Two of my biggest complaints about my otherwise-fantastic D70s are the noisy sensor and a frequent green cast to my images. I can't do much about the sensor, but with all the in-camera options and the ability to load a custom curve I imagine the green is fixable.

Here's an image straight out of the camera, resized for the web. Not my greatest achievement, but it serves to illustrate my point nonetheless.


52 mm
1/125 sec
f/5.6
ISO unknown (D70 does not include this in EXIF data)
EV -1/3
Auto White Balance
Matrix Metering
Aperture Priority mode
JPEG Fine


First off it's clearly underexposed, this is partly my fault due to the -0.3 EV (a setting I use for autocross photos where I try not to blow the highlights in the bright sun). Aside from that there is far too much green in the photo, and washed out colors. I have Saturation set to 0 in camera, I may bump it up one notch until I start taking more pictures of people.


Here is what I ended up with after playing with it.



To improve contrast I adjusted Levels (all channels only) and Curves. Then I used a couple custom actions I created: one uses the Color Balance tool to shift more towards magenta and away from green, the other subtly adds more yellow/red to warm up the image. I find using these actions in multiples (they're very subtle) allows me to get a reasonable result from most starting points. Sometimes I end up with too much red/magenta in an image. Here, I think I did alright.

I also boosted saturation and applied NeatImage noise reduction as the final step.
Oh, I also cloned some bugs off the front bumper.

Is there anything you all would have done differently? I can provide the original file if anyone wants to have a play with it.


Now, custom curves. This picture was shot using the sReala v.2 Beta 4 custom curve, which is supposed to yield optimal color balance according to this site. Although, I see it's a newer version; perhaps my older Beta 4 does not have color correction in it.

Do any of you D70 users have experience with custom curves? This one got loaded onto my camera first thing, and I haven't tried any others.

I'm also shooting in sRGB IIIa.


Of course one way to eliminate the green altogether is to convert to black and white.

 

I don't think the custom curve feature will help white balance. It adjusts combined RGB mapping to JPEG's, a.k.a. tonal balance. It is useful if your in-camera JPEG's are too light, too dark, or otherwise tone-imbalanced. I leave what used to be called the White Wedding curve in there (I think it is called "Point and Shoot" now) for my occasional JPEG.

For white balance, the sRGB IIIa color setting is intended for landscapes and has a built-in boost to green. No wonder your pics are green! Pick one of the other two settings. I think I use setting II but again I rarely shoot JPEG's and this, along with that Tone Curve, has little value for RAW (Nikon NEF) work.

Beyond that you may find better white balance with a custom setting. It is not too much effort to carry a small grey card and set your white balance for each new lighting you shoot. I recall there is an ExpoDisc or some such named lens cover that can be used too.

On noise, if you've got Neat Image you should be able to reduce at least one stop of equivalent ISO noise (versus an unprocessed image). I get over one stop of improvement with Noise Ninja, supposedly very similar.

 

Have you checked the various Nikon forums and asked about this green cast? Seems like a defect of some sort. I've used both the D70 and D70s and have not noticed any such thing.

You may have to send it in to Nikon to have it fixed.

 

Penforhire posted the solution (thanks!). It was the sRGB IIIa color mode doing it. I remember reading when I first got my D70 to use that mode -- it must have been from someone who does mostly landscape/nature photography.

I used sRGB Ia and +1 saturation at the Solo Nationals and the colors are much more true. I'm very pleased.

I don't think it was a white balance issue - I am impressed with the AWB performance of this camera.

 

If you don't mind the larger files, shooting RAW makes it very easy to fix any white balance or color cast issues.