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D800 settings

I'm liking this camera. A few nits, mainly with live view and user interface.

I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for settings that will improve the ability to focus in live view, especially in low light. The image I get on screen is very noisy and does not give anything close to the 100% pixel view when reviewing images.

Also, I would love it if there was a way to get something closer to a raw histogram. I'm interested in exposing for the best possible raw file; I really don't care about jpegs. I would love to find a way to know (or estimate) the actual raw highlight clipping point.

Any thoughts on these or other useful tweaks?
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Tim's recent blog post will give some insight.
Thanks Daniel!
I have been repeatedly hauled over the coals by a chap on another forum for not covering UniBW in that blog post, and for not covering the effect of WB on the in-camera blinkies and histo in sufficient depth.

I have tried UniWB myself a while back and decided not to cover it in that blog post because it's quite a big topic and, to be frank, I'm not sure it helps enough to be worth the hassle and the deep green previews it produces, but other people might feel differently so maybe the OP would like to give it a go. Google UniWb for d800 (or d800E, you need to download and use different files for the two models) and see what you think....
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
I'm liking this camera. A few nits, mainly with live view and user interface.

I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for settings that will improve the ability to focus in live view, especially in low light. The image I get on screen is very noisy and does not give anything close to the 100% pixel view when reviewing images.

Also, I would love it if there was a way to get something closer to a raw histogram. I'm interested in exposing for the best possible raw file; I really don't care about jpegs. I would love to find a way to know (or estimate) the actual raw highlight clipping point.

Any thoughts on these or other useful tweaks?
One tip: set up a custom picture control with sharpening to max, and use that (assuming you're shooting only raw so your setting isn't ruining a JPEG!) to focus in zoomed LV. It makes it it notably easier.
 
Footnote: the brilliant Michael Reichmann at LuLa has suggested that metering systems should be programmable to never blow a highlight. He proposes that you could dial in a percentage to allow for specular highlights, but that otherwise the camera should automatically E as far TTR as possible without blowing. Clearly that requires pretty much as many metering sensels as the camera has pixels and is currently therefore possible only with cameras that meter directly off the sensor. So the D800 could theoretically do it in Live View mode. And clearly it gets less necessary as sensor DR improves. But it sounds liked a good idea to me.

If there's a camera that can justify this option, it's the d800, right? It would just require a simple software routine. I'm surprised Nikon hasn't given us a tool like this, or at least a raw histogram.

My background is large format; I'm used to working with a 1° spot meter, sampling my important highlights and shadows, and exposing to place them exactly where I want them on the tonal scale. It seems strange to move to a sophisticated computerized system, and be more dependent on vague information and guesswork than ever before. It's a bit disappointing.

UniWb is intriguing, but it's really a hack. And I've been planning on using my jpegs as backup (on the sd card). Uniwb or a custom profile for live view would pretty much rule that out.
 

danielmoore

New member
Paul, you might like to try a Hoodman Loupe or similar for it's magnification and ease of viewing, but not zoomed in at max, rather backed out 1 or 2 steps (I prefer 2x). If you change your mind about the jpg backup, the max sharpening picture control tip makes a big difference in nailing live vew focus.
 

kuau

Workshop Member
Tim is spot on on this recommendation. Makes a big deference for me since all my lenses for my d800/e are manual focus.

One tip: set up a custom picture control with sharpening to max, and use that (assuming you're shooting only raw so your setting isn't ruining a JPEG!) to focus in zoomed LV. It makes it it notably easier.
 

kuau

Workshop Member
Another great tip,
I use the Hoodman plus there 3x attachment works great never focus with LV without it and I never need to zoom in all the way


One tip: set up a custom picture control with sharpening to max, and use that (assuming you're shooting only raw so your setting isn't ruining a JPEG!) to focus in zoomed LV. It makes it it notably easier.
Paul, you might like to try a Hoodman Loupe or similar for it's magnification and ease of viewing, but not zoomed in at max, rather backed out 1 or 2 steps (I prefer 2x). If you change your mind about the jpg backup, the max sharpening picture control tip makes a big difference in nailing live vew focus.
 

anGy

Member
Tim's recent blog post will give some insight.
Very pleasant, useful and clever post :toocool:
I also found matrix metering with -0,3 even to -0,7 exposure best. Picture have more density, color are deep and tonal transition don't seem to suffer. It avoids the awful blown highlights and blacks are easy to recover.

Other tip (that need further investigation): when handholding, use Q (quiet) mode to reduce vibrations a bit and improve sharpness.
 
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