Edmund,
Is the purpose of the above shot to demonstrate the in-camera jpeg processing capability of the D3X or the DR capability of the camera at ISO 400? Having downloaded the image, I see a lot of 0,0,0 values, especially around the lady's boots, but also elswhere in the darker shadows. Also, there's a large highlight patch on the lady's forehead which seems to have a lot of blown red pixels.
I think you would have got better results shooting RAW with this scene.
Ray,
As regards blowouts, I have been shooting Raw so long that I forgot to use powder on this *test* image. I did another batch of images with makeup to solve the nose, forehead, and cheekbone issue. I think transparency film would have blown out too. If you want I can post an image from the other batch, it shows how the camera renders the makeup, rather than skin.
Speaking as someone who has published a few but not that many fashion images, I would say that I quite like the Jpeg that can be viewed in this thread (not the downloadable one), it is punchy and has nice colors. I would definitely show this to a local designer as an example of the sort of imagery I can generate for them at very low cost in a few hours, and can print out as a poster if they need that. It's obvious that any commissioned shoot would have makeup and a "real" model, some flll light from a reflector, and ... nicer clothes. I used to make images for a local fashion school, and this type of imagery was quite good enough for the students.
The purpose of this posting is to show what come out of the camera at ISO 400 as a Jpeg. It's far from perfect, but I made a poster sized print from one of the images of this batch without needing to do any curves or extensive color correction. Not perfect, but good enough to be useful. Which is just about what the reputation if 35mm has always been. And my own reputation too, I think
Edmund
