http://www.digitalcameraworld.com OCTOBER 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^57
CAMERA COLLEGEYou can always correct lens
problems such as distortion,
vignetting (dark corners)
and chromatic aberration
(unwanted colours along
high-contrast edges) in
software, regardless ofwhether you shoot a JPEG
or a raw file. Many cameras,
however, allow you to
correct these problems at
source when you take a
picture, which gives better-
quality JPEG images.In the dark Most cameras allow you to compensate
for light fall-off at the corners of an image.Livin’ colour Choose sRGB if you’ll mainly be sharing
images online, as it gives you more consistent results.Camera skills Lens corrections
Remove aberrations for better image qualityThe colour space of an
image dictates the total
range of possible colours
that can be displayed. The
two popular choices are
sRGB and Adobe RGB; thelatter has a wider range of
colours, but it is harder to
work with – images can end
up looking very flat. If you
shoot raw files, you can set
this later, unlike with JPEGs.Camera skills Colour space
Should you record in sRGB or Adobe RGB?
Take c o ntro l
How to reveal more detail in the shadows
As well as making adjustments to brighten or darken
the whole picture, you may also be able to make
selective adjustments to shadows and highlights. For
instance, Canon cameras feature Auto Lighting Optimizer
(ALO), and Nikon bodies come with Active D-Lighting:
technologies that are designed to modify both the shadows
and highlights and ensure detail isn’t lost in high-contrast
conditions, such as a backlit portrait. The result is more
subtle than a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image, as you
can see in the above shot taken with a Canon 5D Mark IV
(and that’s not necessarily a drawback).
You can adjust the strength of this feature, or switch
it off altogether – something which is usually a good idea
to do when you’re shooting in Manual exposure mode,
to prevent the camera trying to brighten up an image
you’ve purposely made dark.
At the strongest setting, you may find that shadows have
increased noise. The reason for this is that, like all the other
image processing features we’ve talked about, this is a
software-based effect which is applied post-capture – it
doesn’t change the original exposure at all. Again, if you
shoot raw, you can change your selection or just tweak
the shadows and highlights manually when you process
your images; but it pays to familiarise yourself to find
the optimum setting when you are shooting JPEGs.ALO OFFALO ON