Note - I've also posted this on DPR for maximum advice coverage; I hope no-one minds that. Apart from "good luck" with some marathon shots I did last week I've had some pretty poor results lately; here I share them and would appreciate advice. Thanks...post follows >
I was, I must confess somewhat amazed and flattered when reading a review of the D2Hs the other day on the web, to find my name mentioned as having images that shone with color from the D2H. I must confess, I loved the D2H, and found it an absolute pleasure to work with. Somehow, I just clicked with the LBCAST sensor from virtually day one, and it was a camera I felt very comfortable with.
Perhaps it's that they share the same body, and perhaps I was just being a bit over-confident, but somehow I felt I'd just pick up the D2X and shoot in my D2H style and get the same results, but just with a lot more resolution.
For me that has not quite been the case, and I'm sure that the inadequacies are fully mine and not those of the camera. I've found that my bright daylight pictures are quite muddy looking and that A-WB is a lot more sensitive to me than it was with the D2H. I never ever really altered the fine-tuning settings for A-WB on the D2H.
My recent D2X stuff in daylight all has to be corrected by adding blue or cyan, and correspondingly reducing yellow and red. I seem to need to fine tune A-WB a lot more which is a pain when I'm in the field doing fast-moving Photo journalism assignments. Tomorrow, for example there is a huge demonstation in turn with work stay-aways. I know I can correct it in post, but WB is so important to get right at the time the shot is taken, otherwise it introduces noise in to image.
I'm shooting in A-mode as always, using Adobe Color space II, either at normal or - contrast, using as a guide and getting great balanced histograms, stuff that looks OK in the monitor (which is set at -2 ; I always find Nikon monitors unrealistically bright) BUT I'm getting horribly muddy results.
Also, I seem to be battling with the Mac version of CS2 Raw, which seems to by default (which I can't find the setting to switch off) set its parameters to Auto - which ALWAYS sets the exposure number to some horrible -EV value rather than 0, and compensate by adding in a high brightness number...why it does that I don't know.
So, while I'm sure I'll figure this all out in the long run, I feel somewhat depressed after having such a great pal in the D2H and well developed workflow -- and I'd REALLY REALLY appreciate the advice of some of you folk who have made the transition smoother than I have!
Also, I know that Ron Resnick's USM settings for the D2H on Capture were 66/5/4 which in CS translated into 330/1/1.
Now that he recommends 50/5/4 for the D2X on Capture, does anyone know roughly what this translates into using USM on CS2.
Assistance, advice, all VERY GRATEFULLY received. BIG, BIG assignment, tomorrow.
I was, I must confess somewhat amazed and flattered when reading a review of the D2Hs the other day on the web, to find my name mentioned as having images that shone with color from the D2H. I must confess, I loved the D2H, and found it an absolute pleasure to work with. Somehow, I just clicked with the LBCAST sensor from virtually day one, and it was a camera I felt very comfortable with.
Perhaps it's that they share the same body, and perhaps I was just being a bit over-confident, but somehow I felt I'd just pick up the D2X and shoot in my D2H style and get the same results, but just with a lot more resolution.
For me that has not quite been the case, and I'm sure that the inadequacies are fully mine and not those of the camera. I've found that my bright daylight pictures are quite muddy looking and that A-WB is a lot more sensitive to me than it was with the D2H. I never ever really altered the fine-tuning settings for A-WB on the D2H.
My recent D2X stuff in daylight all has to be corrected by adding blue or cyan, and correspondingly reducing yellow and red. I seem to need to fine tune A-WB a lot more which is a pain when I'm in the field doing fast-moving Photo journalism assignments. Tomorrow, for example there is a huge demonstation in turn with work stay-aways. I know I can correct it in post, but WB is so important to get right at the time the shot is taken, otherwise it introduces noise in to image.
I'm shooting in A-mode as always, using Adobe Color space II, either at normal or - contrast, using as a guide and getting great balanced histograms, stuff that looks OK in the monitor (which is set at -2 ; I always find Nikon monitors unrealistically bright) BUT I'm getting horribly muddy results.
Also, I seem to be battling with the Mac version of CS2 Raw, which seems to by default (which I can't find the setting to switch off) set its parameters to Auto - which ALWAYS sets the exposure number to some horrible -EV value rather than 0, and compensate by adding in a high brightness number...why it does that I don't know.
So, while I'm sure I'll figure this all out in the long run, I feel somewhat depressed after having such a great pal in the D2H and well developed workflow -- and I'd REALLY REALLY appreciate the advice of some of you folk who have made the transition smoother than I have!
Also, I know that Ron Resnick's USM settings for the D2H on Capture were 66/5/4 which in CS translated into 330/1/1.
Now that he recommends 50/5/4 for the D2X on Capture, does anyone know roughly what this translates into using USM on CS2.
Assistance, advice, all VERY GRATEFULLY received. BIG, BIG assignment, tomorrow.