I think there is no "right" answer to this. It is largely a matter of preference. I shoot in raw only. I think shoot a companion jpeg is just a waste of storage space. I use NX2 and process in raw and even print directly from raw. I only convert to jpeg those shots I want to send to someone or upload to a website.

I have the D300 so I started by just using all of the same settings that I had found to work on the D300. By default, I shoot in P mode to eliminate the chance of my own errors. I use A or S when I want to achieve some effect.

I have the focus set to dynamic area/21 points. This has worked well on the D300 and seems to work here as well. I also have the exposure metering set to center focus.

I left the active D lighting to the default Auto mode which seems to be working well. I have the picture control set on Standard and I have modified that to boost the sharpening by one click and the same with the saturation. I also use Adobe color space. That's about it. Everything else, so far, is set on the default settings. You can see some of the photos I have been taking on my pbase gallery and which I have been sharing on another thread.

Larry Miller, Annapolis, MD
D700/D800
http://www.pbase.com/lmmiller9
http://lmmillerphotography.smugmug.com/