Amazing dynamic range of Nikon D600 – even in jpg!

Hi,

I am not sure that everyone fully understands what the Nikon D600 (or D800) are capable of in terms of image quality. In fact, I believe that if you are a raw shooter, and maybe one who prefers to set your ISO manually, you may have missed the point of this camera.

The D600 is not an evolutionary camera, the way I see it. By improving the sensor output to the extent that Nikon (& Sony) have done in the D600 and D800, the output has entered a new territory where it is possible to use these two cameras in a completely different way than we have been used to.

Exploring my new D600 and a few of these new aspects of using it, I also found that they (as far as I can find out) are new to the collected Internet wisdom on these cameras.

Much of what I found is related to the jpeg output. As a start, you can push shadows an extra couple of steps even from your jpeg pictures.

This is a jpg straight out of the camera, Nikon D600, 50 mm f/1,8 Ai-S pancake lens shot in A mode @ f/2,8.

Matrix metering, no exposure compensation. Camera chose 1/3200 s and ISO 100. ADL set to Auto, picture control Standard, Saturation +1. The picture was taken in Stockholm, September 2012, afternoon light with strong backlight and very harsh contrasts which is the reason that it came out a little underexposed. (Or maybe the exposure is fine, this depends on what you want - we cannot allow histograms to decide our exposures, can we?)

This is the same jpeg picture 12 seconds later, pushing shadows:

To cover it all I started a blog called Nikonsystem - I am trying to cover this, and a lot more than I can ever write in a forum on DPReview. It is not commercial, but just written for my own fun and I will add at least a handful of more posts on other things you can do with a D600. If anyone is interested the blog can be found here: http://nikonsystem.blogspot.com

My hope is to start a iscussion here at DPR. I know there are many qualified persons among you readers out there - please fill in, agree, protest or just have your say. But most of all, I would be interested if you test the same things on your cameras, with your lenses, your exposure, your settings and your post-processing software!

Please note that this is just a start. I am planning on writing a lot more about this, and also other aspects of the D600 (+ D800) jpeg capabilities.

So much has happened with these latest FX cameras, the D800 and D600, that it might be time to completely reconsider how you use your camera.

Gabriel