n to the fellow with the new nikon. You too Celia! I've run this by you briefly before.

White Balance!

My top reccomendation to anyone getting a new Nikon digital SLR is

a. Get Nikon Capture. It's $100 and processes RAW files (what I shoot with and reccomend exclusively) excellent. It's also the only program that will recognize the in camera settings when viewing a raw file (think of a raw file as a digital negative.. the settings are applied via the computer long after the shot). Capture is also great for all the general processing that needs to be done (resizing, sharpening, cropping, etc).

and

b. Get a white balance card (I got mine from whibal.com). I cant tell you what a difference applying perfect white balance to each shot makes. In many many instances it changes a totally unusuable picture into an excellent one. If you're unfamiliar with what white balance is exactly, just look at most any picture youve taken inside in low light... the color will generally always be inaccurate. Sometimes its subtle...sometimes its incredibly obvious. Alot of times I will look at a picture and think it looks fine, then I apply the white balance and realize for the first time how off it really was.

As far as cost effectiveness goes, I can safely say the $40 white balance card and the $100 Nikon program wins by a long shot for me. Highly reccomended.

Here's some random examples of what Ive done with my D50. Most are just snapshots, dont have the real nice backdrop setups like Celia.

These shots were taken with the available light... they would have been WAY off without the white balance card and totally unusable.











Random other shots, someoutside in sun... some with SB-800 flash (almost always bounced from the ceiling).





(notice how soft the lighting is when the flash is bounced from the ceiling, very evident in this shot, I HIGHLY reccomend the sb-800 flash)




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Take Care,

-Ryan Homsey

www.topnotchboas.com

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