INFRARED - CWB on D70

Hi all,
cant seem to set the CWB on my converted D70. I have the camera set in A mode and focus on sunlit grass, however when I take a pic it always shows up "No Gd" in the LCD. Anyone have any ideas as to what im doing wrong? Have tried different exposure settings, M mode etc., nothing seems to work. I am using the D70 with the 50mm 1.8D nikkor. Any ideas?

That's the proper method. I'm assuming the grass fills the entire viewfinder? If not, try that, and I use Auto exposure mode (the only time I do) just to let the camera do what it wants. Shoot wide open to let as much light in as possible.

I've heard stories of some cameras not setting WB correctly post-conversion, particularly Nikons. If you can't, it's not really an issue if you're shooting RAW. You can create a custom WB profile for your camera using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor to get the WB where you want it on a RAW file. Many Nikons won't even get close down at 2000, but with the custom profile you can build a profile for Lightroom or ACR that will get you where you want (or at least close) with the click of a button.

Here's a video (a little old) that shows you how to go about doing it. It doesn't tell you specifically where to export the profile to once created, but you should be able to find that online (it's different for a Mac vs. PC).



My brother built one for me from a series of IR shots I sent him and I like it a lot. I can't seem to reproduce it exactly - there's definitely some additional tweaking he did with the coloring besides just sliding the WB slider left and I need to get him to show me some of his magic next time we get together (probably Easter). When he does I'll put together a quick video of how to do it.

FYI, just for giggles I decided to try the above method and it almost nailed the profile my brother created for me. What's even better is that when I went to save the profile to look at it in Lightroom the Export location defaulted to exactly where it needs to go. So there's no hunting around.

My take? Shoot RAW, create yourself a profile, and don't worry about the in-camera WB.

And just to pile on, I just did a test with me D7000 where I shot with Auto WB instead of my custom WB setting and while the initial RAW image was very red instead of only slightly red (more times than not the WB slider on the RAW image comes in around 2000 - all the way left), once I created the custom profile it was absolutely fine.

One word, you need to convert your RAW file from NEF to DNG to run the profile tool. I convert all of my RAW files anyway, but you only need to convert the image(s) you want to use with the tool. Once you have the profile created then Lightroom or ACR can use it on NEF files as well.

BackdoorHippie said:

I convert all of my RAW files anyway, but you only need to convert the image(s) you want to use with the tool.

Click to expand...

Do you convert all your RAW files from all cameras or are you just talking about the files from your D7000? If you convert all of them, why?

A lot of reasons, but primarily it's for compatibility with Adobe tools, across releases and other things. DNG's tend to be slightly smaller than their NEF counterparts as well. DaveW and I went into this in a lot more depth in another thread somewhere, but it's just something I've done since I got Lightroom. It's not necessarily "better", but it has the potential to save time and headaches down the road as RAW standards change. Here's a blog that summarizes it.

Should You Convert Your Photos to DNG? | Photography Concentrate

It also raises the question of whether or not to convert JPEG to DNG. As a rule I would not make a habit of it, but I have a catalog of images taken with Point & Shoot cameras in Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park that I need to look at re-editing, and the idea of being able to apply non-destructive edits to the original files is something rather appealing.

BackdoorHippie said:

A lot of reasons, but primarily it's for compatibility with Adobe tools, across releases and other things. DNG's tend to be slightly smaller than their NEF counterparts as well. DaveW and I went into this in a lot more depth in another thread somewhere, but it's just something I've done since I got Lightroom. It's not necessarily "better", but it has the potential to save time and headaches down the road as RAW standards change. Here's a blog that summarizes it.

Should You Convert Your Photos to DNG? | Photography Concentrate

It also raises the question of whether or not to convert JPEG to DNG. As a rule I would not make a habit of it, but I have a catalog of images taken with Point & Shoot cameras in Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park that I need to look at re-editing, and the idea of being able to apply non-destructive edits to the original files is something rather appealing.

Click to expand...

Thanks!!! The link is very informative, too! Thinking back, I believe I converted my NEF's to DNG's when I had my laptop up and running, but since I'm on a different computer, I haven't done it. Will have to give it a try the next time I take photos!