot my camera was set to ISO 800 on a sunny day...got half way thru the shoot before I realized it...had some cool shots...but not what my friend wanted...corrected the error and the second half had good shots....

I think I am going to put a check-list together for pre-shoots, as a double check...

[darktiger]

Agreed... thanks david... I think a lot of us can learn/a lot of us learn from these types of things.... But getting out of your comfort zone is part of expanding your knowledge.. you just have to choose the right time :)

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by dmcantrell

I think what might be missing from my description is the kind of details that I typically use the LCD screen to verify. On my D300 anyway, I can easily check things like exposure, framing, background clutter, perspective, and gross focus quality. It's the finer, subtle aspects that are difficult to validate on my tiny LCD screen. For example, I can easily check for gross focus errors out in the field on my D300 LCD screen. However, it's not until I get home and get the photos blown up 100% that I catch the critical focus differences. I'm not talking about blurry, out-of-focus photos. I'm talking about the photos where the focal point wasn't on the eye, or where the focus was slightly in front of the face causing an ever-so-slight softening of the lips. I have a hard time picking out these subtle details on my D300's LCD screen. For me, the same holds true for the shadow detail in this case. What I was going for with the speedlights was a slight brightening of the shadows, just a "touch". I could not make out these details out in the field on the LCD screen, but it could just be me and my D300.

Just FYI for future reference you can zoom in to 100% on the LCD review on the D300 and most newer Nikons. I seriously doubt a focus error too subtle too see on the LCD at 100% would show up in a print. I have the button in the center of the D-Pat set to automatically zoom to 100% both in review and in LiveView, and find it very useful.

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

Just FYI for future reference you can zoom in to 100% on the LCD review on the D300 and most newer Nikons. I seriously doubt a focus error too subtle too see on the LCD at 100% would show up in a print. I have the button in the center of the D-Pat set to automatically zoom to 100% both in review and in LiveView, and find it very useful.

Thanks Jeff, I was using this, the problem is that the subtle focus errors that I'm referring too were not at the same place on every frame. This client needed to be in and out pretty quickly, so we were working under a time constraint. While I did zoom in 100%, it wasn't always the right spot and I didn't want to waste too much time panning around on the LCD screen while they stood out in the chilly wind. Maybe the time pressure got the better of me in this case, because I missed them out in the field.

There's also the possibility that I'm being OCD about "focus errors" in my anecdote here. I may have tossed out some photos that would have printed just fine.

I'll have to look into this setting to make the one-touch 100% zoom though. I've been using the "+" to increase to 100% which takes a few keystrokes. This sounds useful, thanks!