D300 and boring gulls

Replaced my D200 with a 300 about a month ago and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. Didn't expect it to be as different in behaviour as it is from the D200.

Just got an 80-400 VR in the mail today but these were both shot with the 70-300 VR.





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http://www.pbase.com/miketuthill

Excellent. Did you use NX or PS for processing? Would be interested in your workflow.

jtwms said:

Excellent. Did you use NX or PS for processing? Would be interested
in your workflow.

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Thanks.

I use Lightroom alone 99% of the time (using the beta of 2 right now) and occasionally a little extra processing in Lightzone just to fine tune shadows and highlights. I have a D300 default set up in Lightroom that I apply to all shots (sharpness, vibrance, saturation etc.) and just fine tune exposure, blacks and contrast. I find processing in NX to be too slow but I wish the other processors could read the in camera settings and apply them.

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http://www.pbase.com/miketuthill

All pictures of gulls (and ducks and geese) are boring Nice shots!!
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Ed

tennanah said:

All pictures of gulls (and ducks and geese) are boring Nice shots!!

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Thanks Ed. I've got thousands of boring pictures in my catalogue However, I draw the line at babies; I have absolutely no baby pictures!

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http://www.pbase.com/miketuthill

Cats ord dogs?

I have a black cat and have a hard time getting a decent picture..
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Ed

tennanah said:

Cats ord dogs?

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Very few. None of my own dog, one of some friends dog and a few of my folks cats.

I also avoid beautiful women (hope my wife and daughter don't see this!)

tennanah184187 said:

I have a black cat and have a hard time getting a decent picture..

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Black animals/birds are always a pain in the butt. One way to get them, assuming your close enough to them, is to use some fill flash. If they're outside you can get them at the right angle to the sun to bring out some detail.

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http://www.pbase.com/miketuthill

Those photos are great. Could you please share the settings you apply to your images in Lightroom. Thanks

vandrv said:

Those photos are great. Could you please share the settings you apply
to your images in Lightroom. Thanks

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Thanks.

My D300 default for Lightroom is set as follows:

Contrast: +45
Clarity: +19
Vibrance: +25
Saturation: +31
Sharpening Amount: +64
Sharpening Radius: 0.6

I then usually crank the contrast up a bit if I think it's warranted and lower the saturation if it looks too outlandish.

I finish up with adjustments to exposure moving the slider up or down until it just clips (the triangle changes from no colour to colour). I then adjust the recovery slider until the exposure triangle goes to no colour again. Then I go through the same procedure as exposure with the blacks slider and then adjust fill light until the blacks triangle goes to no colour. I may then adjust the brightness a bit until I like the end result. I don't generally touch the noise reduction controls as I don't like the effect they have on detail. I realize that the general consensus is that sharpening should be done after all other adjustments have been made however due to my aversion to noise reduction adjustments I don't believe that doing the sharpening at the outset is very detrimental. If you do noise reduction I would concur that the sharpening should be the final step. I should add that the exposure and blacks adjustment can't always be done the way I do it and still produce a good result if there's too much overblown detail or a major contrast between the subject and background and in such cases I just make adjustments until I'm pleased with the result.

Hope this helps.

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http://www.pbase.com/miketuthill

Thanks for the reply I will certainly give those settings a try.
Joe