Monday, July 13, 2009

Nikon Capture NX 2 Instructional Material

If one is a Nikon user and especially if you are learning to shoot RAW, or NEF, as Nikon RAW file is called, there are several good resources to turn to. First if you are on one of my workshops, at the break we go over my post processing techniques, which include the use of NX2. But there are two good resources to use at home. The first one is Jason Odell's ebook on NX2, http://www.luminescentphoto.com/ , and the second just came out, Mike Hagen's Nikon Capture NX2 After the Shoot. I bought mine at Borders, but it can be found also at Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-Capture-NX-After-Shoot/dp/0470409266. Mike Hagan's book is good if one likes to have the actually reading material in their hands, plus it shows very good real time examples using well illustrated images. Mike also shows you how to setup your computer to have the program perform better. I have used NX2 from the beginning and find that the results are better than I could get in Photoshop, even with NX like presets. I have setup NX2 with presets that help me spend very little time in conversion. Plus NX2 is the only program that will read my in camera settings. The other programs can only read the white balance. It is definitely worth giving NX2 a try!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Great Site for Learning the Histogram

The digital age has given us a great tool for getting better images, the histogram. Always have your camera set up to show the histogram. I use mostly matrix metering, and adjust my exposure compensation to shift the histogram to the right. This site explains this very well and shows you examples, http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=histogram .