Nikon D300 setup

[freddiebear]

Who out there has a good set-up for taking portraits, that I could use for my new Nikon D300? I would greatly appreciate any help you all could give me.
Freddiebear

[Nikonfreak]

Lots of variables to this Freddiebear. There are no settings that are going to be perfect every time. You have to test and shoot and see what you like the best based on your personal taste and what equipment you are using.

Julio

[peterst6906]

Freddie,

Head over to Nikonians.org and download the excel spreadsheet in the D100/D200/D300 forum.

Regards,

Peter

[digitalzed]

Try auto first, then start playing around with A, then S, and finally. M. Auto gives pretty good results on the D300 but as Julio said earlier, every time you shoot is a different set of circumstances and needs. What the D300 can do in Auto will give you a good foundation to try other settings once you get the feel for what the D300 can do.

[Nikonfreak]

I will add this... for basic people portraits, I tend to stick to normal in the menu and tweak from there. Going to Standard will tend to over saturate and give inaccurate skin tones. I usually also increase sharpening when in Normal mode for portraits.

Julio

[RickC]

Originally Posted by freddiebear

Who out there has a good set-up for taking portraits, that I could use for my new Nikon D300? I would greatly appreciate any help you all could give me.
Freddiebear

The best set-up is: crisp focus, interesting depth of field and composition, and exposure.

Learn to use Manual mode. Figure out the best exposure meter mode to use and the best focusing mode.

Worry about the details of white balance, saturation, sharpness, noise, etc., when post-processing.

Shoot in RAW.

[Nikonfreak]

Have to disagree with you RickC. Worry about everything up front. Check yourself a few times.

Shooting in RAW is fine, but when you shoot many many images or have 3-4 events per week, getting it right out of the box becomes critically important. I don't care if I'm shooting RAW or not, get it right up front and you'll have far less to do in post.

RAW shooting is not an reason to do sloppy work up front. All the steps are the same as if you were shooting with film. The medium has changed. The methodology has not.

Julio

[RickC]

Originally Posted by Nikonfreak

Have to disagree with you RickC. Worry about everything up front. Check yourself a few times.

Shooting in RAW is fine, but when you shoot many many images or have 3-4 events per week, getting it right out of the box becomes critically important. I don't care if I'm shooting RAW or not, get it right up front and you'll have far less to do in post.

RAW shooting is not an reason to do sloppy work up front. All the steps are the same as if you were shooting with film. The medium has changed. The methodology has not.

Julio

Julio,

What are you typing about? I never implied to do sloppy work.

I typed that you should learn how to expose for an image. The details to "worry about" in pp are not essential to good photography.

Reread my post.

[Nikonfreak]

Originally Posted by RickC

<snip>Worry about the details of white balance, saturation, sharpness, noise, etc., when post-processing.

Shoot in RAW.

Here's the sentence I had an issue with.

You can't wait until post processing to worry about white balance, saturation, or noise.

PP sharpening is fine, but you should have a fair degree of that in your image already by the time you get to post.

I consider PP "Minor touch up" time.

Higher noise levels in images is usually a function of under-exposure problems or extremely high ISO.

Julio