Attire should match/compliment the occasion, not contrast. You should melt into the setting, not draw undue attention to yourself. I'm not sure a matching tux is in order, unless they wish it and are prepared to include the cost in your bill.
This goes for quests as well as professional staff, which is what a hired photographer is.
If you want to be impotent- you need to look impotent.
Get a .6 graduated neutral density filter, will allow some detail in the ground, while allowing detail in the sky. YOu can rotate it to accommodate un-level ground.
Or tripod the camera, expose once for the ground, then again for the sky, combine with a feathered mask in photoshop.
Pure black Silo's of trees and mountains aren't as interesting as some detail.
I didn't read through all the responses, so perhaps somebody else mentioned this. But I spotted what the problem might be right off. It may not be your camera or lens at all. I assume this is Cape Cod or similar. Note the shimmer of the far shore, a mirage. This was my first major clue.
I am betting you are seeing the effects of atmospheric problems from heat rising off the reeds, salt marsh and high humidity, even on a cloud covered day, surfaces can get warm, (and children and adults sunburned!). While your eye is in effect taking multiple exposures, and can see through this better, your camera is capturing a split second of it.
Do two things, capture some video and look for air movement and/or go inland where it is dry, use a polarizing filter and see if you can focus there!
Converting to tiff or jpeg dumps the RAW extra information, negating the reason you shot RAW in the first place. JUst shoot in high res JPEG if that is what you want.
If you want to retain the RAW information, use this:
Adobe DNG Converter 6.7
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5374It converts the Nikon NEF to Digital Negative DNG. I believe it retains all the information in the RAW- but if you have a special image- I'd keep the original RAW as well, just in case.
If you want to look at the images quick- Nikons can shoot RAW + JPEG (you have three choices of detail for the jpeg). The camera creates two image files for one shot. I use the lowest size JPEG to look at the image(s) quick and decide which NEF/DNG files I will keep and which I can dump later.
For what it is worth, WHen I download the images, they are mixed in together ie:
800_0231.JPG
800_0231.NEF
So I create a folder called NEF duplicates, store it in with the jpegs from the shoot, and when I find an JPG I want to work with, I go into the NEF folder and use the corresponding high res image-
On the D800, to get tack sharp images, use a real good tripod & clamp it down, lock the mirror up and count to five, then use a remote. Resist the temptation to jump into your resulting images. =)