Thank you Corlan, Osman, Jorgen and Steve.
(...) On the technical side, interesting DOF you get @f2 (or the Exif's wrong?). Probably an advantage of DX, which gets you more in the 135mm range with the 85. Perfect control in any case.
Corlan, the aperture f/2 Exif information is actually correct, and I always leave all the Exif informations intact in the file.
I'm an Exif peeper myself and I wish others would leave the Exif informations in their files as well.
And in case they don't know how to do it, I wish somebody would teach them how to leave the informations intact with their preferred Raw converter.
I have learned a lot from Exif peeping. I use Opanda IEXIF for pc, it's extremely easy and convenient, you simply rightclick on an image and choose IExif, that's it.
With regards to the Depth Of Field in the picture I believe DOF would have been even more narrow with a larger (FX) sensor, i.e. with better subject separation and more blurred background rendering. Especially because with a larger sensor I would have gone closer when using the same optic for the same framing.
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(...) Very interesting shot of the two sculptures, Steen. I particularly like how the details in the face of the first one come out. Did you have to do any pp to obtain that?
Jorgen, the most important Post Processing was to choose the best profile: D2Xmode1.
These prefabricated Nikon profiles can be found in Capture NX and NX2, and according to Stuart Richardson also in LightRoom:
see his post # 8 in this thread:
http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?p=141871
Apart from this profile ("Picture Control Mode") I only added a tad of curve and 10 or 20 % sharpening in NX.
I actually did play a lot with
this picture (which I rarely do) because in bright daylight the face of the wooden sculpture was barely visible at all on my laptop screen.
But I felt it ruined the strength of the image and just made it look silly when I tried to brighten the face, so I gave it up.
Just send me an email or a PM with your email address if you want the Raw file to play with, any of you.
And Jorgen, I love that Tooth Sticks photo
priceless
Btw, I have just finished a job with documentation of a big painting collection. Basicly this is not all that easy colorwise.
But again the D2Xmode1 profile turned out to be invaluable for that purpose. In D2Xmode1 the colors are very real and accurate.
I recall others stating this as well, Corlan and Leica 77 come to mind.
I do admit that in many circumstances I use the Standard profile because I think I get more sparkling and pleasing colors, i.e. with a tad more saturation.
But I don't think the Standard profile is as accurate colorwise as the D2Xmode1 profile.
Maybe some day I end up being a total purist shooting exclusively in D2Xmode1