Hey Guys and Guy,
I just got back from a book shoot yesterday evening (~1,000 images, D3, 24–70/2.8) and I did my usual CF card > DNG converter, dng files saved to one drive, with NEFs saved to a second drive thing. I read this whole thread, and I am just wondering why no one here uses the latest ACR.
I find it has simply the best workflow around, and any colour/hue shift you want to make to either match bodies (or makes) can be done so easliy. If you haven't checked out the latest version (4.4) you might want to—it has all the bells and whistles from the other Adobe programs (Recovery, Fill Light, Clarity etc.) AND the best sharpening algorithms I have used yet (amount, detail, radius, masking; the latter two able to be tweaked if magnification at 100%—and results seen *live* as you adjust). The sharpening is so good and controllable out of the Raw window, I only use PK Sharpener for content and output sharpening these days, if necessary—and before the new version I ran all Raw images through Capture Sharpening as part of the work flow. No longer. All all the images were shot in the one studio, so I selected my preset for skin, and applied it to all images.
Guy, please get your hands around a D3, even if you have to borrow one. It does have better DR than the D300, and its files are super deep re. manipulation. I shot all the book images wide open on that one zoom, and the images are very sharp, very 3D, and accurate colour without any tweaking. Honestly, I feel the D3 is a better comparison than the D300—and that shift will be its true 24mm!!!
I never use NX—ever. Too slow, for me. And the results out of ACR are perfectly useable for me and the clients love them. Did I mention that ALL WINDOWS and all fields within them can be selected and altered from the keyboard? That for me is the only reason I need not to use NX! cheers to all, kl