D30 Skin Tones

Dixon_Zalit · #1 06-16-2001, 03:45 PM

I would love to use my D30 for more portraits but I am afraid. I use NPS or NPH for portraits because I love the skin tones that come off that film, either in a professional lab or my own darkroom. Portrait films are not meant to be accurate, they are meant to be beautiful.

The D30 is designed to be accurate which may not be good for portraiture. Anything less than perfect exposure with the D30 means skin tone trouble, but even with good exposure I struggle to make a skin tone that looks as sweet as NPS.

Has anyone got Photoshop method for getting great skin color? An icc profile? A printer profile? Whatever it takes.

If anyone out there has actually switched from NPS/Portra to the D30, I would also like to hear about it.

JCN · #2 06-21-2001, 09:09 PM

Dixon, your question about the D30 skin tone is brutally honest. I think a lot of people have avoided that one so far. I am shooting all digital on seniors now and honestly believe my Portra 160nc yielded much better skins tones than my D30 does. But, but, that is not enough to make me abandon digital. I need to keep shooting and tweaking, tweaking, tweaking. So far, I'm pretty amazed and pleased with my results with the exception of my outdoor shots, which I'm having a heck of a time with as far as consistent exposures are concerned. I think it is more of a situation of getting more familiar with my D30 and understanding how it operates better. I haven't sold my RB67's yet and I'm sure I won't. I'm still waiting for the new Kodak digital back to fall below 4k in a few years and I think it will. I wish some others would contribute and speak to how they may be achieving good skin tone with the D30........

JörgenNilsson · #3 06-22-2001, 03:57 AM

JCN

Is Your RB67 modern enough to host a advanced tool like DCS ProBack. My Hasselblad 553 ELX is not being able to use ProBack, [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I have to switch to a newer camerabody 553ELD which has the couplings for digital backs...

About switching from Portra to D30. I have and I think it is not so bad. I sure miss Kodak Ektacolor GPX. It had warm and pleasing skintones, Portra VC isn't as good as GPX.

I hope that Kodak could develop a plugin that could handle files from other camera manufacturers and add profiles to them with different flavours, like Portra VC or GPX or Fuji NPS.

Jˆrgen

Ron · #4 06-22-2001, 09:05 AM

Different strokes I guess.
I don't like warm skin tones, I tend to like them accurate. I'm in the beginning of my senior season right now, (shooting 6-7 a day non stop 5 days a week). The D30 file processing is way to time consuming to make digital practicle for my seniors.

But I now shoot all the children in the studio with it. (also did one family, and of course the couple at the beach posted here previously).
I have wallets here in front of me of the kids, a 30x40 hangs in the studio window of the couple, I also did a 16x20 of a older couple with their two pets. I would say that skin tones are as good as if not better than my RZ/NPS images. I did have some initial problems because I had used bibble and it makes for funky skin tones. But zoombrowser does excellent raw conversions.

Since digital retouching is so easy and gives more control and higher quality over conventional negative retouching, I much prefer the D30 over shooting NPS. The prints delivered of the children are awesome. I would LOVE to shoot digital for everything, especially seniors. But with my work load and with the time required to convert, copy and prep for the lab - it's not practicle in this day n age. Time IS money and if you time is worth much, digital is far to costly to use.

But I keep the D30 near by and will use it on occation through out the season when the need arises. I do have a senior to be shot at the beach and will probably use the D30 for that session. It is handy for special jobs that you don't mind investing a little more time into.

Dixon_Zalit · #5 06-23-2001, 12:09 AM

Good sample above. The skin tones look like slide film, accurate. Contrast is high. Portrait film on the other hand, is more neutral, and low in contrast. I have tried getting the same effect in PS but the results were unconvincing.

Dixon

FlyAngel · #6 06-23-2001, 01:38 AM

For me, D30 renders very nice skin tones. Of course, skin color hue is related to the color temperature of your light. But after all, it is digital, and you can adjust later in PS to match your taste.

[ June 22, 2001: Message edited by: agl ]

RobertCummings · #7 06-23-2001, 11:03 AM

That's why I shoot with my Kodak 660. The skin tones are great.
The picture of the little girl above is really a simple adjustment to get it terrific and the guy that wants things a little softer - just soften it up.
For the guy shooting seniors...ghange to Kodak and watch how easy it becomes. I don't do seniors but single people & families and capture everything directly to the computer on a contact sheet. The adjustments made here solve 90% of my problems and the customer then looks at the best of the best (right then) and the printing is accomplished by the next day.
Things are gettin' better www.robertcummings.com