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Is Nikon D70s any good without postprocessing?

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Sibmx

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After reading numerous posts and reviews it occurs to me that in order to receive excellent results you need to PP 90% pictures you take. Well, I owned a few Point and Shoot Cameras and I never postprocessed any of my images. Now, I decided to make a step up and purchased Nikon D70s and it turns out that I need to PP almost all of my pictures in order to get an excellent results. Do you have any comments on that?

Second issue I want to address is Automatic mode, well my girlfriend always shoots in automatic and looks like D70s fails to create good images out of the box in the A mode. Is there anyway to set it up so camera takes pictures AT LEAST not worse than top of the line P&S cameras. I personally prefer P mode so it's not an issue for me,
 
Welcome to the Dslr world.

I cannot tell you how many times I have read this exact same thing.

The D70 loves to be tweaked - if you want snappy jpgs, so into the custom image setting, and crank up the saturation, sharpness, etc. Also us sRGB 1 for people &portraits, and sRGB III for landscapes. If you are getting underexposure, try dialing in +.3 exposure comp.

Get out of Auto mode, and never go back. At least use P mode - you still have a bit of control over your image. In Auto mode, you have no control whatsoever.

You CAN get great jpgs straight from the D70, BUT if you post-process some, you can get outstanding results. A good analogy between no processing, and a decent post is kindof like taking your film to the 1-hour shop run by a 17yr old, or taking your film to a pto Kodak lab for prints.
Sibmx said:
After reading numerous posts and reviews it occurs to me that in
order to receive excellent results you need to PP 90% pictures you
take. Well, I owned a few Point and Shoot Cameras and I never
postprocessed any of my images. Now, I decided to make a step up
and purchased Nikon D70s and it turns out that I need to PP almost
all of my pictures in order to get an excellent results. Do you
have any comments on that?
Second issue I want to address is Automatic mode, well my
girlfriend always shoots in automatic and looks like D70s fails to
create good images out of the box in the A mode. Is there anyway to
set it up so camera takes pictures AT LEAST not worse than top of
the line P&S cameras. I personally prefer P mode so it's not an
issue for me,
Click to expand...
--
'87.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot'

ShutterBugin
http://www.exposureproductions.smugmug.com

 
Yes to all your questions... look here for how to set your D70s to take great Jpegs straight out of the camera (that will be argueably better than the D50)

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID86/15189.html

I have gotten great out-of-camera jpegs with no PP using these settings (though I prefer RAW and PP).

--
'Procrastinate now, don't put it off.'

 
Well, I don't use A mode BUT sometimes I need to take a picture really fast and it comes to be really handy. I give camera to my girlfriend sometimes and she can only do A mode, same with my friends.

How much time do u guys spend on PP. On a single day I can take up to 200 pictures, if I pp only half of these pictures it's gonna take a few hours... That's something I can't afford
 
Sibmx said:
it turns out that I need to PP almost
all of my pictures in order to get an excellent results. Do you
have any comments on that?
Click to expand...
Yes I do... that claim is false. You do NOT need to PP all images.

I read such claims around these forums and then proceeded to do a shoot with my D70s on a cloudy day using such derided modes as Auto and Sports and all the prints were brilliant. Great colours, great detail. What more could you want?

I've since been shooting RAW and JPEG using P mode and have got even better results. I also use modes S and M, too.

All I need to do is work on reducing blown highlights.
Sibmx said:
Second issue I want to address is Automatic mode, well my
girlfriend always shoots in automatic and looks like D70s fails to
create good images out of the box in the A mode. Is there anyway to
set it up so camera takes pictures AT LEAST not worse than top of
the line P&S cameras. I personally prefer P mode so it's not an
issue for me,
Click to expand...
Why can't she use P mode?
--
Michael Stubbs, Middlesbrough, England
 
A mode isn't automatic mode. A mode is Aperture Priority.
Sibmx said:
Well, I don't use A mode BUT sometimes I need to take a picture
really fast and it comes to be really handy. I give camera to my
girlfriend sometimes and she can only do A mode, same with my
friends.
How much time do u guys spend on PP. On a single day I can take up
to 200 pictures, if I pp only half of these pictures it's gonna
take a few hours... That's something I can't afford
Click to expand...
--
Gallery: http://www.mastersphoto.net/copper
D70 and photo discussion
D70 custom tone curves @ http://forum.mastersphoto.net
 
I don't have my manual with me, but there is a "Direct Print" option.
IIRC, it bumps up sharpening and saturation and ??.
It is designed for people who want to print directly from the D70 without any PP
--
Warm regards,
Dad-of-four
Looking for a Smugmug account?
Enter code kHmP122izH9gg in the Referred by field to save $5.
 
Sibmx said:
How much time do u guys spend on PP. On a single day I can take up
to 200 pictures, if I pp only half of these pictures it's gonna
take a few hours... That's something I can't afford
Click to expand...
But I throw away anything that is not spectacular. If you only shoot snap shots, who cares? But if you are shooting for art and are doing 200 photos per day, you can't be telling us that you get 200 keepers.

Your work flow should include an immediate classification of the keepers and binning of the rest (either to archive or trash bin.)

I get only a few real keepers per day, and even then I don't yet like everything I am seeing.

I process everything in ACR and then add just a touch of processing after that. If you get good at it, you can do the majority of your processing in ACR in batch mode. See Real World Camera RAW by Bruce Fraser for more on that work flow. I'm getting there ...

--
My gallery: http://letkeman.net/Photos
Fuji Finepix F11
Nikon D70s, Sigma 18-200, Nikkor 50mm 1.8D, Sigma 70-300APO
 
I have been using Aperture (Mac software) for my Raw workflow for a few days now. What I love about Aperture is that it was created for those who want to do quick processing. FOr me it's great because I have a few keepers and can trash the rest. Aperture can be a simple workflow, or a detailed program with many options depending on your needs. I use it for mainly organization, levels adjustments, noise, saturation - you know the usual changes. I try to get good exposure first and then PP a tad. Aperture for me is also great because it saves the raw file as is... and saves your tweaks and changes as commands (not duplicating files) so it's great if you are wanting to save HD space. YOu can always export as anything (PSD, TIFF, JPEG etc) - for me it's an incredible application - i only wish it was faster on my Powerbook!

--
'Procrastinate now, don't put it off.'

 
... If I were you, I would try some custom curves in the camera. I use them for snapshots and no PP, as JPG's right out of D70.

Try it - it wille help you in the beginning when you have the DSLR. After a while you'll find PP very good to use.

Custom curves - give it a try - i did. :o)

BTW, many of these pictues here, are rigth "out of the box":
http://www.pbase.com/ibolesen/klitbo

--
Micra
 
P mode is virtually automatic!

I guess if she wants fully Automatic, the D70s could be a little too advanced for her, then. Fuji's S602z and S7000 cameras produce amazing images in fully Automatic mode. You should be able to find those cheap enough now.
--
Michael Stubbs, Middlesbrough, England
 
fudgebrown said:
Aperture for me is also great because it
saves the raw file as is... and saves your tweaks and changes as
commands (not duplicating files) so it's great if you are wanting
to save HD space. YOu can always export as anything (PSD, TIFF,
JPEG etc) - for me it's an incredible application - i only wish it
was faster on my Powerbook!
Click to expand...
Yes, camera RAW does this too ... in fact, they all have to do that because RAW formats are proprietary and cannot easily hold the necessary changes. The DNG format can though. ACR lets you choose a database of settings or sidecar files. Both work fine and are maintained automatically by the application.

--
My gallery: http://letkeman.net/Photos
Fuji Finepix F11
Nikon D70s, Sigma 18-200, Nikkor 50mm 1.8D, Sigma 70-300APO
 
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