Nikon D7000 Skin Tones Problem | Fuji S5 Comparison

I have always felt that Nikon cripples their DX lineup by processing skin tones with a weird plastic feel and an unnatural hue.  RAW helps achieve more pleasing skin tones, but JPEG is just hit or miss, and typically DX Nikon cameras miss.  I've also felt this trend continues to worsen with newer DX bodies.  The D70 had great skin tones.  The color rendition (for skin tones) on the D200 was superb.  The skin tones on a D300, D90, D300s, and D7000 (order of release) just went from bad to worse.

It wasn't until I upgraded to my D700 that I was truly happy with skin tones.  The D700 is what you want to look at for portraits.  In my opinion, not even the D800 compares in terms of skin tones.  The D800 does to the D700 pretty much what the D300 did to the D200: more megapixels, better ergonomics, faster, newer, but weaker skin tone rendition.

Here is what I've learned:

• Don't expect great skin tones from a Nikon DX body (not even with "nice" lenses) unless you have extremely controlled lighting
• Skin tones can always look better with post processing regardless of the camera
• Some cameras know skin tones better than others

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John Tatyosian
Check out my site: http://www.jtatphotos.com