Re: D90 pics
I think the D90 (along with the D700) is still one of the better sensors at rendering skin tone. There is just something about the rendering job of the older sensors that I think is lost over their newer counterparts. A more natural look so to speak.
Nice images Hark. I believe I´ve writen this before, but I´m starting to do a lot of events. Mostly family and friends for now, but what I really enjoy is portrait. In both situations a good color rendition and sharpness (I will include fast focus for events) are the most important things, IMHO... That´s why I keep asking about the D90. When I saw Rainier´s images, since I haven´t seen many portrait images posted here (Whu has some, but...) I was very impressed. If you look at my profile, you will notice that I´ve been around for about 2 weeks (and have been out of power for a few days) I didn´t remember to look at his EXIF´s... Am I to be shot or hanged or burned in a public plaza for it??? Some people don´t handle criticism all that well...
If you are shooting jpegs, most if not all Nikons have the option to make some setting changes. For example, if you are after sharpness and are shooting jpegs, you can raise the default sharpness. In fact, for a D90, the default sharpness is a tad soft so I'd suggest raising it to @5-6. It is also a BIG help if you have good glass because the better the glass, the sharper the image.
As for color, again if shooting jpegs, you have the option to select Vivid, Neutral, or Standard (at least I *think* those are the names of the three options). And each of those options has @3 settings. Vivid alone is higher color saturation. If you bump it up to Vivid 1, it will render slightly more saturation, Vivid 2 even more, and Vivid 3 is the most heavily saturated. Neutral is pretty dull in my opinion. I tend to like Standard or Standard 1. Then I use Photoshop Elements 10 which can alter the color even more. If you are shooting RAW, the camera's settings won't affect RAW files. All your color saturation and sharpness must be done with post processing software such as Lightroom or something similar.
Like I said, most if not all Nikons have the ability to make camera settings for jpegs. However, with post processing, you really do have the ability to fine tune your preferences. It takes a little bit of practice to find what camera settings and post processing software works best for your taste, but I believe you should be able to get terrific skin tones not only with a D90 but a D7000, D7100, the D3x00 series, and the D5x00 series...plus all the FX bodies, too.
I don't have any portraiture to show you, but hopefully someone here will be able to help. In the past I used my D90 to photograph my local high school's theater productions, but because of privacy laws, I won't post the photos publicly. Initially I didn't have a telephoto with a fast aperture--the one I used was an f/3.5-4/5. Subsequently my ISO was 3200 which added quite a bit of high ISO noise. Even with the noise, the skin tone colors were really nice. I hope you find something suitable.
Please don't let a few people annoy you. Now that you have clarified a little more as to what types of photos you'd like to see, maybe some members will be able to post portraiture with nice skin tones.
