Scott’s Gold 200 Nikon Z flexible color picture control
We are going to call this a version 1 flexible color profile and it may change over time…if so, I will keep the original up and post the newer versions. This is a spiritual successor to my Fuji Kodak Gold 200 recipe, but for Nikon Z cameras. Warm tones are the name of the game here, and by defaulting to Natural Light Auto or Auto 2 white balance, it can become an every day picture control for a variety of situations.
At the time of writing, this is supported on the Nikon Zf, Z5ii, Z50ii, Z6iii, Z8, Z9, and ZR cameras.
Note: on 12-23-25, I replaced the recipe file as I found an issue in the original. You should redownload if you had the older version.
Once downloaded, copy the file to your camera’s SD card. Navigate to Camera > Manage Picture Control > Load/Save to get it assigned into a custom slot.
I pay attention to 4 settings when using this picture control:
Active D-Lighting - set to Low or Normal depending on how much light is on your subject
Film Grain - turned ON and set to Medium 1 or 2
Exposure Compensation - usually set to 0.0, but if I shift Active D-Lighting to Low or Normal, I will adjust to -0.3
White Balance - I default to Natural Light Auto tweaked to A5.0, G0.0 for the “real” look of the recipe, but you can swap over to Auto2 A0.0, G0.0 for a more neutral but still warm look
Example gallery below, all shot with Gold 200 on the Nikon Zf and Z9.
I hope you enjoy shooting with these! If you found this helpful, please consider buying me a coffee so I can fuel up and continue to bring you more content like this by clicking the Ko-fi button below.
Note: this recipe was inspired by Stephen Morais and his Cubano profile. I was a big fan of how he handled the greens and blues and that became the base of this look. However, I completely reworked the yellows and reds and changed the tone curve significantly. You can check out Stephen’s Cubano by clicking here.