More tabletop photos with D2x - JPG isn't bad at all!

Rushed home from work with a quick stop at the grocer to grab some subjects for backyard tabletop photos to feed into my color series. In the rush, I forgot that I'd set the D2x to jpg fine the evening before, and so I shot for an hour with it set that way. I was crushed when I realized it, because with the D100 shooting jpg was only OK, and I was sure that I would not be able to get the rich, surreal colors out of the jpg.

Well, I was wrong. Very minor color adjustments to get them to match up with the other images shot raw other days. The inside of the flower image, with a pattern of fine crossing lines, is the kind of thing that should be rife with artifacts, but at 100% magnification on screen, no problem at all.

 

Color rendition is what sealed it for me

When I shoot film, I only shoot the VS and Ultra Color stuff. I could get to where the transparency VS film goes with my D100. With the D2x ,I can get to where the Kodak Ultra goes.

I also "torture" the images a bit. When I'm shooting against a late evening sky, I will often shoot with WB on flash or daylight, and then process as one of the flourescent choices, that's where the rich skies come from. (That, and using a Kaeseman polarizer.) Sure beats trying to use half-filters on the lens. What blew me away is that the JPG could be processed to almost identical looks to what I do to the RAW images.

This camera's fantastic. Now, I want my efficient workflow back...hope Nikon and Adobe come to terms.