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Out of the box, the D700 lacked a certain crispness, vividness, and balance I aim for in my photography. I’ve found that certain settings allow me to achieve that effect.
Starting from shooting menu:
1. Image Quality, RAW:
I shoot in RAW to allow maximum post-processing flexibility, and preservation of details.
2. White Balance:
White balance adjustments account for a good portion of the D700 learning curve. I wrote a separate article on the subject, which I will outline very briefly here.
I find auto white balance not always spot on. In these circumstances, I set white balance to one of the six basic settings: incandescent, fluorescent, direct sun, flash, cloudy, shade.
Fluorescent has 7 subsets to choose from in shooting menu. Whatever you set in the shooting menu is what will be selected when using the WB button on top of the camera.
I’ve spent most of my time fine tuning white balance on my camera. When selecting a white balance setting on the shooting menu, a color chart pops up with a blue-amber x-axis, and green-magenta y-axis. Using the multi-selector, you can fine tune the temperature. I seem to favor a slight amber shift.
There is a preset function that allows you to read the white balance off of an image, which I discuss in my white balance article.
3. Picture Control
Nikon’s picture control system makes adjustments in processing settings, allowing configuration to sharpness, contrast, brightness, saturation, and hue. You can create a custom picture control, or chose among 4 presets.
I chose ‘vivid’ picture control because I like a rich, but not oversaturated image. I find this ideal for all photographic projects.
4. Active D-Lighting
Active D-Lighting preserves details in highlights and shadows as the picture is taken. As a result, processing time increases and memory buffer decreases, but not so much that I notice a significant difference.
This feature is nice for high contrast photos like interior shots with bright windows. I set Active D-Lighting to high because many of my shots are high contrast. I still find myself making adjustments with image editing software.
5. Long Exposure Noise Reduction
This setting is a must for nighttime photography with long exposures. When I first took long exposures of stars, there was almost as much noise as stars. After a little research, I set long exposure noise reduction on. The difference is dramatic. However, for as long as the exposure is, the noise reduction process seems to take just as long. That means 15 minute exposures take 10+ minutes to process.
6. High ISO Noise Reduction
High ISO creates noise as well. The high ISO noise reduction setting removes much of it. Sometimes I don’t like using flash in low light because it is intrusive, or because I want a natural, relaxed composition, like candlelight music. I jack up the ISO, but suffer noise. To compensate, I set high ISO noise reduction to the ‘high’ setting. Again, this increases processing time.
Moving to dials, knobs, and buttons
7. Metering
Metering determines how the camera sets exposure. Although center-weighted and spot metering has its place, I almost always use 3D matrix metering. Camera meters a wide area of the frame and sets exposure according to distribution of brightness, color, distance, and composition.
8. AF-Area Mode
I’ve used auto-area AF almost exclusively with satisfactory results. This puts the burden on the camera to select focus point. In single-servo AF, active focus points are highlighted a second after camera focuses. In continuous-servo mode, this is not the case.
9. Focus Mode
This little switch in the front of the camera causes me a little trouble because I always accidentally hit it. I usually like to keep it at single-servo AF, that way the focus lock is engaged. Sometimes, when I am trying to capture a dynamic object, I’ll switch it to continuous-servo mode, then it is constantly focusing on the subject. I’ve also used manual focus a good deal when the camera convulses with indecision.
10. Exposure Compensation
I like my images slightly overexposed, for optimum recovery of dynamic range in post-processing. I set the exposure compensation to +.3 to +.7.
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