I've recently been exploring the world of photography without editing, and the options for cameras are quite limited. I picked up a Nikon Zf a couple of months ago to find out just how good the images it can make right in camera could be.
We've reached a point in photography technology where it's expected that the images you capture should be edited. The Canon cameras I own have very few options for taking images that look pleasant right on the back of the camera. That's one reason I picked up the Nikon Zf, but just how good can the images be? Can I actually get away with never putting them into Lightroom?
In this video, I answer those questions while also trying to limit myself to only 36 images, which can be a refreshing challenge if you need to add some limitations to your next outing. You'll see images with no editing, even all my bad ones! I also spend time explaining my thoughts and process while out in the field.
I will let you be the judge though, are these images good enough for your portfolio without every touching a computer? If this video isn't enough, I have over 100 images on my website that are mostly straight out of camera. In my opinion, what sets Nikon apart from a brand like Fujifilm is that their recipes can be applied to the raw images rather than only JPEGs. This means that you can capture images like I am in the video and still have the flexibility to edit the raws later—the best of both worlds!
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You might want to look at Thom Hogan's new e-book Mastering Nikon Jpegs
The one thing that became quickly apparent from viewing all the recipe images on your website is that I don't give most of those variables with regard to color and contrast much thought while taking the picture. I'll beat it to death afterwards in Photoshop, but if I had to think through all my options and make a choice at the time of capture how I would want to render colors in the finished print, I would probably never get to the stage of clicking the shutter. Maybe that's the kind of forethought and previsualization that I should be developing, but at this point, I'm more likely to experiment with colors and tone in post-processing where I can take the time to evaluate alternatives. In the field, I am pretty much solely focused on composition. The freedom with the Nikon to later adjust the recipe in RAW seems like an extremely valuable feature.
Concentration on ‘composition’ without considering colour & contrast is a new lesson..!!
I'm not sure that it's a good lesson, or even a good idea... it just happens to be the way it works out for me. As an example, last night I was walking around the golf course next to my home (after sunset and there were no golfers on the course) and I made a photograph of this little stream. I didn't stop to think much about the color, I just liked the elements in the picture, so I devoted my attention to the composition and shutter speed to get the motion of water. Later that night while editing the RAW file, the idea of warming the color tones and making the water a little bluer came to mind. But it was definitely not something I gave much thought to when I clicked the shutter.
If this camera was 36 mps or 45 id buy it...24 no thanks
Its also heavy for what it is
And why oh why did they use flip out screen for a retro style camera.