Capturing Color

[annarfay]

One thing I am interested in learning is how to capture the color I see. I know it is possible to take a photograph of something that is not so vibrantly colored and it seems to be so. I would rather not deal with Photoshop and would love to learn how to capture color and what I see via the camera.

For knowledge purpose I have a Nikon D40. Very basic camera, but I love it so.

If you are unsure of what I mean, please let me know. I will describe it as much as I can.

Thank you!

 

[sabbath999]

The purists out there are about to have a heart attack when I say this, but try something and see what you think.

The good news is that one of the strenghths of the D40 is the ability it has to record really kicking colors. Whatever else people say about the camera, the image quality and colors are fantastic.

In your camera menu system (always choose the Full Menus option on the D40 so you can see all your choices), set your exposure compensation to -0.7 since the camera tends to overexpose.

Set your Color Mode to IIIa and your Saturation to + .

Go out and shoot JPEG (or shoot RAW and import into Capture NX) and you will see your colors start to really pop directly out of the camera. Use a polarizer when outdoors.

The "fix it in post" crowd will roundly disagree with me on this, but that's OK... it works for me.

Here's an example of what you can get out of your D40 by cranking up the colors, using a polarizer, and optimizing a little with Capture NX... no masks, no extensive post processing, just pretty much crop and resize:

EXIF: NIKON D40, 18-55 kit lens, 1/80s f/10.0 ISO200 18mm, $20 Tiffen polarizer.

The bleaching on the tree is caused by volcanic acid rain, this sits just in the lee of a major vent.

 

[annarfay]

I will have to try that. I have had my D40 for quite sometime and I have never done anything very serious with it. I am very happy for it being a beginner camera and I take relatively good shots for my level of experience and camera.

I will definitely try that this week and see what happens.

Thank you very much.

Anna

 

[Nimitz]

Go to the following link by Ken Rockwell

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/color.htm

for a fantastic discussion of how pros capture seemingly impossible colors in images with NO PP. As Sabbath says you should crank up the color saturation to the max on your camera - but that's only a starting point. the rest is explained by Ken ...