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I guess it's been a slow day for me. I've been experimenting with custom tone curves, loading them 1 at a time into the camera and shooting the same scene for comparison. The normal tone curve is also included as a baseline. Thought it might be helpful for someone undecided on which custom curve to choose, and don't have the time or patients to do what I did (a special hello to all those unregistered lurkers )

At the moment, my hosting gallery Fotopic.net seems to be down, so I've uploaded them temporarily on Geocities. They don't like direct linking - so you'll have to copy/paste address into browser.

Other camera settings - JPEG large fine, Auto WB, sRGB Ia, med-low sharpening. Images resized in PS7, no further post processing otherwise.

These curves presented approximately in the order taken (judge by the shadow cast on the building).

Normal tone curve - use as baseline
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/curve-norm.jpg

Normal + 0.3EV
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/ ... orm0.3.jpg

Normal + 0.7EV
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/ ... orm0.7.jpg

Alfredo 3 curve - slightly brighter than normal, 244 cutoff (NB: 255 is max light value).
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/ ... lfredo.jpg

White Wedding v3.5 - +0.5EV over normal with highlights tapered.
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/ ... wed3.5.jpg

Provia v3.4 - supposedly closely matches low contrast tone, but slightly brighter, and with highlights tapered.
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/ ... via3.4.jpg

Normal - the sun moved quickly, so I took another just to standardise
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/curve-norm2.jpg

BH Film curve - a new, very high contrast curve aims to match the look of positive film (shadow details completely lost)
http://www.geocities.com/choicebro2004/ ... hfilm1.jpg


If you want any further details, don't hesitate to ask. If you're wanting to find out more about each curve and where to get them, let me know too.

Thanks Onyx.
I'm currently trying the BHfilm1 curve - I like it. My other curve I like is the Agfa Optima , a bit dark though, but by using Nikon Capture using DDE mode - the result is quite nice.

By the way, for all of these curves, do you still need to set the WB to -2 and EV to +0.3, Hue to -2 and SRGBIIIa ????

I'm thinking loading the BHfilm1 curve most of the time using it for outdoor, landscape and using default Normal, with WB -2, EV +0.3 and Hue -2 , SRGBIIIa, flash -1 for indoor, etc. What do you think.

I'm very new to D70. Only have the gears 1 month.

My setup: D70 with kit lens 18-70, SB800, Jaycar remote ), and Nikon F80 with 28-105. Currently looking at Sigma 70-300 APO Macro super II ( still sourcing) or Sigma 70-200 F2.8 HSM.

PL55 - some curves such as the white wedding were made so one wouldn't have to add +EV compensation. But others were made for other effects, eg. the BHfilm curve (BTW, I noted no difference between BHfilm1 and film2 curves).

Those other settings: WB, hue, colour space, etc can be set to whatever you like them to be. If you're happy with the settings you're currently using, I don't see a reason you need to change them.

Also, just to satisfy my curiousity - where/why did you learn to set hue -2?

Here' the link that give me the info on hue.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=10313290

Thre's other tips by David Chin too. It would be nice to consolidated into a D70 cheat sheet .

Cheers

pl55...Very useful link. Thank you.