Washed colors

radek

Recently I got Nikon D3200 with 18-55mm and 50-200mm Nikkor lenses. Whenever I take a picture it seems like the colors are kind of washed; they're not as vivid as I want. Even on ban old D50 it looks way better. I was using D50 but I am not a pro, so I mostly just "shot". :)

Please help! I want to take my best shots, with my kit lenses, usually outdoors, sky, people, portraits. What are the best settings for it? Also, pictures taken with the D50 are very sharp (even after zooming on the computer screen). With the D3200, when I zoom it, it loses its sharpness fast. What am I doing wrong? I try not to shoot in Auto mode, because I get high ISO and images look very bad then, so I try to use manual settings (usually P and M modes) and set ISO to 100/200 or 400 max.

Seems like I need to get another PhD. :)

P.S. sorry for my English, it's not my native language.

radek

OK, after digging a bit in the settings I found something like Picture Control. I set it to Vivid Colors, and adjusted sharpness and saturation. I also found something called Exposure Value (I saw the button earlier, but it said "for pros only EV button, do not touch") and, ta-dah, pictures look way better!
So sorry for my questions (maybe childish, but it seems that my previous Nikon D50 had all these settings already set in the way I like it :), but if you have any other tips for me, I am open to suggestions, because now my adventure with photography is getting a huge boost!

bruto

Obviously this is much a matter of taste, but as you have found, it is possible to vary your settings a great deal. The color set of the D3200 out of the box in normal mode is not terribly vivid and a bit cool. The kit lens, also, though it is good and sharp, tends to be rather low in contrast compared to some primes. It can be very sharp, and takes well to post processing, but it is not to everyone's taste. Some of us (myself included) are not great fans of vivid color, and tend to like things a bit cool. But not all situations are alike. If you're photographing your kids on the playground, you may well want a much lighter and brighter look than if you're out shooting rusty railroad bridges in the sunset, and some scenes cry out for more color while others simply aren't about the color at all.

One thing you might want to vary is the Active D-lighting, which is on by default. It increases dynamic range and opens up shadows, but in the process it can make shadows a little bland and contrast seem less. If you are used to more contrast, you might find it better with D Lighting off. If you use the Nikon post processing software and shoot in Raw mode, you can restore shadows in post and get better results.

In addition, you might try a different white balance. The automatic white balance works pretty well, but in broad daylight it's cool. If you set a warmer white balance, it will make some colors pop out better without needing to adjust saturation and sharpness. You can stick to auto white balance, but modify the starting point. If you go the White Balance entry in the menu, and right arrow from any WB setting, it will bring you to a graph, in which you can vary the setting. For each white balance, the starting point is 0,0 so you can vary it, try it, and if you don't like it, go back and restore it to the default.

You can also set a custom white balance, using either an image or an exposure in the camera.

I recommend that you start with the camera in default mode except with Active d lighting off, normal color, all compensations off, and auto white balance, and shoot some pictures in Raw mode. Then open them in View NX2, and use that to experiment with white balance, color set, sharpness, shadow recovery and saturation, etc. You can turn the Active D-lighting on and off as well, and experiment with shadow recovery. Once you have found exactly what you like, you can adjust the camera to achieve it.

A couple of the scene modes include color sets that differ from the usual also. Portrait mode puts a little extra color in faces but leaves most other colors alone, and scenic mode pushes greens and increases contrast a little. You can choose these for regular shooting. View NX2 lets you switch between all the picture controls, so you can compare them.

It may be easier to start from scratch because some of the changes can cancel each other out, or duplicate an effect in slightly different ways. So, for example, you might find that a white balance adjustment gets you better overall color where you need it than changing saturation, which boosts all the colors equally.

radek

D-Lighting and white balance, that's the lesson for today. Thank you very much. :)