My new D300s and 16-85

[Labbegutt]

After a long wait I received my new equipment.When I got it, the rain was pissing down, so I hade to wait before trying the camera. What a difference compared to my former Canon 40D and 17-55 f2,8.

The pictures seems a lot sharper, and that is what I was hoping for. I just have a small problem. The contrast seems to be VERY high in some of the outdoor pictures. I have set the D-lighting to Normal.

Is there somebody on the forum that can give me an advice on this.

Thank to all of you who said that the D300S and 16-85 was a great combo.

[TCav]

Try setting the d-Lighting to Off.

Also, I just went through a similar situation with a friend's new D90. Try doing a factory reset. That fixed the problem with my friend's camera. Since the camera is new, you probably don't have a lot of stored settings anyway, so you probably won't lose anything much.

[Labbegutt]

I have had my Nikon D300s and 16-85 for some time now, and I have taken quite a lot of shots. I am not pleased with the saturation and contrast. I was told to turn off the D-lighthing and set the camera to Vivid.

Has anyone had the same problem, and what is the solution.

Thanks

[rjseeney]

Originally Posted by Labbegutt

I have had my Nikon D300s and 16-85 for some time now, and I have taken quite a lot of shots. I am not pleased with the saturation and contrast. I was told to turn off the D-lighthing and set the camera to Vivid.

Has anyone had the same problem, and what is the solution.

Thanks

I typically shoot with D-lighting set to low and in neutral mode. I find vivid is a bit heavy handed with saturation and creates some clipped colors, especially reds, and ruins skin tones. you can fine tune your settings in and dial in more or less saturation and contrast to your liking.

Are you still finding too much contrast in your shots??

[Labbegutt]

Since I turnes the D-lighting off, the contrast is better. What I lack in my pictures, is some more punch. Like a good compact camera.

[Labbegutt]

Now I have out the saturation to Vivid. I have even boosted the saturation a little bit more. I have increased the contrast a little bit and pu on a little bit more sharpening. Now the pictures are just the way I want. Thank you for all good advice.

[frank-in-toronto]

You might want to rethink, just for a second, your workflow. I too want pictures with lots of pizzazz. punch. pop. all those p-words.

but i don't need them right-out-of-the-camera. especially if it compromises what I might want in future years as my tastes/needs change. so i set my camera to produce a more neutral product and later on batch all the jpgs thru irfanview.

i'm still new to dslr so i'm just figuring out how to batch the raw or even if i will want to. I'm looking into Raw Therapee and my camera manufacturers s/w (happens to be sony but doesn't matter in this case).

[Labbegutt]

Hello Frank. I aggree with you that I do not need the very punchy pictures straight fropm the camera, but I have tried to get the punch by using Photoshop Elements 7.0. I did not get what I wanted.

That is why I have set my camera to what someone might call "extreme settings".

[TCav]

I will add that cranking up the contrast and sharpness in the camera can have some detrimental effects on image quality when you start cropping, and especially if you increase the ISO. The increased contrast and sharpness will serve to accentuate any image noise, and even create some where none existed.