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Hi all I have just upgraded from a D50 to a D80 - yes I know it's a bit long in the tooth and probably due for replacement soon, but it's affordable and suits me fine. Perhaps it's a legacy of many years of using film cameras, but I'm not particularly interested in image manipulation. I prefer to get it right in-camera. I will do some basic editing as and when necessary. When I look at the photos on screen they do not appear quite as sharp as compared with those from the D50. The Optimise Image settng is set to Normal (default). I would appreciate suggestions for the optimum Custom setting to get the best print-ready results. Many thanks. |
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What lens are you using?. Also if the camera is set to Adobe RGB the pictures can look lifeless on the monitor. Most Nikons err to the side of softness out of the box, expecting you to apply sharpening more accurately on your PC, if you just want to point and squirt, so to speak, just raise the sharpness one notch in your cameras menu (I have with my D300). The D50 produced notably punchy pictures "out of the box" (it was my last camera) designed to appeal to novices, I rather liked it, you should certainly be able to customise your D80 to produce similar images, maybe up one notch with contrast, sharpness and saturation will give some more "zap". |
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I have a D80 and agree with the above - up the sharpness, contrast and saturation one notch (although you may prefer to leave the contrast unchanged - try and see). Also make sure that you have a decent monitor - I recently changed mine and from mild disappointment with most of the photos I have taken with the D80 (and the D40), I am now utterly delighted ! |
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Thanks to both of you for your help. I have tried using the custom setting and increased both the sharpness and saturation. This has certainly given the image a bit more zap. The normal setting gives a somewhat flat appearance. I'm now a happy bunny! With regards to the lens Dom: I use a 18-70 and a 70-300 plus an 18-200VR for travel. I'm interested in changing the 18-70 to the new 16-85VR as my general purpose lens as it have both VR and s useful range. I'll hold off until I see some test results. |
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Don't dismiss "fast" glass Mike, as you'll know from your 18-200vr it only really works when the subject is static. I use the Sigma 18-50 Macro HSM F2.8 (though Tamrons 17-50 F2.8 is some peoples choice)as my every day lens and they are great at keeping the shutter speed up in low light as well as allowing you to experiment with depth of field. The pro spec build is nice too. In fact I've just sold off a lot of Nikon glass because the aforementioned Sigma with a 55-200vr in the bottom of the bag gives me all I need. |
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have a look here, gives some good straight forward advise http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d80/users-guide/index.htm |
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Just got myself a D80, thanks for the link above - great guide Harry |
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Nikon d80 is new camera 10.2 megapixe lighter than D70/D70s i like Nikon d80 review and vr 18-200 lens video http://digitalcame.blogspot.com/2008/05/nikon-d80-review-and-vr-18-200-lens.html |