Eureka! (An addendum to my previous post)

I probably should title this post “Learning the Hard Way” because I learned something new about my camera this week, and it has improved my image quality and lessened the amount of post-processing I have to do. Happily, I am much better pleased with my images. Unhappily, this is something I could have done a long time ago. Because I have been dissatisfied with the quality of my images straight out of the camera, I decided it was time to experiment with the My Menu setting on my Nikon D90. One of the settings I changed was the white balance. I have been playing around with setting the temperature value (if that is the correct way to put it) rather than just using the setting for shadow or shade or daylight. I have a lot to learn about this, but this week I have discovered that it works much better to choose my own color temperature, e.g. 5880K or whatever seems to work well with the scene I am shooting. The very first time I tried it, I noticed a difference in my images. There were a lot more keepers (by my standards at least, and I honestly try to set my standards fairly high). That was the Eureka moment. Here are a few of the photos from my recent photo walks. All of them were taken in our neighborhood park over the past three days.