Digital Resources

[Marvin Mattelson]

I have found two things that have been very helpful in getting better results with my Nikon D70.

The first is a CD instruction manual called The Complete Guide to the Nikon D70 I generally don't like photography books but this guy knows his stuff. I was very lucky to find it. He has many books on all varieties of Nikon cameras, none of which I have read. However, I would be surprised if they were any less thorough.
You can find it here- http://www.bythom.com/d70guide.htm

The second item is called an Expodisc. You can place this over your lens and take a white balance reading instead of using a gray card. It's pretty cool. They can do a much better job of explaining than I can at- http://www.expodisc.com/

I am not associated with either of these products, just spreading the word!

[Joan Breckwoldt]

More information! Marvin, you are tireless! (And I mean that as a compliment). These are resources that I would never in a million years even know about. So, tomorrow, because I can not absorb any more info tonight, I'll investigate.

thanks again,

Joan

[Elizabeth Schott]

Marvin you know I am in a swirl of digital constant confusion, so you could you please explain to me a couple of things?

The lens white balance attachment does sound pretty neat, but once you get your white balance (I am just referring to digital photos) what do you do with it?

Are you shooting in a "Raw" format and changing your images in PhotoShop based on the reading, or do you set it to the highest resolution and bracket in the balance suggested? I am assuming the Nikon is a bit like the Canon and has standard balance formats you adjust manually.

I know you also painstakingly calibrate your monitor, have you found any deviation with this, or checked the images on another computer?

This has been such a frustration with me.

Thanks, Beth

[Marvin Mattelson]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth Schott

The lens white balance attachment does sound pretty neat, but once you get your white balance (I am just referring to digital photos) what do you do with it?

Depending on your camera's capabilities, you can either use it to set your camera's white balance or as a reference in an image manipulation software like Photoshop. If you go to Expodisc's website they have suggestions for using their device with many different digital cameras.

Are you shooting in a "Raw" format and changing your images in PhotoShop based on the reading, or do you set it to the highest resolution and bracket in the balance suggested? I am assuming the Nikon is a bit like the Canon and has standard balance formats you adjust manually.

I always shoot in Raw format at the highest resolution but I set the white balance first. My camera can't bracket white balance in Raw, just in Jpeg. As I stated in another thread, I can also place a gray card in my picture and fine tune it with the Nikon software. Then I can upload this adjusted picture back to my camera and use this to set a custom white balance.

I don't know a lot about your Canon, but it's my understanding that it is not as fully featured as the Nikon D70.

I know you also painstakingly calibrate your monitor, have you found any deviation with this, or checked the images on another computer?

Every monitor is different. You can get things close but for me the bottom line is having my prints match whatever it is I'm shooting. In that regard I've been extremely pleased with my camera and my printer, the Epson R800. You have to surrender to the fact RGB on a monitor and ink on paper can never really look exactly the same. Images used for the web should be saved with an sRGB icc profile.

Hope this helped.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Beth,

The exact profile I imbed into my web images is sRGB IEC61966-2.1

You can find the various icc profiles in Photoshop under Image>Mode>Convert to Profile or Image>Mode>Assign Profile. This one is specifically for web images.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Thanks!