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D800, Capture NX2 and portrait handling

danielmoore

New member
I shot a fairly traditional portrait for a local business woman today, tethered via Camera Control Pro and monitored in View NX2. I was truly impressed with the skin tone and color from the D800. Until I opened the same files within Capture One. By comparison they were harsh and unattractive and even after spending 20 minutes tweaking C1 they were no match for the default delicate tones/colors in Capture NX2. I'm not at liberty to post samples from today but I do strongly advise C1 folks to do a similar comparison next time they are faced with faces. I've never been a fan of NX2 but this is the second time I've had to defer to it for optimal image quality.

Also, I find it's sharpening for landscape use is seriously substandard but in the case of portraiture I find NX2 perfectly acceptable. I'm not out to map the human genome with this camera, but with the 70-200 it's close to doing that, so backing off on the edges a bit is a plus here.
 

neils

New member
Well I find NX2 for all its faults does "the math" of a Nikon file very very well.

I do very much low light hi ISO shooting with my D3. Nothing does to a D3 file what NX2 does to bring out the best the file has.

I sometimes work as a second/third shooter for a busy event covering photographer. I had mistakenly let the auto ISO float up to ISO 10,000 for some shots. They were good shots too and he freaked 'cause LR didn't have a clue what to do.

I had told him many times I'd make any NEF file into a TIFF he could use. So finally he had me do a few 10K shots in NX2. He was floored.

I'm not surprised you like NX2 files, I have no experience with C1 but I'd bet it could be tweeked for a better low ISO version.

Then again since there is NOTHING you can't do or undo to a file in NX2 why just learn to love it? Well as much as you could love it. Most people never give enough of a chance. I mean have you even tried control points, painting in USM where needed, doing virtually everything you wanted where you wanted w/o file bloating layers?

No it can't replace CS and layers but it is so much better than people know.

Rant off

Neil
 

danielmoore

New member
Your points are well taken Niel. NX2 is by modern standards a half witted misfit bastard child of an interface that requires time and patience to really come to terms with, especially if one has ever used ANY other processing program (possible exception - Silkypix).
Open a given file in Capture One and NX2 and inspect the detail each resolves, you'll find the results, ahem, revealing. NX2 for me is a love/hate relationship and has been for years. Capture One has a learning curve of course, but it's a small one and given a folder full of images you can get to where you need to be a lot faster and easier.
Would you rather type on an IBM Selectric or a fully spec'd laptop? Interface and workflow count.
 

neils

New member
Faster and easier are both great. But the other
night I shot @600 images at ISO 12,800
AKA Hi-1. It was a small theater rock/blues
group show. Nearly every frame with a
70-200 2.8 or a 100-300 F4 lens. Wide open
At Hi-1 barely got it done.

They look stupidly good. This s**t shouldn't
work this well. NX2. Gotta be NX2.

Faster and easier = NFG in this case.

Neil
 
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