Fun Pictures with Nikon

[Jorgen Udvang]

Yes, it's a pity, but as the hard-core villain that I am, I don't give up on my criminal behaviour easily, so here's another one

D80 with Tamron 24-135 @ 24mm and f/3.5. Colours look a bit off when posted on this forum btw. The carpet is deep red when I view it in Photoshop, while the tables and chairs are still yellowish.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Bangkok, the lazy, oriental city.

D80 with 70-300 ED @ 70mm and f/6.3

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

From today's shoot under the hot midday sun, D80 and Reflex Nikkor 500mm f/8

 

[Arne Hvaring]

A recent image; September evening light.
D3, 24-70/2,8 Nikkor zoom.

 

[jonoslack]

A recent image; September evening light.
D3, 24-70/2,8 Nikkor zoom.

HI Arne
Lovely scene . . . just a question; are you using AWB for evening light shots?

 

[Arne Hvaring]

Hi Jono, I never (well, almost) use AWB, this and most shots are set to sunny daylight. The yellow you see is the warmth of the sun just before it dipped behind the mountain.

 

[Arne Hvaring]

Having said that, I must add that the posted image looks quite a bit more yellowish than it did in PS. Maybe some conversion phenomena?

 

[jonoslack]

Having said that, I must add that the posted image looks quite a bit more yellowish than it did in PS. Maybe some conversion phenomena?

Hi Arne
Well, the reason I asked, is because I find that AWB on all Nikon cameras gives nasty yellow colour in evening light. I suspect it's because Nikon optimise AWB for skin tones (and nobody wants to be pink!).

It was a revelation to me to use sunny for all morning and evening shots, but it seems it's a revelation that you've already found!

tint -5 kelvin 4891 RULES

 

[Arne Hvaring]

Hi Arne
Well, the reason I asked, is because I find that AWB on all Nikon cameras gives nasty yellow colour in evening light. I suspect it's because Nikon optimise AWB for skin tones (and nobody wants to be pink!).

It was a revelation to me to use sunny for all morning and evening shots, but it seems it's a revelation that you've already found!

tint -5 kelvin 4891 RULES

Yes, my experience as well. AWB tends to take the character out of the light, "correcting" it with questionable success.

While maintaining the same WB setting, different cameras tend to render a scene quite differently. As it happened I had a few other cameras with me on this outing, so here, just for fun, is the same subject taken a few minutes later with the Canon 1DsIII and 35/1,4 L lens.
Second image is taken a few miunutes after that (by now the light was fading in the foreground) with the Leica DMR and 35/1,4 Summilux-R. I was surprised how well the DMR held its own in this exalted company, both in terms of colour and sharpness.
So which one do you prefer?

 

[jonoslack]

Yes, my experience as well. AWB tends to take the character out of the light, "correcting" it with questionable success.

While maintaining the same WB setting, different cameras tend to render a scene quite differently. As it happened I had a few other cameras with me on this outing, so here, just for fun, is the same subject taken a few minutes later with the Canon 1DsIII and 35/1,4 L lens.
Second image is taken a few miunutes after that (by now the light was fading in the foreground) with the Leica DMR and 35/1,4 Summilux-R. I was surprised how well the DMR held its own in this exalted company, both in terms of colour and sharpness.
So which one do you prefer?

HI Arne
How's the back? :ROTFL:
I like the Canon best . . . .but I think it's just that the exposure is a little less so that the saturation is more.
I just wish that you'd used the Sony A900 you had in the other bag, as I'd really like to see how the evening colours would have held up.
Mind you, I still think that the Olympus E1 does the best colours of all the SLR's I've seen (it's that lovely [noisy] Kodak sensor).

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Arne,
That looks very Norwegian. I agree with Jono, the one from the Canon looks the best. Actually, I also agree that nothing beats the E-1 for landscape colours. (and the Fujis for portraits). I also have the problem that some (but not all) photos look more yellow, and on this forum also brighter, when posted on the internet. Look at the red carpet in the photo on the top of this page. In reality (and in Photoshop), it's deep red, but here, it's almost orange, while the rest of the photo looks perfect.

I've pretty much given up on auto WB and shoot everything in daylight WB as long as I'm outdoor or bordering to outdoors. As long as I shoot RAW, it can be adjusted to anything anyway. What I do find with evening photos, is that I have to adjust the sky more than the rest of the photo, to achieve the "perceived reality" that most people prefer. A too yellowish sky can look rather uncharming sometimes.

The exception is when I shoot jpegs with the S3, partly because they can't be adjusted as easily, and partly because because the auto WB of that camera is bordering to magic. It's like it kind of senses that, "this must be evening light, so I don't make it too neutral".

Talking about auto WB: I've never quite understood why the auto WB doesn't see that some lenses give a colour cast. I would think that in theory, all lenses should come out with the same colours, using auto WB, but they don't. My Tamron always ends up with more yellow photos than my Nikkors.

 

[Arne Hvaring]

Hi Jono, my back is bad as always, but not from carrying camera equipment
When on these trips I strictly adhere to the "if it's more than 50 meters from the car, it isn't photogenic" school of thouhgt

The Sony a900, interesting, but I'm more curious about Nikon's high-res DSLR which I expect to be more refined. And hopefully in a D700 sized body....

I too find the colours of the 1DsIII preferable in these samples, although I often prefer the somewhat lighter and slightly more differentiated colours of the D3.

Jorgen, I've seen colour shifts in my images when posting both here and on the FM forum. I've found that even small changes in PS (particularly re. saturation) can have a much larger effect on the posted picture than one would expect from the preview in Photoshop.

 

[Cindy Flood]

Are you guys using a color managed browser? I use Mozilla Firefox. When I recently changed computers, I forgot to go in and make the changes to Firefox to enable color management. All of a sudden my photos on here did not match Photoshop and Jack reminded me to check my browser settings.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Are you guys using a color managed browser? I use Mozilla Firefox. When I recently changed computers, I forgot to go in and make the changes to Firefox to enable color management. All of a sudden my photos on here did not match Photoshop and Jack reminded me to check my browser settings.

I use Firefox, but where do I find colour management?

 

[Maarten]

It's not that easy to find. Have look here for the options:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9311-9478

 

[Vivek]

This a false color IR capture so, I don't know who gets to see it as I see it.

Dancing in the Air​

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Never mind the colours. Having been to the annual Scandinavian Crayfish (and aquavit) Party last night, I find it worrying to wake up today, seeing people in white, suspended in thin air

 

[Jonathon Delacour]

Are you guys using a color managed browser? I use Mozilla Firefox. When I recently changed computers, I forgot to go in and make the changes to Firefox to enable color management. All of a sudden my photos on here did not match Photoshop and Jack reminded me to check my browser settings.

Bobby Holly from the Firefox team wrote a weblog post about performance issues associated with color management. In the next version of Firefox (3.1) -- for performance reasons -- color profiles will be turned on by default for "tagged" images only (in other words, images with embedded color profiles). This is also the approach that Safari currently uses.

 

[Vivek]

Never mind the colours. Having been to the annual Scandinavian Crayfish (and aquavit) Party last night, I find it worrying to wake up today, seeing people in white, suspended in thin air

Jorgen, They were just hanging (around) from the roof of a hotel and dancing in thin air. Part of an (yet another) "international festival' organized by the Hague city (taxpayers money hard at work).

Here is another on the ground with a bit of (what I thought) cinematic lighting.

D80-IR, 18-55 AF-S G II

 

[jonoslack]

The Photographer's assistant:

D700 24-70 f2.8

At least he didn't cock his leg on it this time!