Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

I forgot what setting it was on my D5100 until Jerry reminded me. The setting is Vivid.
Also, I believe Bryan Peterson, in "Understanding Exposure," tells the reader that he generally uses the CLOUDY setting for white balance because he prefers the warmer colors. Use the cloudy setting outdoors, not indoors.
I think this combination might bring your colors up.

I believe there's another setting in addition to the above. High key(?). I'm not near my camera so maybe someone else can step in.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Hi J,

I too just got the D5200 and while I used SLR film cameras for several years before they were far less sophisticated than the DSLR's of today, so I would class myself as a novice as well. Like you, I am currently using a lot of "automatic" settings while I get a feel for the camera's capabilities. I have found that I almost always add a warming filter to my pictures as part of my post processing, but then I have always done that so I figured it was just me. As I think back, the previous digital cameras I had were all Point & Shoot, and only one of them had WB control, which I always kept on Auto (by the way it was a Canon).

Moral of the story - It's probably not the camera, we both just need to start experimenting with the controls some more.

On that note, thanks GoofyNewfie for the instructions for setting the color offset. I just set that on my camera and look forward to seeing the effects.

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

Thanks Goofy. A new piece of information I just learned.

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

OK. Looking at my camera I see the setting I mentioned in my 1st reply. It's active D lighting. You can change this item from the Information "I" menu. I think there's about 5 or 6 choices there.
I keep mine set on High.

J.

Wow! My first question to post here, and what a great group of replies! Yes, when comparing the neohew's canon pix to my Nikon, taken at the same place and time, mine were definitely more in the bluer range. Now I have a lot of great suggestions to try. I went to the white balance and changed the point to several different values and sat here at the inlet and took a series of pix over the water. It is one of those days when the water and sky are very similar colors, and that is shades of gray. Good way to see the different color casts as I make the changes. Am hoping to have a sunset in the next few days to try things out! I do pretty good with composition but I am dead in the water with all these tweaks you make! Slowly learning!

liv2paddle Loc: Wall, NJ

There are several menu settings being thrown around and it does get confusing. Picture controls are standard, neutral, vivid etc..white balance is totally different ..and is based on the light in the scene. Both effect the color as well the ISO setting will effect the colors..high Iso tends to dimish or wash out the colors. I think to start you in the right direction, you might want to put the camera in standard picture control first and get the white balance thing ironed out. Some Nikons tend to be a bit green but this can easily be correct by getting and expo disc or something similiar and set your white balance manually based on your light day of shoot. The other way to do white balance is look up. If it is sunny put the camera on sunlight etc. Anoterh trick is to put the camera in live view and then change the white balance and see what looks best in the liveview. This works really good indoors. Best of luck!

Bram boy Loc: Vancouver Island B.C. Canada

there is many reasons why you should not , u can get hot spots or glare on
certain things

MtnMan Loc: ID

White balance can be more powerful at fixing this than you might think. I learned this at a photo class just a couple of weeks ago. I had been happy with auto white balance, but wasn't happy with some sunset pictures I took last month. Fortunately I did take some in RAW and thus was able to change the white balance easily. Here is what I got.

These were with a Sony NEX-7, which might have the same sensor as the D5200.

Daylight White Balance

(Download)

Auto White Balance

(Download)