wood duck

dbaker1221

While I have you all I'd like to ask those of you with a nikon d300, how you have it set up to shoot. ...neutrual, standard..ev up/down. AF tracking on/off.
I think my biggest problem is that it seems that the neutral colors always need to be lowered:dunno

It seems to me I need alot more pp on my shots. & I'm sure it's because I'm not understanding this camera yet. thanks

jwear

you do not want my opinion on the d300 and nikon --focus issues leans to overexpose --no tracking the camera is a kin to something the dog leaves behind on a walk after dinner --but try tracking slow shoot neutral and adjust in pp it does give good color on the day it works

Harryb

Despite Jeff's unhappiness most folks are happy with the D300.

My current recommendations for the AF are: a1 AF-C priority selection - focus; a2 AF-S priority selection - focus; a3 Dynamic AF area - depends on the conditions - bright, high contrast -51 points, bright, low contrast -21 points, low light, low contrast, busy background - 9 points; a4 AFocus tracking with lock-on - short; a5 AF activation - AF-ON only;

The D300 exposes more to the right than previous Nikon cameras. The exposure is consistant and you have to learn how the camera "thinks". On your wood ducks you were uisng shutter priority with 0 ev adjustments. A
-0.33 or -0.50 EV adjustments would have held the highlights. Use your histogram to check your highlights. Important thing to note on the RGB histogram pay close attention to the red channel as that tends to blow out easier than green or blue.

I use the neutral setting in-camera and when I open the image in Capture NX I change the settings of neutral (i.e. sharpening to 0) as all I want from the camera is the image and I'll do the rest in my post work.

If you're not using Capture NX, start using it. It gives you the best quality results from the RAW conversion.

dbaker1221

jwear wrote:

you do not want my opinion on the d300 and nikon --focus issues leans to overexpose --no tracking the camera is a kin to something the dog leaves behind on a walk after dinner --but try tracking slow shoot neutral and adjust in pp it does give good color on the day it works

thanks Jeff

dbaker1221

Harryb wrote:

Despite Jeff's unhappiness most folks are happy with the D300.

My current recommendations for the AF are: a1 AF-C priority selection - focus; a2 AF-S priority selection - focus; a3 Dynamic AF area - depends on the conditions - bright, high contrast -51 points, bright, low contrast -21 points, low light, low contrast, busy background - 9 points; a4 AFocus tracking with lock-on - short; a5 AF activation - AF-ON only;

The D300 exposes more to the right than previous Nikon cameras. The exposure is consistant and you have to learn how the camera "thinks". On your wood ducks you were uisng shutter priority with 0 ev adjustments. A
-0.33 or -0.50 EV adjustments would have held the highlights. Use your histogram to check your highlights. Important thing to note on the RGB histogram pay close attention to the red channel as that tends to blow out easier than green or blue.

I use the neutral setting in-camera and when I open the image in Capture NX I change the settings of neutral (i.e. sharpening to 0) as all I want from the camera is the image and I'll do the rest in my post work.

If you're not using Capture NX, start using it. It gives you the best quality results from the RAW conversion.

thanks Harry...your info is not far off from what I'm doing now. However I have found that I tend to hit more shots when the tracking is off.

fool4thecity

Wood Duck
I'm invested in Canon, so I can't comment on the possible camera issue. However, I would like to say you captured some great images! Thanks for posting them.

DsrtVW

What Harry said My Sigma lenses tend to overexpose and have to adjust EV when not in manual mode. My new 18-200 VR Nikon has been pretty much spot on even in P mode. BIF and busy spots I have to use single focus spot centered AF-C and it tracks well. It likes to lock on to twigs to much if the AF has to much to choose from.

BigAl

I can't comment on the camera settings, but those are pretty colourful shots!