This thread has much helped me with a direction. Lets keep in mind that we cannot exactly replicate Velvia 50 in digital D200, but Velvia is what I prefer to use as reference because I like (qualities/) what I see in Velvia 50 film.
Now to my D200; I believe I am heading at in-camera using;
aRGB II
Hue -3
WB -2
Sharpening +1
E -0.7
sReala custom tone curve
(I do not have Thom's curve yet, but the curves are primiarily changes to tones, not to colors)
I have made some limited testing of different settings, but I much appreciate comments to above settings. Perhaps someone else is interested to try also?
Reasons to above settings are following;
Velvia 50 can be said to pleasingly saturate colors. Beyond the saturation, per in this thread and other sources, it posess following characters
"blue/red response tilts towards a violet/purple" - Thom Hogan
"slight shift toward red (and magenta in some situations)" Flask (Nikonians)
"shifts yellow and orange hues towards red" - Ken Rockwell by email
How do we replicate these shifts in D200? Anthony at Fuji SLR forum came up with a +3 Hue shift (D200 manual say "raising hue above 0"..."introduce a yellow cast, making colors that would be red at a setting of 0 degree appear increasingly orange"). That is a single shift of yellow cast, while it seems Velvia has more complexity. Velvia seem to have more shifts per above. In this thread was mentioned -3 Hue shift and WB 7100. That gives perhaps more complex shift, if not exactly like Velvia, more complex to the eye. More complex is good, because a single is too telling and revealing to the eye (compare just increasing saturation which is not Velvia). Specifying WB 7100 gives a fixed WB. By using -2 it is instead compensated and valid for more varying lighting conditions (not sure if it is identical to 7100 at daylight, but similar results).
E -0.7 may be large, but it brings more deep colors. Velvia has deep colors I think. Besides it is easier to in PS lighten and maintain detail than the opposite.
Next step is PS. TonUp seem more appealing to me than Nikon Capture NX. They are the ONLY ones who can read camera settings and custom tone curves!!!! I have played with both now. I did not get the batch processing in NX to work on my trial version, nor did I find a way to upload and download a custom curve with NX (perhaps licensed version is needed). Also, the fact that NX do not maintain last settings (e.g. JPG quality) in menus when saving a file was frustrating. And, TuneUp is not only very cheap, but it give more info on curves (numeric values as well as plots, great!). It also appear like a quality program. TuneUp though much would need an update to embed camera assigned color profiles, I could not find this! But, I simply assigned them when opening in PS CS2.
In regards to Thom's mention somewhere on DPreview of that "Velvia drops very rapidly to a rich black in the shadows", that can perhaps be fiddled with in CS2 curves using LAB and the lightness channel as is required for each photo (I will propably get Thom's D200 book, but mailing by CD takes time when I am in Korea, I am short on time!).
I also aim at for certain photos do light CS2 LAB to not only adjust the Lightness channel, but also to saturate the A and B channels. The Lightsrightsudio (
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tutorials/GiveYourPhotosAVelviaTouch.pdf ) give a concise explaination of what is in further detail explained in Dan Margulis book Photoshop LAB Color.
Any comments please??? Is this the right direction? Comments to settings please!
I will travel to China to photoraph in middle of this coming week so any advise on the settings is most helpful!
Much kind thanks.
Regards, Anders
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EXPAT WITH A HOBBY
Photo Aspiration - Artistic Pointing of Camera at Natural Light
Engineer and Architect - Aspiration of Arts in Technology
