2 questions in 1

[marcos]

Question 1:
I have noticed or feel that shots from my D70 don't have enough density when view on NC or ACR. What I mean is that, anything coming from a CCD have a Dmax or maximum density of 3.8 or 4.0 (example, desktop scanners), which is how the darkest point is meausre against the lightest and/or how much light pass through when files are printed on film. I feel that my shots are not dense to give enough of a proper dynamic range, blacks are coming out like dark gray or maybe not enought contrast overall, am I explaining this well enough to get help? how can I improve this? I'm trying to do less PP than I'm actually doing to get good results.
Question 2:
Exposure compensation settings, I have read the manual, but for my level of knowledge on photography, can't come to a sure answer on what actually does. How different is the exp. comp. setting to increasing or decreasing shutter speed or ISO?
Sorry if this question sounds a little dumb, but what I'm trying to learn is how to not depend on PP.

[Matt. K]

Exposure compensation is the same as changing f/stop or shutter speed. That is, in effect, what you are doing.

As for density....not sure what you are seeing here. Is your monitor fairly well calibrated? Maybe you should post an example so that I can see what you are talking about. Then I could give you a more accurate answer.

El regardo

[Sheetshooter]

Marcos,

Monitor calibration may be a factor in your assessment, obviously. But you should really be assessing the 'density' (exposure) of your images by examining the HISTOGRAM rather than just solely the image itself.

The trick is to contain the highlight separation without incurring underexposure of the low values. You can always pull charcoal blacks down to where you want but to try and get detail out of under-exposed black renders lumpy noise rather than tonal separation in textured low-lights.

[marcos]

My monitor is calibrated, along with photoshop, NC and my epson 1280 are under the same color profile, so I get the same color on the monitor and prints, at least fairly close, what I discovered was that I uploaded a curve to the camera just to see how is done, then forgot to swtich back to normal for a few days, got rid of it and everything is fine now,
Thank you Sheetshooter and Matt for responding.