Camera Setting help please?

[Cmcburnett]

I'm new to digital SLR. I have a Nikon D80 and I mostly use a Nikkor18-200 VR lens. Everytime I take pictures of the muddy Chattahoochee River the water in the photo looks blue. I would like to be able to get a more natural look for the water. Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Here is one photo I took. The only thing I did to the photo was add a frame. The water should be a merky brownish color.

[JulieM]

Charlotte,

I think you are probably using a setting which makes a decision on white balance for you. I think you'd get a more true river color if you used manual or either shutter or aperture priority and then set your white balance yourself.

[Cmcburnett]

Julie, your right. I had the camera setting on Auto. I tried several settings on manual but the pictures don't turn out as clear as on auto. I am going to have to give up and take a photo class. Just finding time to do it is the hard part. Thanks for your suggestions. I'm not giving up, I love taking pictures.

[kimi_boo]

Charlottee... I pretty much keep mine on Aperture Priority mode.

Curious as to what others are using?

[rkmart]

My setting depend on the subject and surroundings. Manual has the most flexibility.

[Not4wood]

Charlotte,

I also have the D80. I found that there are way too many settings to go thru to make a great picture. LOL I went out and purchased a copy of:
"Nikon D80 Digital Field Guide" by David D.Busch and its a great book that will answer anything you got.

To shoot this water scene, I woud also set this to Aperture Priority. But truth be told, its a nice shot. If I were you, I would shoot this in Raw and when converting over to the program you edit in, I would then change my white balance to suit myself and the shot. You could change the WB to anything you want. Or, it could be the automatic Color Matrix Sensor looking around and realizing its a water scene and the water should be blue. You could take it off this automatic sensor by using the Manual Setting. Look at the Auto or Aperture Light setting for your exposure. If its lets say for arguments f:8 at 200 of a second. Change the camera to Manual and set it for f:8 at 200 of a second and take your shot. It should then be the same exposure. Or take three. the first that was just mentioned. Then open up the Aperture going down in numbers. I think off the top of my head the next f: stop is 6.3 then 5.6. This will change your exposures and you should get at least two usuable images from this.

[Edmund]

Charlotte, I'm not sure but it looks like to me that all that blue is coming from reflections of the blue sky. Notice that the goose is almost the correct color and does not have a blue color cast. Also the water splash behind the bird looks accurate color. Was it in fact a nice clear sunny day? I bet a polorizing filter would take care of that reflection.
Eddie

[Codebreaker]

I don't know about the Nikon dSLR but many compact cameras when used on Auto do add some saturation in some scene modes. Landscape modes in some cameras assume green foreground and blue skies and the green/blues tend to get boosted.

A good reason to stay away from Auto settings and even more reason to go for RAW - where you take complete control over the processsing.

Colin

[Chuck S.]

Originally Posted by Edmund

Charlotte, I'm not sure but it looks like to me that all that blue is coming from reflections of the blue sky. Notice that the goose is almost the correct color and does not have a blue color cast. Also the water splash behind the bird looks accurate color. Was it in fact a nice clear sunny day? I bet a polorizing filter would take care of that reflection.
Eddie

I agree with Eddie. I don't see any color cast at all in either the goose or the splashing water in the foreground. The reflection of the sky is the likely 'culprit', although, living as I do near a muddy lake (inexplicably named Clear Lake!), I really like the blue water effect!

[Cmcburnett]

Originally Posted by Not4wood

Charlotte,

I also have the D80. I found that there are way too many settings to go thru to make a great picture. LOL I went out and purchased a copy of:
"Nikon D80 Digital Field Guide" by David D.Busch and its a great book that will answer anything you got.

To shoot this water scene, I woud also set this to Aperture Priority. But truth be told, its a nice shot. If I were you, I would shoot this in Raw and when converting over to the program you edit in, I would then change my white balance to suit myself and the shot. You could change the WB to anything you want. Or, it could be the automatic Color Matrix Sensor looking around and realizing its a water scene and the water should be blue. You could take it off this automatic sensor by using the Manual Setting. Look at the Auto or Aperture Light setting for your exposure. If its lets say for arguments f:8 at 200 of a second. Change the camera to Manual and set it for f:8 at 200 of a second and take your shot. It should then be the same exposure. Or take three. the first that was just mentioned. Then open up the Aperture going down in numbers. I think off the top of my head the next f: stop is 6.3 then 5.6. This will change your exposures and you should get at least two usuable images from this.

Mark, thank you sooo much for the info. I'm going to order the book today. As far as camera settings I'm going to have to start just trying the different settings instead of taking the easy way out using AUTO. Thanks again for your help, it is very much appreciated.