Spyder3 pro... ambient light??? what do you use?

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR DG IF-ED

11/01/2009 06:46:13 PM · #1

ok... finally broke down and bought a monitor calibrator... spyder3 pro...

i'm going through the moritor calibrator process... what ambient lights should i use??? what is best?

when I have no lights on in my room it says "This level is appropriate for preprocess image editing" is that a good thing???

is it always better to edit in the dark (with a little lamp on the keyboard not aimed at the monitor)???

as a side note... I recently did a photo shoot of a baby... the pics looked great on my camera LCD inside the house, but when I opened them up in View NX when I got home, I had the pump the exposure one whole stop... (they still look amazing... luckily...)

is my camera LCD too bright? do I need a quick lesson on those four little histograms??? =)

I just started getting clients for photoshoots and I will be doing all the printing and selling each print so I need to get my whole system calibrated... I'm sick and tyred of doing multiple 4x6 test prints until everything comes out right...

thanks =)

ErikV

Nikon D7000

11/01/2009 07:42:37 PM · #2

Originally posted by Shutter-For-Hire:

do I need a quick lesson on those four little histograms???

They are essential!

11/01/2009 07:55:49 PM · #3

i tried to figure them out but kinda gave up... are there any web-guides anyone can suggest???

11/01/2009 08:20:31 PM · #4

The histogram is your friend. The LCD is not a good guage of image exposure.

I use the Spyder 2 which doesn't have ambient light adjustments so I calibrate the monitor in the dark.

Working with only a light on the keyboard is probably a good way to go to avoid any colour cast issues.

Why not search Spyder 3 ambient light settings in google?

11/01/2009 08:27:37 PM · #5

ok,,, I searched around... one thing i'm a tad confused about...

if I do the calibration and tell it to not do the ambient light, it says to use 6500... but if I turn off all my lights and tell it Yes to ambient light, it calculates that I should use 5000...

should I be using 5000 then?

sorry... i'm 100% self taught on all these terms so it takes me a while to figure it all out

11/01/2009 08:31:33 PM · #6

With mine (no ambient light setting available), the light temp is 6500. I calibrate in the dark.

Based on what you've discovered my guess is that it's trying to guess what the temp would be with the lights on when you calibrate in the dark but say yes to ambient light.

Best is to calibrate in the light you intend to edit in. You may have to calibrate a few times so you can choose the profile that fits the lighting you're editing in.

11/01/2009 08:37:03 PM · #7

ooohh/// i think I get it...

you make perfect sense =)

i'm going to re-calibrate right now... =)

11/01/2009 08:42:10 PM · #8

I see where the confusion comes in. I read some of the reviews of the Spyder 3.

Most suggest to calibrate with the ambient light setting to off. Calibrate in the dark.

The spyder 3 is supposed to automatically adjust for ambient light however I haven't got a clue how that works.
Based on this automatic adjustment you may be able to get away with one calibration, done in the dark with ambient light setting to off.
What I stated earlier about calibrating several times in the light you intend to edit I think may defeat the purpose of the auto ambient light detection of the device though I could be wrong. You may want to look into that aspect of the Spyder 3 in more detail.

Message edited by author 2009-11-01 20:49:30.

11/01/2009 08:51:01 PM · #9

aaaahhhhh.... much better... =)

thanks =)

11/01/2009 08:59:07 PM · #10

I'm still reading. The area of ambient light is the most confusing.

This article may be of help. Also, there's mention of a help manual on the DataColor website. I haven't gone looking for that. You may want to.

//www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/SPYDER3/SPYDER3.HTM#amb

//spyder.datacolor.com/learning.php

Message edited by author 2009-11-01 21:01:43.