In-Camera color editing

Can be done!

Here, take a peek...

Photograph with my trusty AF-S 24-70, WB at 2500ºK, set with the WB in camera. Cannot recall the ISO, but must have been nicely high (like 3000 or so).

Exact same photograph, but with the color cast corrected... in the body! No PS used in either shot.

Now, let's get to the procedure.

Here I would post photographs of my camera menus and you'd be able to see them just as I do, but since I only have ONE functional digital camera (the other, a small Panasonic, was purchased only to photograph eBay bait), my dear readers will have to contend with my prose.

• Now, turn on your camera.
  
• Push the Menu button.
• Go to the Retouch Menu.
• Select "Color Balance" and then click OK.
• The camera will take you to your shots, stored in the card.
• Select the one with a cast problem.
  
• Click OK and you will see a screen showing the preview on the top right, with a quadrant and a pointer in the lower right side of the screen. You can move the pointer 0r cursor with the multidirectional button or with your commands; at the same time you move the cursor over a color area, you can see the changes this makes on the photograph (however small the view). Once you have reached the tone you can live with, click OK again...

Presto!

Another way is to view the photo in your screen, and click OK. This will take you to a menu that includes D-Lighting, Red-Eye Correction, Trim, Monochrome, Filter Effects and Color Correction. Select Color Correction, and it'll take you to the screen with the color quadrant and the image preview.

Try it... and move it to your personal list of most-often used functions, aka "My Menu." Once you've done it often enough, you won't need to correct color in PS again... or at least you won't have to wait until downloading it.

Things one does with a 50mm lens

Here are some samples... with a 50mm f1.4 lens, not always wide open.

Restaurant in Philadelphia, at night.

Mimi, looking out the window.

One chair from our backyard, covered in snow.

It's been a while

It has been a while since my last post... and in that time, we celebrated Christmas with Edmund, the three of us went to Philadelphia in business (got some shots), and even got some additional toys to play with: a nice Nikon AF 50mm f1.4 lens.

Some results of that lens (among other toys) below.

For instance, I'm not really crazy about the OOF renderings here. Granted, they're great, but I think I got into a much larger problem than with any f2.8 lens. See these things:

First comes a cake (California citrus cake, for those who may care; it's essentially a pound cake) end, photographed with my new AF 50mm f1.4 lens, wide open.

Below, the same cake and almost the same composition, with the trusty AF-S 24-70 f2.8, at f2.8

Is there a difference?

To me, yes: it's in the detail of the cake texture. These shots are not, BTW, sharpened or manipulated at all. In fact, I didn't even resize them. At this point, I'm on the fence about this lens... probably because I bought it for the rare ocassions in which an f2.8 won't suffice.

Like this one below... also done with the 50mm lens.

The focus is on the end of the arm, that circular, capricious, metallic image of a curl. The back of the bench is already blurred, and the background... irrecognizable.

After thinking about it for a while, and comparing other (irrelevant) shots, I came to the conclusion that bokeh is an acquired taste. I do have it, but not yet that ever present, or at the expense of a certain amount of sharpness. In fact, I now believe that this lens really shines at f1.8 more than fully open... but, you know what? I'll keep it.

More on toys later. At least, as I reported earlier, my AF-ED 80-2oo f2.8 came back home, like new, from the folks at Authorized Photo Service in Morton Grove, IL. I even got the silly request for a name plate replacement (mine had lost it). They were able to find one, and now the lens looks (and works) better than ever.

So long!