New member query - Color Cast with D3000

[Meddaugh]

I'm a retired professor who enjoys photography, especially of vacation travel. I've had fantastic luck with Kodak's higher-end digital cameras and thought as I retired I would step it up a bit. I bought a Nikon D3000 and 2 lenses. My main problem is that I have been, to be kind, somewhat underwhelmed with the color renditions of this camera. The pictures seem to have a color cast leaning toward tan or brown and they don't seem as "alive" as my Kodak shots. I was wondering if anyone else has had this experience or can suggest a solution to my problem. Thanks

[Donald]

Jim - As advised in the New Member intro thread, I have moved this message in here.

Members - Anyone able to make suggestions to Jim on this one?

[MrB]

Welcome, Jim - I don't have that camera but I suspect that somewhere in its menu system you will find options to change the appearance of the images. For example, one Web review site lists these parameters in the D3000 -
• Picture controls: Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, Landscape
• Quick Adjust: 5 settings (adjusts Sharpening, Contrast and Saturation by preset amounts)
• Sharpening: Auto, 10 levels
• Contrast: Auto, 7 levels
• Saturation: Auto, 7 levels
• Hue: 7 levels
Hopefully, a member who owns one of these cameras will give you a more helpful reply.

Philip

[rpcrowe]

Often a person transitioning from P&S cameras to DSLR cameras feels underwhelmed at the quality the new camera/lens is achieving.

Usually, JPEG images straight out of a P&S camera have been processed (sometimes over processed) by the camera which results in a bright and crisp image (albeit one with less definition or available information) while JPEG images from a DSLR may or may not be processed to the user's desires. All DSLR cameras can be setup with JPEG controls to give crisp images straight out of the camera. Just read your manual to show you how to set up the camera to provide that type of imagery.

However, often when you are setting up the camera for bright and vibrant out of camera imagery, you do not have the best image for later post production.

I personally shoot in RAW. When shooting RAW, the camera provides very little manipulation of the image and it often looks undersaturated, dull and not exceptionally sharp right out of the camera. BUT, RAW imagery is not designed to be used straight out of the camera. RAW imagery provides exceptional control over your photography when worked with a photo editing program such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, one of the editing programs camera companies provide, or free editing programs such as GIMP or PICASA.

Best of all, the manipulations that you do to your RAW images do not impact or destroy the RAW image. You will always have the RAW image untouched if you don't like what you have achieved when editing.

Addionally, Using RAW you can easily get rid of any color cast in an image and then globally rid all the images shot during under those conditions of any color cast.

Many photographers tend to think that shooting in RAW requires exceptional skills and a lot of work. I personally think that working with RAW is easier than working with images shot in JPEG. There is, on the other hand, a solution to being somewhat reluctant to commit to shooting RAW alone. Most of today's DSLR cameras allow the photographer to capture in both RAW and JPEG at the same time. This is how I shot when I was transitioning to RAW from JPEG until, I realized that I was not touching the JPEGs at all and doing everything in RAW.

I suggst that you take a peek (or rather read in-depth) the excellent Editing and Post Processing tutorials found on CiC. They are accessed from above...