D5100: Picture Control Settings?

[gryffinwings]

I'm trying to set my Picture Control settings for best color recreation? I get pretty close to what my eyes are seeing except for the color of clouds. The color of clouds seem to be too light and not dark enough, like when taking pictures of storm clouds. This was very early evening, so it was still a little light, I was using a tripod, and I was keeping my ISO Auto from 100-800.

My current settings:
Sharpening - MAX
Contrast - 1 Step Up
Brightness - N/A
Saturation - 1 Step Down
Hue - MAX

Nikon D5100
Nikkor 18-55mm VR

These Settings are modified STANDARD.
I am shooting both in JPEG and RAW.
Active D-Lighting - Auto
Metering - Matrix
No Exposure Compensation

 

[TamiAz]

I'm trying to set my Picture Control settings for best color recreation? I get pretty close to what my eyes are seeing except for the color of clouds. The color of clouds seem to be too light and not dark enough, like when taking pictures of storm clouds. This was very early evening, so it was still a little light, I was using a tripod, and I was keeping my ISO Auto from 100-800.

My current settings:
Sharpening - MAX
Contrast - 1 Step Up
Brightness - N/A
Saturation - 1 Step Down
Hue - MAX

Nikon D5100
Nikkor 18-55mm VR

These Settings are modified STANDARD.
I am shooting both in JPEG and RAW.
Active D-Lighting - Auto
Metering - Matrix
No Exposure Compensation

Are you shooting in manual mode? I have the D5100 and I'm not sure how you adjust those settings in the camera. I shoot RAW and I adjust the contrast, hue, saturation, brightness and sharpening in Lightroom. I've never done it in the camera.

 

[cgipson1]

Sounds more like an exposure issue than a Picture Control settings issue. Try spot metering the clouds, instead of using matrix (which averages everything in the veiwfinder).

Personally I would turn down the Sharpening and Hue a notch or two, and leave Saturation at zero or +1 for general purpose shooting.

 

[gryffinwings]

Sounds more like an exposure issue than a Picture Control settings issue. Try spot metering the clouds, instead of using matrix (which averages everything in the veiwfinder).

Personally I would turn down the Sharpening and Hue a notch or two, and leave Saturation at zero or +1 for general purpose shooting.

I would like to know the purpose of turning down the sharpening?

Also I'm not sure how the hue affects the pictures.

With that saturation the skin tones were always too orange/red colored.

 

[TamiAz]

Sounds more like an exposure issue than a Picture Control settings issue. Try spot metering the clouds, instead of using matrix (which averages everything in the veiwfinder).

Personally I would turn down the Sharpening and Hue a notch or two, and leave Saturation at zero or +1 for general purpose shooting.

I would like to know the purpose of turning down the sharpening?

Also I'm not sure how the hue affects the pictures.

With that saturation the skin tones were always too orange/red colored.

Make sure your white balance, exposure and lighting are good and that should help your skin tones.

 

[nickwhite]

For my D3200:

Sharpening - MAX -1
Contrast - 1 Step Up
Brightness - N/A
Saturation - 1-2 steps up
Hue - N/A

Picture control is only for the JPEGs coming out of the camera. Cranking the Hue up like that will give you garish colors. For RAW, I'll run them through a workflow in Lightroom, or manually tweak the settings by hand.