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if you have access to a d70 and any camera from the d80 on try it with your own eyes..... put both in vivid and try it.... the d70 is punchier . also the d70 exposed for the shadows ,cameras afterward were weighted to expose for the highlights.. that in itself creates quite a bit of difference in similiar shots and exposures. many including myself found that we have to shoot at -.7 on the d80 and d300 to get a similar exposure like the d70 had at zero.
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-27-2011 at 01:03 PM..
Typically that makes sense for a camera produced JPEG, simply because more contrast, sharpening and saturation can easily be added after the fact, but are significantly more difficult to remove.
I absolutely agree, and once I got used to it I wouldn't have it any other way. A neutral RAW file is almost like a blank slate.
there is no such thing as a neutral raw file. a raw file is either rendered with the internal camera settings for saturation,contrast,sharpness ,brightness that you set being read by the manufacturers proprietary software like nikon capture nx2 or by how you set software like adobe camera raw on the default.
raw has no picture profile by itself and hense no such thing as a neutral raw file.
you can choose to set things flatter looking on your own either in camera or in the software if you like but in any case raw or not the image will reflect whatever is added to it by default..
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-27-2011 at 01:00 PM..
The D80 is not a pro camera, first or otherwise. And like all Nikon bodies the algorithms used to produce JPEG images can be tuned by the user to produce different results. Among the standard settings available are "vivid", "more vivid" and "custom".
And your characterization of the defaults certainly differs from that of recognized experts who literally measured the differences.
The "out of camera raw" files are not processed, and therefore by definition cannot be as you are describing. I suspect you misunderstood some of the strange things posted in forums...
You mean every RAW converter has a default output, and only Nikon's software used the camera's JPEG defaults. That's not the same as the camera having some raw default. It is apparently true the D80 was the first non-pro camera to have the same in-camera processing system as the D2x series of pro models did, but that isn't what you are saying either.
I just went through Thom Hogan's review of the D80 and Phil Askey's (DPReview) review, and they not only do not observe that, they say the opposite! Both mentioned the default color saturation is a little higher with the D80, making for images that by default are a bit too vivid.
Askey's review has detailed comparisons for different RAW conversion software too. But regardless your comment that Adobe Camera Raw doesn't read the camera settings is a bit of commonly stated presumption of a significance that does not exist. The whole point of processing raw sensor data separately is to obtain better granularity and after the fact control of interpolation than can be done using preset parameters in the camera! It simply makes no difference how the camera was configured, and indeed it is very common to purposely (UniWB as one example) to configure the camera's processing for a purpose other than generation of a production JPEG image.
well no matter how you want to bend it and twist it the internal settings or what nikon calls picture profile is very much a part of that raw image.
we usually call these jpeg picture profiles but thats only because nikon will not license the codes to others to be able to display and read those settings in a raw image. other software like adobe picks its own profiles to use for lack of being able to read what is really there.
adobe camera raw has a nikon option if you poke around. it trys to duplicate what the in camera settings do but it does it by trying to closely mimic it. to my eyes it falls short .
none the less those settings you choose are all right there in propritary software like nx and that raw image is going to be rendered by whatever you pick.
well no matter how you want to bend it and twist it the internal settings or what nikon calls picture profile is very much a part of that raw image.
Fact: They are not part of the raw sensor data (there is no such thing as "that raw image").
The camera settings are part of the Exif data, not part of the sensor data. Picture Control settings have absolutely nothing to do with the sensor data, any more than the copyright or user comment in the Exif data does. They are Nikon JPEG engine specific parameters, which basically means that any brand of external RAW converter can in fact read them... but unless they choose to implement precisely the same conversion scheme that Nikon does the data is useless.
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we usually call these jpeg picture profiles but thats only because nikon will not license the codes to others to be able to display and read those settings in a raw image. other software like adobe picks its own profiles to use for lack of being able to read what is really there.
Any third party software can read "the codes". What Nikon doesn't license to anyone is the source code for their JPEG engine.
Quote:
adobe camera raw has a nikon option if you poke around. it trys to duplicate what the in camera settings do but it does it by trying to closely mimic it. to my eyes it falls short .
Which demonstrates that your previous comments are not valid.
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none the less those settings you choose are all right there in propritary software like nx and that raw image is going to be rendered by whatever you pick.
Including if you wisely choose to totally ignore all of the camera presets, which is virtually the only reasonable thing to do with a RAW file, because otherwise why not just use the camera generated JPEG instead of wasting time reproducing exactly the same image.
if you have access to a d70 and any camera from the d80 on try it with your own eyes..... put both in vivid and try it.... the d70 is punchier .
Expert reviewers, using scientific measurements as well as experienced observations, disagree with your characterization (emphasis added):
"Color integrity is very good in Imatest's color checks,
even with the slightly distorted sRGB color spaces that
Nikon uses (Ia and IIIa). Saturation is a little higher
than I expected, resulting in punchy colors for a Nikon
body."
the modes i.ii,iii have nothing to do with the picture profile and our discussion.
that was nikons attempt to follow film profiles.Mode Ia optimizes certain red and magenta hues, while IIIa goes after the green range . mode iii was nice for landscapes .mode II was adobe rgb.
the fact is that there were lots of complaints by amatuers when the d80 first came out that the photos werent as punchy as the d70's unless they were post processed.
having been a d70 owner and now had the d80 i found that i had to punch sharpness up to max to duplicate the same look in the d70 as well as darken the shots in the d80 by around -.70 to get them to look like the same saturation level and contrast. as the d70.
this is well documented on many reviews.some even went so far as to call the d80 meter defective.
in a nutshell the d70 in vivid looked finished, the d80 did not.
im not quite sure how you are even commenting when you never had the cameras to compare .
nikon addressed the issue saying that the d80 was ear marked for the lower end pro and as such profiles were selected with the idea that post processing would be utilized and there exposure theory shifted from exposing for the shadows like in the d70 to exposing for the highlights in the d80 and beyond.
there is no such thing as a neutral raw file. a raw file is either rendered with the internal camera settings for saturation,contrast,sharpness ,brightness that you set being read by the manufacturers proprietary software like nikon capture nx2 or by how you set software like adobe camera raw on the default.
raw has no picture profile by itself and hense no such thing as a neutral raw file.
you can choose to set things flatter looking on your own either in camera or in the software if you like but in any case raw or not the image will reflect whatever is added to it by default..
Fine, I set my RAW files in camera to look neutral, and alter them to taste on the computer. I assumed everyone would understand what I meant when I typed "neutral".
im not quite sure how you are even commenting when you never had the cameras to compare .
You've made a lot of very clearly incorrect statements about common characteristics of Nikon cameras.
Quote:
nikon addressed the issue saying that the d80 was ear marked for the lower end pro and as such profiles were selected with the idea that post processing would be utilized and there exposure theory shifted from exposing for the shadows like in the d70 to exposing for the highlights in the d80 and beyond.
Can you cite something that verifies that? I've never heard of anyone who believes the D80 is a "pro" camera, low end or not. Previously you said it was the first pro model form Nikon to have "relatively flat tuned output", which is simply absurd on it's face. It's not a pro camera and it used the same JPEG engine as the D2X, D200, and D2Xs all of which actually are pro models and all of which preceded the D80 (the D2X was two years ahead of the D80).
nikon billed it as a "pro-sumer level camera. just google it.
im not the only one who thought the d70 images looked better out of camera. dont forget we are talking about amateurs who rarely go in to the menu and tweak settings. thats the group im refering to. visit any nilon forum and go back to the d80 postings and see how many my d80 look soft postings there are.
the d80 and my d300 are pretty identical. in fact if my wife and i didnt use different numbering sequences we couldnt tell who took what the photos are so alike.
i think the d80 and above are all going to look identical especially because they all use picture profiles now .
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-27-2011 at 03:14 PM..
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