Nikon D70s Help! Colors Messed Up!
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 2 Registered: Apr-06 | Nikon D70s Help! Colors Messed Up! After 30+ years of photography experience, I've gone to digital this year. My issue is the terrible color I'm getting from this camera. In my opinion, it's like going back to 1975. No, it's worse than 1975. Anyway, I've uploaded a photo taken this morning to show my issue. If it doesn't upload, let me describe it.... The exposure is perfect to my eye. Particularly the leaves of the plant and the wood on the deck. The color of everything, but the red flowers is great... But look at the red flowers! The red flowers are nothing but a big red blotchy 'glob'. This exposure on the flowers looks ok. Everything else in the image looks great. But, there is absolutely no textures or tones to the flowers. The image is 3000 x 2000 pixels, set at fine jpeg, and you would see the same thing if you could see the full size image. I'm using a Nikon D70s around 100th second f4.5 200 'iso' if I were using beautiful Kodak Portra film, or Kodachrome 64 film, I would be finished listing at this point -- errr I wouldn't NEED to list. But, alas, let me add that there are also ... 1,000 other 'digital' permutations too numerous to list Please Help!! It's kinda like using 1,000 menu settings to drive my car instead of a steering wheel. Sometimes I end up in Kansas because of setting #563 or possibly #722, nobody can say for sure. Can you recognize if I've done something wrong? Maybe some setting inside some menu? Anything? Thanks  |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 330 Registered: Sep-04 | The red channel is blown. It's the most sensitive in digital & the first to go. Try reducing your exposure a bit. Digital is even pickier than slide, so has to be right on. I am assuming you are shooting in JPG; this is an example of why I climbed the RAW learning curve--the blown red channel can be dealt with in RAW conversion fairly easily. For shooting in JPG really all I would know to do is reduce exposure a bit, then bring the overall brightness back in post processing (play with curves in Photoshop). |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 3 Registered: Apr-06 | Thanks for the info Chris. It makes perfect sense and will certainly help very much. But, crying out loud ... When I took that photo at about 7:00am the scene was as low a contrast as you can get, in shade, with 'sweet' morning light. I just went outside 11:00am with my beloved film camera and spot metered on the deck wood and flowers in the same scene. They are still in the shade, but perhaps more contrasty than at 7:00am because the sun is higher now. Yet, there is STILL less than 1 stop difference between the deck wood and the red flowers! I'm about ready to vomit. The D70s can't handle an exposure latitude of 1 stop ?? Yeah, that would certainly be less forgiving than slide film. (By the way, I believe that that slide film has a HUGE latitude. But that's another issue.) Why wouldn't Nikon design the camera's firmware to reduce the red curve if it's that sensitive ?? I don't have the time and especially not the interest in adjusting RAW files all week long. As Bones used to say on Star Trek, "I'm a photographer damnit!". Oh, wait, or was it something else? Is there any other way around this, maybe some setting buried in some menu somewhere? Thanks much Chris. |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 4 Registered: Apr-06 | Oh, one more thing, the flowers were one stop DARKER, not brighter, than the deck wood (as seen by the film camera)! |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 331 Registered: Sep-04 | Wow, what mode was the camera in? I'm wondering is it's set to be highly saturated, which would blow the red channel early. I wouldn't expect that kind of situation to blow the red so badly. Maybe Berny can chime in here--he's the resident Nikon guru. I am typically in aperture priority or manual mode & shoot RAW. But even on the odd occasion I shoot JPG, I try to make sure the settings in my camera are neutral (i.e., no boosted saturation, contrast, etc). I normally run into the red channel issue in my stage shooting when the lighting guy thinks it would be a good idea to red-gel the liaght for a performer in a predominantly red costume...sigh... |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 6 Registered: Apr-06 | Chris, Thanks again. We're getting closer to an answer! Wasn't sure what you meant by 'mode' so I started by setting 'optimize image' back on 'normal'. I did have it set to lower contrast -1. Effect, none. Then, I put white balance on 'automatic'. I did have it set on 'shade'. Effect, the image is rendered ALMOST ACCEPTABLE. I could pretty much live with it; given the other benefits of digital. And the actual scene is much more contrasty now, so this was a tough test. Then, I tried putting white balance on 'direct sun' thinking it would be the final answer, but to my surprise the image was back to unacceptable, with just a red blotch for a flower. This excercise is proving that you are correct, this is showing an issue with how the camera hardware is processing the color curves. And I now see how you are right also that RAW would be an effective way to deal with it - but I just don't have the time. I do wedding photography and take hundreds of images at a wedding. I would rather find proper settings for the camera hardware to deal with it when I snap the image. If all else fails I'll go to RAW post-processing. Since you have experience with RAW processsing, can you tell me how long it takes you to post-process 500 images from RAW into JPEG? It just seems too crazy that this camera seems like it is able to render red images, but is so overly punched up and blown out on reds. I have so much respect for Nikon. It just seems like Nikon would provide for their hardware to be more reliable for the red curves. Something just doesn't seem right, still. Thanks again Chris. Hopefully I'll find some answer or you or someone else will think of some more ideas to try?? I'm open to any suggestions! |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 7 Registered: Apr-06 | Another thought...Maybe I should just use a light green filter to lower the reds and set the thing on auto white balance? Or maybe preset the white balance with a gray card that has just a little bit of a red tint? |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 8 Registered: Apr-06 | ok, here is the best so far, although I'm not sure I like the exposure (purposefully underexposed by about 1 stop). results of red flowers are much improved. Still seems too much like putting a band-aid on the problem. tone -1 saturation -1 white balance auto the actual scene is very contrasty with direct sun. Trying the 'correct' exposure with same settings, otherwise, still does create a bit of a problem with the red flowers. how long does it take to process 500 RAW images?  |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 332 Registered: Sep-04 | With the model you have (and keep in mind, I use a Canon 20D, and only occasionally my sister's D100) there are several point & shoot modes, then the good old program, aperture priority, shutter priority & full manual. I never mess with the P&S modes--they assume too much & try to do the consumer punch-up-the-contrast & saturation thing. I tend to stay in Av or M and shoot RAW. I also normally leave the camera in auto WB as it usually is fine; when I expect getting WB to be tough, I use a WhiBal card & set custom WB. Processing RAW can be pretty quick once you get the hang of it & have a fairly new, speedy PC. Assuming most images require little to no attention, I can get the conversion batch going in anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. Frequently all the images in a shoot need the same adjustment, so I'll get the first one dialed in & copy those setting across the rest (a few seconds), then do a quick check to verify I'm happy with it & set the computer going. With the new dual-core processor I can then go on & work on something else (like I have my DAM doing a batch process right now behind the browser). I use Bibble as I think it's output rivals Capture One & the batching tools are very well done. You might try heading over the www.nikonians.com for some specific advice for the camera--that's a good group over there. |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 9 Registered: Apr-06 | Thanks Chris, Yeah, I too live in Av mode whenever possible. There is much info online about the Nikon histogram using only the green channel. So, as you say, the red channel could be totally blown out. If so, the histogram would look normal. I zoomed in on the red flower the other day, spot metered right on it, and the result was close to the same with the red mostly blown out even though there was very little or no green in the image. Digital just isn't where Kodak Portra 160NC is. Digital isn't close. I think I just need to 'let go' of my Kodak Portra and quit trying to find her again in digital land. Maybe I'll have a good long cry and then stay away from red colors. |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 336 Registered: Sep-04 | Unless you have a full RGB histogram, you're looking at the luminance histogram which while useful, can only tell so much since a single channel can be blown while the luminance looks ok--as you have found. Since the Bayer pattern filter on the sensor has twice as many green locations than red or blue, that is why I think they say it's mostly the green channel. The RGB histogram is one of the nice features of the pro-level (and now Canon 30D) cameras. Now I'm wondering if the scene is wider than 5 stops (which seems to be about what digital can handle). It may be a case where the digital trick of taking bracketed shots, one for highlights (or reds here) and one for shadows, then merging them in Photoshop is necessary to get the results you are after. |
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New member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 10 Registered: Apr-06 | Thanks Chris for you valuable time, patience, and thoughtful and helpful answers to my questions! Thanks to you I'm starting to see that my answer may be in investing in more powerful computer equipment and software. I'm very happy with the beautiful results this camera can produce - except for the occassional glitches, which are not occassional enough for my standards. You've helped me to understand that using NEF files will help with many of those glitches. By suggesting actual software that works in practice, you helped me to research software and that, in turn, helps me to decide on my next computer upgrade. Once I started researching post processing software, my eyes were opened up to a whole new world. I still don't have the solution fixed, because it involves managing 700 files in a reasonable amount of time, but finally feel I'm pointed in the right direction to perhaps finding a way to make that happen! Thanks again Chris!!! |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 337 Registered: Sep-04 | No problem. Since you are just starting with digital, it may just be that you are still on the steep part of the learning curve. I personally prefer to shoot RAW, but that involves extra expense in software and time, so I don't want to point you solely in that direction. It may very well be just a matter of learning the specific camera & it's response. Keep in mind, I shoot with a Canon 20D and am not familiar with the quirks of the Nikon, so am making educated guesses. With that said, I'm certainly happier after upgrading to a current-spec PC & amassing my array of software tools. Another thing to keep in mind, with shooting digital wou now have a whole new issue of managing an ever-growing catalog of image files. This will eat up hard drive space at an amazing rate. My old PC started with a 40GB drive, which got updated to a 150GB RAID5 array which also became much too small. THe new PC currently has a 40GB drive for the OS and a 300GB RAID0+1 array for data--it's already 50% filled. I have just added a 300GB drive in a removable chassis, so that should be a permanent solution--just get another drive & tray when space runs out. I've read the first couple of chapters of The DAM Book & it's definitely worth a read for anyone shooting digital since sooner or later you will *have* to address organizing your files. It will take some time to develop you own workflow on the computer, but once you have gotten it worked out & running smoothly, you ought to be able to process the images fairly quickly. I happen to have jut about 700 images shot yesterday at an event that I need to process tonight. I should be able to get through them all in one evening. So far they are downloaded, renamed and imported to my management database. Next is culling & rating, then processing, and finally importing the developed images and finalizing metadata embedding. |
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Bronze Member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks county, Pennsylvania Usa Post Number: 11 Registered: Apr-06 | LOL it's amazing how you can start with one problem, and find the answer in other problems/issues ! Chris, your description of your workflow is Awesome! You've helped me to realize that workflow, software, and CPU power are really going to play a big part in my ultimate answer. I am going to work more to ultimately be able to efficiently post-process NEF files. I'm new to digital in many ways (software and workflow), but familiar with digital in many others. This article explains, better than I can, why I like to work with jpeg: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm But the whole counter-point to this way of thinking is now looking like: i) CPU power, ii) software, and iii) workflow. I did a wedding a couple days ago with my digital in one hand and my film camera in the other. I did it in JPEG - checking the viewfinder after just about every image. I set low contrast and saturation, with careful exposure monitoring, and did a beautiful job in JPEG. The images and colors are wonderful! I'm very happy! I'd say 9 out of 10 images need no post-processing at all. Just crop and go. I personally consider Kodak Portra-NC portrait film to be the benchmark for wedding photography. Since I'm not taking pictures of sailboats, there's no need for punched up colors and contrast. Who needs to see perfectly contrasty gleaming red color in the face of a drunk sweaty dancing groom ?? The lowered contrast and color saturation settings in digital gave me something a little closer to my beloved film. However, half way through the wedding, only theories on how, my white balance went to 'incandescent' or 'fluorescent'. Thank God, I noticed, after only a few images, that the images looked blue on the screen and corrected the setting! Is it true that NEF file post processing would have avoided that as WB is just a record, and does not really modify the actual NEF data ???? If that's true, then is there any need to set white balance while taking the image in NEF ??? If that's true, I'm going out tomorrow and buying a dual core processor CPU and shooting nothing but NEF. The thing I still hate with digital is the total number of settings - makes me a nervous wreck. I started in photography 30+ years ago, and learned "Keep It Simple Stupid" and "Get It Right The First Time" the painful way. I thought my dues were paid in full long ago. Sometimes seems to me that digital is more like "use 1000 settings" & "get it right eventually". Someone please make me a light sleek digital camera with a spot meter, auto focus, exposure +/- dial, aperture priority setting, exposure lock toggle, aperture ring, iso setting, and a couple of glass filters. When is that model coming out? Storing images is one area of digital I have a handle on since I'm a computer nut. I back up on CDs (soon to be DVDs), and again redundantly on an external hard drive. Then, I work from the computer hard drive. When finished, and all safely and redundantly backed up, I delete the files in the computer. I buy cheap obsolete hard drives (again just as a redunant backup) and plug them into an external $20 USB enclosure. That, in turn, plugs into a USB port. When it's full, take the drive out of the enclosure and store it. |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 338 Registered: Sep-04 | OK, sounds like you have a pretty good handle on it all.  I don't agree with everything he says in that article. I've shot mainly RAW and processed thousands of images within a week many, many times. Once you have a good efficient workflow set in place you can chew through them quickly and it does give the option to fix any missed exposures. On the flip side, I subscribe to the get it right the first time school of thought--the closer to perfect you get in camera gets you less time at the computer and a stronger image file. WB is effectively replacing choosing the correct color-balanced film, while ISO is replacing choosing the correct speed of film; the advantage in digital is that you have the option of changing frame-by-frame instead of being stuck with your choice for a whole roll. I generally will leave my camera set at auto unless I know lighting will maintain a difficult cast, then I shoot a greycard (actually WhiBal) shot and set custom. If I'm shooting in studio I will set the WB the same way--now I know it's perfect and I don't think about it again for the rest of the shoot. From there, I pretty much just stick with the main typical camera functions. The only extra option I mess with is selecting ISO and that only if my current setting won't get my the shutter/aperture combination I want. 90% of the rest of the bells & whistles I normally ignore as they have no immediate effect on me taking a shot & some are a set-once-and-forget-it kind of thing. To get more specific on my workflow: 1) Plug in the card or portable drive. Downloader Pro will automatically recognize it and run. I input a job name and let it go. The program will rename the files, and generate standardized directory strucures, and stuff basic IPTC copyright information. 2) IMatch is automatically loaded. I tell it to scan and import the new files. Then I categorize them. 3) Usually while it scanning I will run Breezebrowser Pro and run a slideshow to cull & rate the images. 4) Back in IMatch, run a script that imports the ratings and generate a Bibble work queue from a selection off those (a five-star system, I will look at 3+ ratings). 5) Bibble is loaded automatically & I process the images in the generated workflow. It depends on how well I did, but usually I can go through several hundred in an evening. I go through all the images, creating the settings for each, then send them to the process queue--I can then move to another shoot or take abreak & let the computer work. 6) If needed, images are loaded into Photoshop for any final processing. 7) Back in IMatch, I import the final files and run a version management script that copies the work done in step 2. Finally run a script to stuff IPTC tags with the full copyright information and database information. Yes, I jump around apps a bit, but I prefer each app to be very good at the one or two tasks it is for than one single app that is medicore at each. It also allows me to set one app off on a batch process while I am working on a more manual step for a different group of images (e.g., IMatch importing one set while DL Pro is grabbing another, and I'm rating a third). For backup, I'm moving to removable hard drives. I started by using DVDs and had an initial spindle of cheapies--I'm paying for that now as those early ones are starting to go bad.  The more recent Taiyo Yuden disks seem to be ok, but my confidence in DVDs as a sole technology for backup is gone. What I am doing now is one hard drive as a main data drive, a second one as a backup & DVDs as a third. |
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Bronze Member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks County, PA Usa Post Number: 12 Registered: Apr-06 | Chris, I'm always pushing myself to find new ways to improve as a professional wedding photographer. And you helped me greatly with this particular step forward. I upgraded to a new dual core processor computer. Also invested in bibble pro and some other misc software. Huge investment! This is an incredibly powerful system, both in terms of processing power and in terms of workflow. You are absolutely right about bibble. Beautiful software. If it saves just one critical image - then it's worth it. And it's also going to save me a ton of time with RAW format images! Thank you very much for your help and your generous sharing of information. It is greatly appreciated! |
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Bronze Member Username: BecauseyouloveBucks County, PA Usa Post Number: 13 Registered: Apr-06 | Oh, I almost forgot. Here is the final image. Just imagine thousands of bright red flowers at a wedding The image could be cropped better on the right, but that's not important for now. It's just a little big for a blog, but needs to be to really see the red colors, so here is a link http://www.becauseyoulove.com/wedding-photos/photo-example001.htm Thanks again! |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 344 Registered: Sep-04 | Very nice shot. Glad it's all working out. I'm sure glad I went to the dual core system, and you will notice Bibble makes full use of it (they actually say they will take advantage of up to 4 processors!). BTW, be sure to hit their support site & check the 3rd party plugins, one user is developing a B&W converter that I've had great results from (woohoo, B&W conversion straight from the RAW converter); in my portraiture section the B&W baby shots were converted with an earlier version. I just did a few flower shots last weekend that shooting RAW helped with a bunch, included some red and some white roses; a few tweaks in Bibble & no blown highlights. I'll get the final shots uploaded to my portfolio section at my site tonight: http://www.chrislaudermilkphoto.com |
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Silver Member Username: ClaudermilkPost Number: 345 Registered: Sep-04 | I'm back already. Hitting the Bibble site, I see they just now (like within the last 24 hours) released 4.8 & it has some built-in B&W new goodies. Now I can't wait to D/L it & try it out. |