D70 vs D300 - I hate the images from the D300

[louiscar]

louiscar I don't really know what you are looking for but I have found some processing problems myself.

.

Thanks Peter, I'll look at some different software as you suggest. I use Capture NX2 and Lightroom generally. If I've got time I'll prefer Capture as it's Nikon's own software and pretty good.

Calibration was a problem with me but relatively I can look at images from others and see a difference. I can see the grey scale on the right ok althought this monitor was a pain to calibrate and I used to have a much more contrasty image which lost a few steps at the dark end.

I think I might also hard reset the camera and just to see if something in my settings might be a problem although I've tried so many settings and gone to basic raw with little or no adjustments.

 

[tdodd]

OK, but according to the histogram you are well clear of clipping in any channel. The white shirt collar is brighter, but that is also safe from clipping.

I've reset the changes you made to the file and knocked 2 stops off the exposure. Everything comes down fine. Nothing is "sticking". You say the bright areas were not there, but you used flash, so how could you determine whether there were bright areas there prior to using the flash? The only way to tell is to take the shot. You did that and here are the results. I'm really not sure what you are expecting, or what the problem is.

 

[louiscar]

You may be right about the flash, rather than bright, the colour of the patches knocks me back. Looking closely at the large pic you posted of it in LR, the yellow to red transitions delimiting parts of the face is more aparent which but I note this profile is a bit more red than mine.

I did try playing with warmer more yellow profiles and this makes it look better. Maybe it's something to do with too much red ? The camera seems to lean towards red and red things don't look quite natural.

I tried to even out the tones a bit in this example but also a couple of columns to show the effect of applying curves. Exagerated of course.

http://www.louiscarresi.co.uk/gallery/test/curve.jpg

If the picture looks ok to you though, ie. it doesn't display anything you'd not expect, I can assume this is a characteristic rather than a fault or problem.

 

[fracster]

Sell it and buy a D70.

Never ceases to amaze me how many people blame the kit rather than themselves.

 

[tdodd]

I tried to even out the tones a bit in this example but also a couple of columns to show the effect of applying curves. Exagerated of course.

http://www.louiscarresi.co.uk/gallery/test/curve.jpg

If the picture looks ok to you though, ie. it doesn't display anything you'd not expect, I can assume this is a characteristic rather than a fault or problem.

I'm not at all sure what you are trying to demonstrate with all those S and M (ooh err, missus) curve examples. The image at the top looks pretty decent to me. Everything else looks dreadful.

Bear in mind that I'm a Canon shooter so I really don't know what one should expect from a Nikon raw file, but I'm really struggling to see a problem on my calibrated monitor. I do note that picking different camera profiles in Lightroom does have a big impact on the image. Maybe you need to find one that suits your tastes (and monitor) better. Didn't you say that you were having problems with your monitor calibration? It's not just black and white points and gamma that need to be correct. Colour does too. If the colour is off, or the ambient light in the room is a bit weird, how can you trust what you see on the monitor to be an accurate representation of what the camera and software produced?

 

[petersmart]

I'm not at all sure what you are trying to demonstrate with all those S and M (ooh err, missus) curve examples. The image at the top looks pretty decent to me. Everything else looks dreadful.

Yup image at top also looks pretty good to me.

.

 

[Martyn...]

The image of the baby looks fine to me, checking the exif tells me it was shot using 'Standard' picture control. Switching to 'Neutral' in Capture NX2 looked better to my eyes.

I have used a D300 since they first came out, for portraits I would use 'Neutral' picture control, as 'Standard' can make skin tones a touch too red.

I would do a settings reset, and then try using Neutral picture control for shots of people.

I would not rely on the cameras LCD to judge anything regarding colour balance or exposure.

Out of interest what monitor calibration are you using ?

 

[louiscar]

I'm not at all sure what you are trying to demonstrate with all those S and M (ooh err, missus) curve examples. The image at the top looks pretty decent to me. Everything else looks dreadful.

Just to show what happens to those odd spots which seem to react differently to the other tones.. I'm not doing a good job in explaining this am I.

It may be lighting but I have a couple of photos done of Jessica a couple of months later on the same day with flash. One displays the ...errr racoon look and the other is smooth all over the face. What I'm trying find out is why I'm getting them and why they are so hard to correct.

These examples may be too subtle perhaps, but I see this often crop up in all sorts of photos in all kinds of lighting.

Didn't you say that you were having problems with your monitor calibration? It's not just black and white points and gamma that need to be correct. Colour does too. If the colour is off, or the ambient light in the room is a bit weird, how can you trust what you see on the monitor to be an accurate representation of what the camera and software produced?

Yes but I am looking at this relatively. The monitor is reasonable but not perfect at the moment. If I can compare pictures even on the net not seeing that particular problem it eliminates the calibration .. I think.

I am beginning to wonder after what you guys are saying so I'm going to try to calibrate again carefully to try to get it better.

 

[louiscar]

Out of interest what monitor calibration are you using ?

Yes Martyn, I'm going to do a factory reset on this in a bit and just get it back to defaults.

I tend to leave it on standard picture control but once in Capture I often try neutral to see if the picture is better.

Calibration: I borrowed a Huey pro to do one set and a color Munki to compare. The Munki didn't do too well on the first few tries. It ended up getting me to set my contrast (or britghtness I can't remember) to something like 10%. I still have a CRT so maybe they aren't so good with them. I will try to calibrate in a mode which tells the software I don't have control of brightnes & contrast as the resutls after setting the levels so low are awful.
Very similar to the effect of putting too much fill light and virtually reversing the curves.

The Huey on the other hand (eventually) came up with somthing a bit better. I didn't have a lot of time with it though as I had to return it. I will probably get one so I can really get to grips with it and fnid the best possible settings.

Any recomendations as to the best one to get would be welcome, for instance is it worth spending a bit more and getting the Xrite display 2. I've heard those are pretty good?

 

[tdodd]

Just to show what happens to those odd spots which seem to react differently to the other tones.. I'm not doing a good job in explaining this am I.

It may be lighting but I have a couple of photos done of Jessica a couple of months later on the same day with flash. One displays the ...errr racoon look and the other is smooth all over the face. What I'm trying find out is why I'm getting them and why they are so hard to correct.

I'm beginning to get the impression that the issue is not with the camera, but more likely with the lighting, and using flash makes it harder to judge prior to the shot what the exact outcome should be.

Can you maybe just try assembling a whole bunch of colours - crayons, clothing, a book cover or whatever you have handy, if not a proper calibration card, and just see how close you can get to reproducing the tones accurately without flash, and which camera profile gets you closest. Obviously a custom white balance would be useful, so include a neutral grey reference in the composition.

As for "racoon look", I can't see how the camera can be to blame for that. That definitely sounds like a lighting issue, with too much overhead light and not enough fill.

 

[Martyn...]

Any recomendations as to the best one to get would be welcome, for instance is it worth spending a bit more and getting the Xrite display 2. I've heard those are pretty good?

I have used the Spyder 2 and found that fairly easy to set up, and results were fine.

 

[tdodd]

I also use Spyder2. It seems to work reasonably well for my LCD laptop, which is where I do all my image editing, browsing the web and everything else. But I don't like the results when I try to calibrate my media centre PC, hooked up to a Sony 40" 1080p LCD TV. I prefer to eyeball the calibration for that. The TV is where I view/display my images after editing and they look great there. I've also tried using the Spyder2 to calibrate other laptop displays and the results have not been great. I have a suspicion that the problem lies more with the screens than the calibration software/hardware, but who knows?

It does the job I need it to, but I couldn't give it an unreserved recommendation. I think it might be pot luck whether or not the results turn out well. I mean they're consistent on my main laptop, which is fine. The problem is the number of displays upon which the results are not so great.

 

[louiscar]

I also use Spyder2.
It does the job I need it to, but I couldn't give it an unreserved recommendation. I think it might be pot luck whether or not the results turn out well. I mean they're consistent on my main laptop, which is fine. The problem is the number of displays upon which the results are not so great.

At some point I will have to go LCD. Dreading it though they are getting better but a minefield out there.

I've seen this problem with calibrating certain monitors too. Mine is odd the way the color Munki insists on lowering the contrast to 10%. On the owner's LCD he didn't have any problem, it gave him a good profile first time. That's why I borrowed one to see how it would go and because I knew I had the black point set poorly.

I'll read up a bit more, I think Spyder has gone to V3 with a couple of variations which like the Xrite Display 2 and Display lite seem to just be a matter of which software they give you with it.

As for the colour test, this is a good Idea, I'll gather up a collection of colourful bits and pieces to do some tests.

 

[petersmart]

Louiscar if you go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20926615@N05/4955413304/sizes/l/in/set-72157623911722582/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20926615@N05/4954823759/sizes/l/in/set-72157623911722582/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20926615@N05/4979189859/sizes/l/in/photostream/

you should be able to see full detail in all the petals and fine detail in the deepest colours.

If you have problems with the colour balance on your monitor it is often with oversaturation.

These pics will help you to see if any of your colours are oversaturated.

.

 

[louiscar]

Louiscar if you go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20926615@N05/4955413304/sizes/l/in/set-72157623911722582/

you should be able to see full detail in all the petals and fine detail in the deepest colours.

These pics will help you to see if any of your colours are oversaturated.

.

Thank Peter,

That first one is interesting. I see a washed pink and a bit patchy and the yellow seems oversaturated.
The other pink flower although darker seems similar in quality.

Yet I do wonder how far off I can be when I look at pictures like these:

http://www.pbase.com/jfinite/streets_best

Taken straight off the street with rich wonderful tones. They all look good to me with great skin tones, colours and shadows- If I was badly out maybe these would look wrong - of course I don't know what his monitor was displaying.

I'm also impressed by the general camera image quality in lighting conditions that aren't anything special in a lot of cases.

I did print a few pictures after profiling monitor and printer which seemed to be fairly close but it's hard to tell. I may have one or two colours misbehaving a little.

I think Tim's idea of a test picture with a plethora of colours is a good Idea. I just need to go buy some crayons.

 

[tdodd]

I think Tim's idea of a test picture with a plethora of colours is a good Idea. I just need to go buy some crayons.

Maybe you could just try printing something like this as your colour chart....

http://www.pagetutor.com/common/bgcolors216.gif