D100

[GordonMcGregor]

Just a thought, had you resized the images at all ?

Were you showing them at the resolution of the projector, or were they being resized (up or down) by the viewing software ?  This can have a big negative impact on how they project.

[rssw]

Attended a showing last night where three presenters used slide and digital media to display travel photos from Africa, Ireland and Mexico. The Africa and Ireland were digital and shown using a video projector. Mexico was slides using a traditional slide projector.

The Africa images had been shot with a Sony digital and the results were nothing short of STUNNING. The detail was unbelievable, as was the contrast, color spectrum, etc. Although a poor example of a comparison it was like seeing digital HDTV for the first time! Mine, taken with the D100, were next and I was frankly embarassed. Both sets were being projected about 5 X 5 feet and mine seemed out of focus, (even after much fooling around trying to focus the projector) and MUCH LESS detail. Images by each camera were shot in a variety of lighting conditions. The comparison was like night and day. It's ahrd to describe the difference, but believe me for one who is familiar with photography, it was VERY depressing. The Sony images of animals literally looked like they were going to leap off the screen. The detail was what really impressed me. TACK SHARP !!!!!!!! However, both sets of digital were better than the tradition slides which seemed dark by comparison.

My question is: what am I doing wrong or are Nikon images really that "soft". I believe projection is the presentation mode of the future and comparing my Nikon images to the Sony ( don't even know which model because I was too embarassed to ask) I'm thinking I may have bought the wrong camera system ! (have always used Nikon film cameras).

So . . . . I shoot with the Sharpness set to Auto, ASA 100 many times in the Program Mode. I post process in Nikon Editor, Capture or PS. I've owned the D100 for about 1 year and use a variey of Nikkor AF lenses.

I'm really bummed !!!!!!!
   

[RichardM]

As mentioned by the previous poster, you definitely should resize in Photoshop (probably to 1024x768, but this will depend on what the projector's resolution is). If you have Photoshop CS make sure you use bicubic sharper not bicubic smoother for downresing files.

Your sharpening may also not be optimum. I use PhotoKit Sharpener (reviewed on this site) and for projectors you would use sharpening for Web viewing. Since you are sharpening for screen, you will have a very good idea visually (with the view at 100%) what you are getting. Projectors can certainly be soft compared to your screen, especially an LCD screen, so oversharpening until the file is a bit crunchy may be of benefit. This is something you just need to test with files that have increasing amounts of sharpening applied if you can get access to the projector in advance.

Another issue that can make a big difference is the colour space your files are in. Presentation software is generally not colour managed properly and the projectors are probably not colour calibrated. You will probably be safest using sRGB rather than something like Adobe RGB 1998. If you often use the same project you could play around a bit to get the colours looking better.

I doubt that your camera is at fault.

Chalk it up as a valuable learning experience.

Richard