Sunrise, West Orange

Sunrise over West Orange

Coffee and color. This is the view east from my “coffee station”, and if I endeavor to sleep in, this is the image I am treated to as I prepare my morning coffee.

But this morning, coffee was slightly delayed. I came downstairs just before it peaked, so I ran up to the studio to grab my D610. Finally, a worthy shot.


With the white balance set to daylight, I took a shot which I knew would be grossly overexposed. It was still quite dark, and the meter needed a little more information to do it’s job. So I jump right to a two-stop underexposure with the “easy exposure compensation” function. It allows the “alternate” command dial to set the exposure compensation so you don’t have to press the dedicate button. I always use this feature on all of my Nikons that feature it.

The next step is to control the color and contrast, which I do by setting the camera to “Vivid” using the Picture Control menu. This is now a dedicated button in the column to the left of the LCD display, and a feature which has improved the picture-taking experience immensely. This controls how the JPEG images are processed, but leaves the RAW versions untouched. This button has a dual function, and if you press it while reviewing images, it pulls up the retouch menu.