Camera Labs

Have being playing with my new D80 over the last couple of days, so far just messing about am really pleased, focus is very fast and shutter lag is a dim and distant memory.

Anyway decided to do something serious with it and photo my old camera to put on ebay. I set the D80 to basic quality and small file, but when I uploaded the photos to the PC I was surprised to see how large they were and how good the quality was.

My question then, which JPEG mode should I use everyday, the photos will either be printed by the camera shop at 6x4/7x5 or me at upto A4.

With my old 4mp Z3 I set it to the largest file size and fine detail, will I need to do this with the D80. What JPEG mode do others with the D80 use and for what.

Thanks

AJH

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Nikon D80 / Nikkor 18-200mm VR

Hi AJH,

before I became a RAW fan I used the JPEG Fine mode in my D80. You certainly don't want to loose any details on your precious pics. Today memory should not be the limiting factor.
So - unless you're in a mem-crush on a holiday - invest the 4-5MByte per picture to get good quality out of your D80.

If however you want the max. switch to RAW and take the combination of "NEF (RAW)+JPEG Nor". That is about 10-11 MBytes with the jpeg having 700kB at a size of 1936x1296 which is very convenient on 16:9 HD-Tellies or monitors and for uploading to flickr or other websites.

The RAW format can then be post-processed on your computer (e.g. with Capture NX, see here). There are a lot of advantages to it, esp.that you have to bother only about the right exposure and can do white balance, sharpening, saturation afterwards!!

So think about it

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses