Low light photos from 1 S1 appear darker after import; brighter on camera LCD

Marker

Senior Member
Hi, new to the forums here. Hopefully, someone can help me out with my situation, I would very much appreciate it. I found one similar post here, but no solution.

Some of my photos that I've recently taken are in low light environments (either at night or under shade). When I look at at the photos directly on my 1 S1 camera, they look bright and clear, in which I can see colors and shapes. However, after importing them into iPhoto, they appear much darker, in which the same areas are pretty much black or way lower in contrast. I figured it's just a difference between LCD displays, so I played around with brightness and contrast in iPhoto, but now the same photos have too much noise. Also, when I plug in the camera directly into my TV by hdmi, the photos still look brighter on the TV than the imported ones, as seen on the Nikon LCD.

Can someone help explain this situation to me? And if there's a solution for these pictures, that would be great. Thanks.

Settings: Creative S mode, 1/50 shutter, F 3.5, 2.7-3.0EV, no flash, ISO 3200 (? iso was on auto, but goes to 3200 in dark environments), and brightness 0
 

kevy73

Senior Member
Are you shooting raw?

If so - the image you are looking at on screen is a jpg version with the creative mode and any active d lighting or other adjustments displayed. When you import the image into software on your pc, you look at the RAW file with none of those adjustments made.
 

Marker

Senior Member
Are you shooting raw?

If so - the image you are looking at on screen is a jpg version with the creative mode and any active d lighting or other adjustments displayed. When you import the image into software on your pc, you look at the RAW file with none of those adjustments made.

I'm shooting as JPEG normal. However, I am in creative mode, I just checked the shooting menu, and active d-lighting is enabled. Took me a second to remember about this feature; I guess your right about this, but but the images in iPhoto are jpgs. How do I view them with the adjustments?
 

kevy73

Senior Member
hmmm, dunno about that. I use lightroom and I remember having the same issues when I first started using it.... initial image was awesome and then lightroom would make everything look dull and flat - used to bum the hell out of me until I realised what was going on. But I was shooting RAW too...

Set my camera to do nothing at all with the images - turned off every setting that might enhance / alter the base data and everything was fine from then on.
 

Marker

Senior Member
Based on some things that I've come across, active d-lighting does affect the jpeg preview on screen, so I'm wondering if I can import that version to my computer, either by NX 2 or iPhoto. I was shooting in JPEG normal.

If someone can help me out on this, that would be great. As for the future, I'll turn off any enhancements on the camera like you mentioned.
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
I would use NX2 to process your photos and then store in iPhoto. IPhoto doesn't know or care about the special settings that Nikon cameras use. But if you use NX2 it will give you results like you are seeing on your camera.
 
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