I found another easy tip for you Nikon DLSR D3 users. Yet again, I was looking thru the user manual from Nikon and came across a big time saver for a creative capturing sequence. As always, I have a story. While in Camden, Maine with Moose Peterson and his MMW class, we headed to the Owls head lighthouse for an evening shoot. The clouds were doing something wonderful and wild and taking Images from the base of the lighthouse to the dome with the cloud structures randomly forming for nightfall was awesome.
There was one photographer, we called Jeremy aka ‘the Kid’,…who nailed the shot for the evening, Mr. Peterson a fierce competitor but gracious (sot of) loser didn’t get the shot, even though he was standing 8 inches from Jeremy…Well Jeremy had a trick, that he shared to get the look of that image he took. I have always remembered it and keep in mind to help me be creative and induce a camera color cast in certain situations. were you may want to add a bit of coolness (blue) or warmness (pink)
The technique the way I learned and practiced, was to goto the LCD monitor, press menu, then scroll down and open the Shooting menu, then select white balance (usually at Auto), then press the scroll wheel to open the color grid, and then, (phew) adjust your color cast by moving the scroll wheel. Then click ok. Making this adjustment is very important to my creativity, especially for twilight sunsets, so I have had White Balance preprogrammed into My Menu.
Now for the shortcut….Yea Nikon !!! …..Press and hold the wb button under the rear display, rotate the front scroll wheel aka sub command dial. Click to the left to add Pink cast (lower lcd will display) A1, A2…..Click to right to add Blue cast Lower Led will display, B1,B2….
There have been a few situations where method one, has cause me angst, when a once in a lifetime sunrise appears and I wanted to add just a touch of amber. I recall frantically setting the WB to get a creative look ala “the Kid’ while shooting a 5:00 sunrise in the Alabama Hills.
It is such a unique situation, where the easterly sun rises from behind you and as drifts up it’s rays light up the valleys canyon alpine dust that is high in the mountain air and a rosy pink opacity gently masks the peak tips of Mt Whitney to the West.
You have to know what you’re going to see and be prepared …it last maybe four minutes……so you can’t be pissing your time away, you have to have your creative color cast dialed in…..now it’ll take only seconds….with the new shortcut……
The results, using this creative WB can be seen in this Image which was shot at peak of sunrise …..three minutes later there was nothing but grey rock……
