D4 Monitor

I'm now working with the D4 alongside my D3 and D3S bodies and one of the first questions I had concerned the colour accuracy of the monitor.  I'd read various comments from users who found the display to have a green tint. Nikon says the new display is more accurate than that used in previous cameras but the short answer is, yes it does appear slightly green in some light. The truth is, every iteration of the professional cameras has a different monitor tint. The D1 was very blue, the D2X less so, the D2XS was noticeably yellow in comparison and the D3 tended towards magenta, with the result that moving from the D3 to the D4 the green tint appears greater than it actually is. There is a temptation for camera manufacturers to adjust the display to show the image to best effect and so the slight green tint of the D4's display offsets the very slightly magenta-tending Nikon skin tones perfectly. Does the green tint matter in the real world? No, not in my view. At times you're aware of it,  at others not. It very much depends on the ambient lighting and it has to be remembered that the magenta tint of the D3 monitor would often disguise a green tint from fluorescent lamps.

New on the D4 is an ambient light sensor for the monitor, or auto brightness. My advice is to turn that off unless you're using the camera in live view mode on a tripod. The reason being that the reading used to set the brightness level is taken once, using a sensor on the rear of the camera. If anything blocks the sensor, such as your face as you lower the camera, the display will be too dark as a result. The camera also tends to set the display at too low a brightness indoors. It works fairly well in sunlight where it's otherwise very difficult to see at all, but the nature of the system introduces another variable to take into account when assessing the image. I've settled on a brightness level of -1 for indoors and either just accept the image will look darker that it actually is when viewed in sunlight or I'll use a hoodloupe for a better view. If I was working outside for a long period I would consider adjusting the display brightness, or even using auto, especially if clients were viewing the display with me, but otherwise it's one of those setting I don't like to change. It's all to easy to forget you made a change when you move back inside or the sun goes down.

Selective Batch Download Added

Just added to the main site, clients can now select a group of images to download in a batch. Instructions for using this new feature have been added here:

Image Viewing and Download