schmebay Posted October 24, 2009 Share #1 Posted October 24, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Played with my NEW Leika D-Lux 4 for a while last night .. Got up this morning and my pretty decent settings did not save .. Can't tell what I am doing different today. Hard to explain the problem . . But maybe someone can take a peek at these two pictures. HERE IS A LINK TO THE PICS One day I hope to take decent pictures and I wouldn't want these horrible pictures lingering behind here.... I don't expect to take an ONLINE photography class here .. just want a little push in the right direction. Also, is there a way that you can set the timer to ALWAYS give you 2 seconds before it takes the picture. I notice when I press the button the camera also moves some. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 24, 2009 Posted October 24, 2009 Hi schmebay, Take a look here What am I doing wrong ??. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
stuny Posted October 28, 2009 Share #2 Posted October 28, 2009 Diane - I don’t have any cameras in the D-Lux series so I cannot tell you exactly what to do, but other D-Lux series owners probably can. Also the user manual probably can as well. To get you started: White balance: I suspect that the default setting for your camera is for the white balance to assume the light source is equivalent to daylight or flash, which is usually the same as daylight. I also assume that the lights you used for the shot were from tungsten bulbs, and shot indoors. Relatively speaking, tungsten light leans far more to the warmer colors (yellows, oranges and reds); and daylight more towards the cooler colors (blue). In the manual find how to set either the white balance or color temperature. If I recall properly, tungsten light has a color temperature of about 3200 degrees, and daylight of about 5600 degrees (don’t ask). Macro focus: Assuming you are using automatic focus your camera will try to focus on what it “sees” in the center of the image, and there probably is some indicator of exactly what that area is (check the manual). Position that area on the most important part of your subject, press the shutter release halfway down so that the camera will auto focus, and when you see it is in focus, press the shutter release the rest of the way. There is no doubt some indicator on the screen to tell you the camera has achieved focus. If your camera has two different auto focus settings (perhaps marked AF and AF-Macro), use the macro setting. Distance: The farther away from the object that you have the camera, everything else being equal, the greater the depth of focus. Therefore, if you are okay with cropping the image after shooting, and if your subject has depth, it will probably be better to be a bit further away from the subject. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted October 28, 2009 Share #3 Posted October 28, 2009 Diane, some excellent advice here from Stuart. Even as a D-Lux 4 user I have little to add to what he has said. It is a white balance issue, for sure. Setting manual white balance is the answer. It looks like you have mastered the macro setting, but you may like to consider two other things - 1. The D-Lux 4 has a hotshoe. You can use off-camera flash by using a Nikon cord (the connectors are in the same places) The cord I have used in the past is an SC-17, but I think it has been discontinued and replaced by a different designation. Off camera flash will give you better modelling on small items. 2, Are you using a table-top tripod or similar? It will make a repetitive set-up much easier. Regards, Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmebay Posted October 28, 2009 Author Share #4 Posted October 28, 2009 Diane, some excellent advice here from Stuart. Even as a D-Lux 4 user I have little to add to what he has said. It is a white balance issue, for sure. Setting manual white balance is the answer. It looks like you have mastered the macro setting, but you may like to consider two other things - 1. The D-Lux 4 has a hotshoe. You can use off-camera flash by using a Nikon cord (the connectors are in the same places) The cord I have used in the past is an SC-17, but I think it has been discontinued and replaced by a different designation. Off camera flash will give you better modelling on small items. 2, Are you using a table-top tripod or similar? It will make a repetitive set-up much easier. Bill I have a tripod, but unfortunately my table top is large but not large enough for my light box and the tripod. I usually use the 2 second timer and use that 2 seconds to check the focus and steady my hand after pushing the button. I bought this small light box .. made of metal and glass rather than nylon like my larger one .. but to tell the truth .. either I don't know ANYTHING AT ALL or it just doesn't work well .. Maybe I am setting it up wrong. I bought it on eBay .. HERE IT IS. I have turned it in on every one of it's sides and still can't get a half way decent picture. I don't think there is enough light .. maybe I need to use my flash with this set up .. It comes with no instructions at all. I kind of figured it was the white balance but my problems with my settings are these. Either I get it so that my white balance is set for indoor lights and the silver looks silver but when I did that [wish I remember the settings, I will write it down next time] I couldn't get it into macro mode and everything was far away and blurry .. or when I have it in macro mode, I can't find a way to set the white balance. Is there some sort of QUICKIE manual that gives basic settings for macro for example .. such as set this to ---- set that to ---- etc ?? Now I am going to print out Stuarts info. I didn't get to read it all yet because the message arrived as an email on my iphone and I prefer to not read email on a tiny little screen. Diane Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmebay Posted October 28, 2009 Author Share #5 Posted October 28, 2009 Distance: The farther away from the object that you have the camera, everything else being equal, the greater the depth of focus. Therefore, if you are okay with cropping the image after shooting, and if your subject has depth, it will probably be better to be a bit further away from the subject. This was a problem .. I couldn't get close to the object when I was in macro mode .. zoom didn't work and getting the lens close was a disaster. It looked ok from further away but never tried taking a picture .. I don't mind cropping. I usually edit and crop everything because my pictures are for eBay .. I try and keep the size to under 800 px wide .. Not very busy at work today. I think I will play a bit although the light in my office is horrible. Received my camera on Friday .. couldn't wait to play with it on the weekend. Forgot my battery charger at work .. FIGURES .. Haven't really had the energy or patience to practice this week. A month ago or so I got the swine flu which turned into pneumonia .. I am drained. Didn't have any auctions listed and really needed to list a dozen or so - so rather than struggle with the new camera I used my Samsung .. Here are the thumbnails .. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
azman Posted November 2, 2009 Share #6 Posted November 2, 2009 i have to admit your questions drove me to experiment a bit ... i was curious . i did try to play with white balance settings including Kelvin but failed miserably . The stand you bought appear to use a CF 9W bulb. if that is so, maybe you can get the technical data to help set WB. anyway, here's some results ... the first picture, the picture of the ring (white gold), came off of the camera with no PP except resizing for posting. i placed it near the window so it's lit by indirect sunlight, and took the picture hand-held. Focus was manual. the second picture, the coin, was lit a white LED penlight from about 4-5 inches above. the room was lit by a White Daylight CF, 18 watts i think, but the light is mostly blocked by my body. i placed the D-Lux 4 on a box with the lens maybe 2cm or so in front of the coin, manual focus and snapped using the 2-second timer (it was an 8 second exposure). i did a fair bit of adjustment on iPhoto for the coin ... -.98 exposure, -31 contrast, 10 shadows, -30 temperature to get the color of the coin close. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmebay Posted November 2, 2009 Author Share #7 Posted November 2, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Seems I always have to add several lights because I am never home in the day light. I'm struggling but getting better _sometimes! Here is a picture I took last night_ It doesn't look too bad-for me that is. . . It was sort of a rush job. I hope the picture isn't too big for here. Diane PS. what's the coin? A token?. l collect what's called Conders. British tokens from the 1700's mostly. Some from Ireland My favorites are by someone named "Spence." I hope I am allowed to post a link to the pictures I took of them. I took them with my last camera... a nice one, Samsung. But it doesn't compare to the Leica. The salesperson said it did. But they didn't carry the Leica, Here is the link to my collection. 18th Century Conders Whatever the quality of the pictures _ they are easier to photograph than silver. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmebay Posted November 2, 2009 Author Share #8 Posted November 2, 2009 I saw yesterday in the column on the left, a new book for sale on the Leica D-Lux4 . . . Bought it immediately it's gotta be easier to follow than the manual. Diane Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted November 2, 2009 Share #9 Posted November 2, 2009 Don't know about the D-L4 as I don't have one but with most of the other P&S cameras I've had some of the settings I've made while shooting never get saved once I turned the camera off then back on. Whether that was off for 1 minute or 10 days the settings go back to whatever the camera thinks are the defaults. I guess you could save all those setting as a user profile but again I don't know for sure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
azman Posted November 2, 2009 Share #10 Posted November 2, 2009 The coin is a 20 'sen' coin, face value of 20/100 of a Malaysian Ringgit (RM), the size is the same as a US quarter. The other size shows the face value. I originally wanted to shoot quarters but the kids musta hid it :-) D-Lux 4 does have some user configurable stuff, for example you can tweak the 'Film' settings to suit your taste, even the 'Standard', 'Dynamic', 'B&W', etc and it stays. You can tweak the diff WB settings too and it stays. There is quite a fair bit of stuff i probably skipped when reading the manual . i probably need to re-read the manual about WB. it is becoming quite an interesting setting to play with. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted November 2, 2009 Share #11 Posted November 2, 2009 Diane-- With the D-Lux 4, you can save all your settings. To have the self-timer come up always at 2 sec, save that in one of your profiles. That is, set everything the way you want it--exposure mode, ISO, WB etc--and set the timer to 2 sec; then save under "Save Profile." Next time you recall that profile, everything will be as you set it. One other thing: Don't use "Auto" mode (I don't think you are) because it overrides most of the camera's settable functions. The Leica manual is horrid, as you said. The manual for the LX3 is much easier to use. The D-Lux 4 is a very sophisticated one that I like very much, but it has so many different functions that its learning curve is difficult. It all fits together well once you make the effort, but it took me a while to figure out why some features seemed to be saved sometimes but not other times. Good luck. It's a marvelous and capable device. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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