Nikon D3 — working in bad light

Ever attend a social gathering where there are harsh overhead incandescent lights, some garish lights of other kinds scattered around the room, and fluorescent fixtures thrown in for good measure? I recently shot at a school fundraiser using ambient light (flash is just too obnoxious for some environments), and it was a serious challenge processing the resulting images; the D3’s auto white balance produced orange results, and even in Capture NX 2 I was hard-pressed to produce anything that looked semi-natural.

Noise? At ISO 3200 it’s there, but just such a minor issue compared to color rendition issues under difficult lighting. I resorted to black and white for some images, where noise is just a non-issue. Sorry no example images, model releases weren’t obtained. Let’s just say that neither the D3 nor Nikon Capture NX can work miracles. Get the Nikon D3 at B&H Photo.