Photography, inspiration and a pandemic

Well, what a year it's been so far! Life during a global pandemic has certainly thrown up a lot of challenges, restrictions and changes that are still taking us, as a species, time to adjust to and adapt to as the "new norm".

I guess i was one of the lucky ones, in that I was already more of an introvert and spent most of my time either alone or around a small number of people.  That and my "day job" switched me to be working from home, so my Mon-Fri is pretty much normal; well, as normal as anything can be in all this.

Now, as anyone who's read any of my previous posts (meanderings) will know, I've been spending a lot of time being introspective. Yeah, yeah, I'm being a little "light" one the whole introspective thing; there's been a lot, but as long as you still retain some level of creativity, it's not a bad thing. Just resist the urge to let it paralyze your creativity. Over-thinking can really do a downer on creating anything. What it has done for me is to allow me a means to strip away the un-needed. To realize that I need to be myself, not try to imitate others and go with my "view" of the world around me. No one sees things quite the same as I do, as my eyes and brain process information uniquely; and yours is unique to you. Add to that my own personal aesthetics, such as selective focus and shallow depth of field, which you may or may not like. 

While 2020 may not go down as one of my most productive years image-wise, it certainly won't go down as my least productive. But what it will be marked as, is a year where I spent the most time working with just one camera and lens combo, and trying to instill/capture a feeling or emotion in the picture. While it is "easy" to produce a technically good photo, unless it has the ability to impart a feeling or emotion into the viewer, it is just a snap shot.

I have travelled a little bit this year, but the majority of the photos I've shot have been in and around the house and garden. And yes, there have been quite a few doggy portraits as their expressions are fun to capture. Some of my personal favorites have been shot on rainy days; and my "keeper" count has crept up a bit more. I'll add a few here for you to enjoy:

Nikon Picture Control

A feature of Nikon DSLR cameras that some people may not know about; or if they do, they don’t use is Picture Control. For the uninitiated, Picture Control offers the ability to shoot pictures with customizable presets (not unlike shooting different film stock). In fact, there are presets available online that provide a film emulation look for select film stocks. And yes, while the camera bodies come with several preloaded presets from Nikon, you can add additional ones yourself; the actual number varies depending on the camera model.

I would like to take a bit of time now to clear up some confusion as to their use. If you do a quick online search you’ll see a lot of people commenting that Picture Control presets only work for shooting in JPG format. This is inaccurate. Picture Control presets are applied in camera to RAW files and JPG files. Now, it’s what you do next to process the RAW files that matters. The only software that reads and applies the Picture Control presets while processing RAW files is Nikon’s own software; such as Capture NX-D. Using any other software, such as Adobe Lightroom, will result in the Picture Control presets (and some other Nikon image settings) to be discarded; resulting in rather dull and lifeless images.

The main camera presets that Adobe ignores/discards are:

1. Picture Control

2. Active D-Lighting

3. High ISO Noise Reduction

There may be some others, but these three settings are ones that are only recognized by Nikon’s own software, and ignored by all other RAW image processing software.

Now if you continue searching the internet on how to improve the “base” RAW images in software, such as Adobe’s, the advice is to essentially disable these settings in your camera. In other words, turn down the image capture capability of your camera. Which conversely means you’ll have to spend even more time in their software as you try to recreate the settings you had to disable. Sorry, not my idea of fun. As regular readers of my (sporadic posts) will have gathered, I now look to minimize my time editing my images and much prefer to “get it right in camera”. Now it’s not like I haven’t spent countless hours editing a single image, my preference is to be the “Creator” not the “Editor”.

Now admittedly Adobe (or any of the other software companies) can’t bear the brunt of any complaints as to these RAW settings being discarded during processing. Nikon (and other manufacturers) are still very secretive as to the RAW file formats they use. That and these third party companies have to make concessions to make their products work with as many cameras as possible; so targeting the most generic and widely used settings/values makes a lot of sense. But it does mean that there are a small percentage of photographers that suffer. You’ll even see some software companies offering unique versions of their software targeted at specific camera manufacturer users.

Anyway, back to the Picture Control settings. Nikon does include a program called Picture Control Utility 2 that apparently allows you to create your own presets. This is not something I’ve done myself, at this time. Instead I downloaded some pre-made presets from the internet, Nikon has a webpage offering various downloads.

And circling back to my earlier comments, to utilize the Picture Control plugins I do my initial RAW processing in Capture NX-D and export as uncompressed TIFF images or JPG; or just shoot in JPG. But as anyone who has sot with both formats knows, solely shooting in JPEG can be restrictive and not the best image quality. To get the best exposure latitude with good shadow and highlight values, you need to be shooting RAW. Although there are times that the JPG is my preferred format, even though the shadows tend to block up and the highlights can blow out (much like it would shooting slide film), as the extended shadow and highlight capability of RAW files can look “fake”.

Like in all other aspects of photography, the goal is to find that aesthetic/look that appeals to you. That and find the best software and process that provides that aesthetic; even if it does entail spending extended periods of time fine tuning the images. No two people are the same, so practice different techniques and find what is best for you.

Now to adding some examples. Both of these images were shot on a Nikon D700, with Active D-Lighting set to Auto and using a Picture Control called Kodak Ektachrome P (downloaded off the internet). Both were simply downloaded to and basic RAW processed in Nikon Capture NX-D, then exported to JPG format. The only other thing done was to reduce them down to 72DPI (in Photoshop) for web use; this step can also be done direct in Capture NX-D. Other than that, they are both straight out of camera.