I havebeen in touch with a few of you about some changes I have made and have gotten MUCH better control of blown whites in wedding shots,

As you guys know:
I shoot JPEGs ( I know I'm going to Hell and you hate me).Buit I get some very fine shots out of camera and I wanted to share.

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Some D300 Neutral Settings (Good skin tones) (revised July 2008)

I. Set your LCD brightness to -1 ,( find it in Setup Menu. )
0 is too bright and not close to what we actually see.

2. Set your white balance to A. (automatic) . OR
With the SB-800 using white balance of "flash" is very DEAD ON.

3. In Shooting Menu go to set picture control and make these
settings:

4. INDOORS: Page 277 in manual. Set b6 , matrix metering to – 2/6 . This has really helped A LOT with not blowing whites and with almost perfect JPEGs. Fine tuning the optimal exposure has helped incredibly to get great flash shots.

5. OUTDOORS: Set b6, to - 3/6


Go to neutral.

1. Sharpening to 5
2. Contrast to +1 ( 1 click to right of 0)
3. Brightness to 0
4. Saturation to 0
5. Hue to -1 ( 1 click to the left of 0)


Don't forget to click OK after you make the adjustments and before you
exit the menu.

Try it and let me know what you think.


Now a few explinations:



1. The LCD will look flat and not contrasty but the image when opened in a calibrated monitor shows more contrast.

2. As many of you know the D300 tends to expose much to the right.
I better not say overexpose because it upsets some of you. (BUT IT DOSE)
Fine tuning the matrix metering makes the flash shots much better in control of the blown whites and contrasty blacks at a wedding

http://www.pbase.com/samjstern/image/100232335.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/samjstern/image/100232333.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/samjstern/image/100232340.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/samjstern/image/100232337.jpg

Hope this helps you guys who shoot weddings.
It has made my post processing faster and improved my images.

Take care.


--
Sam
www.samjsternphotography.com