Photicious All Photography

With Nikon unveiling its D3s today, it’s a matter of time before these goodies percolate down to the semi-pro Dx00 series. With the D3, this took about 8 months till the D700 inherited its features (and more).

Nikon D3s

So I’m expecting a D800 (or D700s) to be announced in about a 6-12-month timeframe. ISO 102400? Yeah! Slient-shutter-mode? Yeah!! HD Movie function? Yeah!!!

Nikon: Now, we just need you to add a swiveling Display and a rotary ISO knob to the D800 and you’ll have all you need to make me part with my D700.

The Sony Party shot is a base which rotates 360° and tilts. It controls the mounted Sony camera to zoom in and releases the shutter.

Automatically.

Yes!!!

Wow, I’m floored.

Watch this:

And if you don’t believe me, check out the press release (you need some Japanese language skills for this).

Nikon’s announced the D300s today, deliverable as of 1. August 2009.

Nikon D300s

As an owner of several D300’s, I inspected the specs to see if there was something in the bag I needed to persuade me to upgrade.

In short: No.

Nikon has merged the capabilities of the D90 with those of the D300 to produce this hybrid. No longer do buyers of the D300 need to envy features available in the much cheaper D90, movies for example.

The D300s now also rolls 1280×720 (720i) movies, same as the D90. This is NOT 1080i HD. It pumps out the TV signal through a crappy HDMI-C connector, the full-sized HDMI connector of the D300 is gone.

A dedicated Liveview button has been added, same as the D90. (this is a convenient feature, which can be programmed to the FUNC button on the D700 but not on the D300. Come on Nikon, add this in a firmware upgrade).

A virtual horizon has been added, same as the D700 and D3.

A second SD-Memory slot in addition to CF has been added, although it’s not clear if this can be used to allow simultaneous writing to both cards. Which would be nice.

A silent shutter mode has been added. This is perhaps the most intriguing feature of this camera. I’ll need to check this out on a physical copy of the camera to make up my mind.

Apart from this, all the upgrades seem to be minor: “better AF”, faster continuous shoot mode (by a hair), Auto-D-Lighting (as on the D90 and D700).

So, in a nutshell, nothing revolutionary in the D300s. If you’re crazy for video the D90 will be good enough (although hardly anywhere nearly as good as a pro camcorder). If you already have a D300, keep it.

And finally, what I missed on the D300s:

* 1080i Video

* Swivelling display like the D5000

* Higher resolution sensor

* Rotating ISO dial which I mentioned ages ago (The Canon G10 already has this)

* Better Movie-AF

* In-Camera VR for movies

This is the question photographers are most often asked .

This is also the question which irritates them the most. When Helmut Newton supposedly was asked this by a famous cook, he blustered back “and which pans do you use?”.

So why does this question touch a raw nerve among photographers?

Simple, ego.

They assume that others perceive the key to achieving their results to be the camera, not them. Their talent, their eye and their experience is not being appreciated. They assume that others feel that would they have the same camera, they would get identical results.

Photographers counter this with similarly interesting statements “the camera is not important”. “I could shoot with any camera”. “I’ve won contests with cellphone pictures” (just stumbled across this somewhere. He’s proudly listing his small arsenal of equipment which would easily cost around $10k. That’s ridiculous. I’d be more impressed if he could pull it off with a Canon 500D or a Nikon D5000 and a kit zoom).

Yuck.

If the equipment were not important, why are they not all shooting with 100$ point and shoots?

Gear IS important, so important in fact that the so sought-after shallow-depth-of-field look is creating high demand for some the fastest lenses available, Canon’s 50mm/f1.2 and 85mm/f1.2. They are not cheap pieces of equipment. Is there any well-known photographer who uses the significantly smaller and cheaper f1.4 version instead of the f1.2, although there is hardly a big difference between the two? I don’t know any. The same goes for the camera itself, for example “Full Frame” and high ISO capability are all the rage right now.

Yes, you might happen to win a contest with a cellphone image. This could happen to both a professional or a rank amateur. It all boils down to luck, happening to press the shutter when all conditions were optimal. A professional might get a few more lucky strikes than the amateur, but that’s it.

The problem is that the results are not consistent. It is simply not possible to get consistently good results with a consumer camera under any condition which can be encountered. Low light. Studio. Rain. Fast action. Single-opportunity situations. Tight schedule. Cramped quarters. Getting published. And so on.

So - let’s go through some typical situations:

* Low light? You’ll have speckles all over with a point and shoot. If you can focus, that is.
* Studio? Your model will run when he sees your camera. If he doesn’t, try triggering a studio flash setup with a cellphone camera.
* Rain? Your camera’s electronic junk after the first 3 drops.
* Fast action? Umm, ever heard of shutter lag?
* Single opportunity situations? Oops, the camera couldn’t focus on the bride walking up the aisle. Yeah, and the kiss happened just moments before.
* Tight schedule? Wait till I change batteries and wait again till I find the menu to pump up the ISO.
* Cramped quarters? Back up, back up. Ow, didn’t see those stairs behind me. Never mind, I’ll stitch a pano in Photoshop.
* Getting published? What? These images are noisy? Come on!

And consistency is what it’s all about in professional photography. Take any situation and be 100% sure to get a great if not stunning image.

This can only be obtained with a combination of an artist’s eye, experience and equipment. Take one away and it just won’t work.

A groundbreaking film to photography when it was introduced, Kodachrome has finally been culled from the market by Kodak.

Most surprising of which is that it took so long.

While there still are people shooting this medium, it is for novelty only, as opposed to it offering any tangible benefit towards the image. Resolution, ISO-sensitivity, color and image quality have long been surpassed by digital.

Apparently, there is only one lab in the US still processing the film! And, according to Yahoo news, “unlike any other color film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers.

Kodak’s gist is here

The answer to the simple question “Where can I download PDF manuals for my Nikon products?” is given by Nikon’s US website with a pretty comprehensive collection of all their manuals.

All nicely sitting in one place!

D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!

Here’s the link.

The floodgates are open.

Both Nikon and Canon have shown their capability to build video into their DSLRs.

Granted, the implementations are far from perfect, but they’ve done it.

But: except for picture quality, they have thrown Camcorders back 15 or more years back in time, when there was hardly any image stabilization and back practically forever with lacking autofocus.

We want more. We want these faults to be fixed. We want high quality video on a video recorder which is at least as capable as conventional camcorders. And the biggie: WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO USE OUR DSLR LENSES ON THIS!

Do you realize what this means?

The death of DSLR!

If we can have perfectly capable Liveview, the use of the viewfinder will drop dramatically. And with that the neccessity of the mirror mechanism. And with that the mirror slap.

Yay, quiet high-quality photography at last?! This will revolutionize wedding photography!

Who will be first: Canon or Nikon? Thank goodness we’ve got stiff competition!

Hey, this is cool, check it out!

Steadicam DIY + HV30 + 35mm from stephen greg on Vimeo.

More DIY here.

I was floored when I saw gigabyte images for the first time in Digg. Wow, pretty cool, although I couldn’t quite think of an application in my field of photography. This is a screen thing and since I mainly work with albums, images in the range of 10-20 Megapixels are more than enough resolution for me.

A gadget, no less.

They’re produced kind of automatically with this machine:

Just plunk in one of their approved compact cameras, press a few buttons and wait for the shooting to end. Download all the images to the computer and run the image-stitching software.

Voila!

Squarely in gagapixel-nirvana, you can now zoom to your heart’s content.

The website of Gigapan.

Usually Nikon implements new features in it’s more expensive products, then lets them percolate downwards to the cheaper models. Examples: D3 to D700, D300 to D90, D200 to D80, D80 to D60. With the announcement of the D5000, the new swiveling display should be a feature which will be available in it’s future upscale models. This should be inexpensive in production, yet immensely useful in Liveview-mode.

Nikon’s also announced it’s AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 10–24 mm f/3.5–4.5G ED, which should be a nice lower-cost, smaller and lighter alternative to the 12-24mm/2.8, which, although nice, is positively huge and heavy. Pity it’s got an amateur aperture range at an almost pro-price, though. 

Wow, I didn’t know these existed, but they do!

Canon supposedly made f0.95 lenses in the 60’s and Leica has one too:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-life/cameras–camcorders/articles/leica-lens-matches-aperture-record/2008/09/19/1221331172762.html

(at 10k a pop and ISO 25k I couldn’t care less - - - - although that Bokeh must be SWEET!!!  Drool….

It’s always a good idea to periodically check your gear manufacturer if any firmware updates are available.

There were some goodies out for my crop of Nikon gear

Check here if you’re in Europe: Nikon Europe Update Site

Nikon D300 Body: 1.10 (cures a number of issues including autofocus)

Nikon SB900 Flash: 5.02 (cures a number of issues including overzealous overheating shutdown)

Nikon D90: None as yet

Nikon D700: None as yet

The Nikon D90’s an amazing camera for the price! I bought it for travel - my regular D300’s and D700 are just too big, heavy, expensive and conspicuous.

Click on the thumbnail to see the original image taken at 6400 ISO, F2.8, 1/10th of a second hand held (it was really dark in this cave in the Marble Mountains, Vietnam) with a 17-55/2.8, no flash. The image is straight out of the camera, all the EXIF data is intact. No, it isn’t quite near the D3/D700’s low noise levels, but then it costs just 1/3 the price!

The D90 sure has lowered the cost-of-entry for new wedding photographers entering the business. I’d say all you need to get some pretty darn good pictures is:

* A D90

* A 17-55/2.8 Lens

* An SB600 flash (the camera’s built-in flash is the backup)

* Your old SLR and lens as a backup

* A bunch of batteries for the flash, a backup battery for the D90 and some memory cards

* Your artistic eye and technical photographic knowledge (you didn’t think the camera alone would get you great pictures, did you?)

At last.

Ho-hum.

24.5 Megapixels. ISO 1600…

The price? Double that of the D3! Haha, you must be joking, Nikon.

A studio camera. But in the time it took to release this baby, Hasselblad has racked up to 50 Megapixels (H3DII-50). I think it’s a great portable all-round entry system for budding studio togs, but the Blad will still be the gear to get for the real pro. We shall see.

I love the Giugiaro design of this body, though! Just compare it to the clunky mess of the Sony below.

Heck, things are moving FAST for Nikon!!

The “problem”:

Checking out Sony’s A900 with 24.6 Megapixels I guess Nikon’s strategy department is in a bit of fix.

It’s D3x was supposed to have this resolution, but the long delay in it’s “imminent” release - which still hasn’t happened yet - is now clear. Sony is keeping the first-mover advantage to itself by presenting a 24MP camera in the D700′ish price range. Wow!

Since Sony is Nikon’s sensor supplier and any D3x will probably have the A900’s sensor, the A900’s price-point will have a hard time convincing anyone to buy a D3x for probably double the price. Heck, the 12MP D3 sells for more than the A900! (sure, it may be faster but that’s about it).

What can Nikon do?

Plan A:

- Let the D3 go it’s own way, reducing price significantly while not infringing D700 territory

- Replace it with the D3X with a lower price point than the D3.

- Eventually or simultaneously (sooner rather than later -  the Sony is already out!)  release a D800 with a slightly higher price point than the D700 (similar to the Sony)

Plan B (more probable):

- Introduce a D800 competing with the A900 sooner rather than later at a A900 price-point. This will also serve to blow some wind out of Canon’s 5D-II offering with it’s 21MP sensor. It will/must have a movie mode - never mind that everyone says they don’t need it. Also never mind that spectacular Canon-sponsored short movie taken with the 5D-II. It could have been taken with the D90’s movie mode as well, but then Nikon is all “features” while Canon is “benefits”.

- Sit back and think up a feature-set for a D3X which will convince people to shell out a premium for it.

The target of the D800? Pixel-hungry commercial, landscape and surveyor photographers. Us wedding photographers won’t be letting go of our D700’s just yet: The A900 is only rated at 3200 ISO with additional boost modes - same as the D300. The killer low-ISO-capability of the 12MP sensors is missing.

Whew, and I just thought my D700 would soon be obsolete!

Ok, so I caved in.

This is what I got a few weeks back

I’d been holding out because the Nikon D3 hadn’t impressed me too much. I used a pair of D300’s and was satisfied. 1600 ISO was good and 3200 not bad either. Sharpness was down, but - ah well.

But the D700 is truly life changing.

No, I don’t use that term lightly.

But having been used to maxing out at ISO 1600, being able to crank up to 6400 and higher is just so much FREEDOM!

The pics at those ISO’s are sharp and the noise is negligible (the pic above was taken at 6400, of course).

What else is new and different (compared to the D300)?

The crop factor of 1 is either good or bad, depending if you want to be wide or close with your lenses. Not being able to really use DX lenses at full resolution is a downer.

The artificial horizon is great!

The lightweight strap a-la the D3 is great!

The greatest bonus which no one is talking about is being able to use the year-old 24-70mm/2.8 lens!! This amazing piece of glass is soooo sharp and yields such great colors and contrast it’s frightening! If you thought the 17-55mm/2.8 DX lens was sharp, this is something else. I would almost buy the D700 just for this lens!

I took these today in the shop with a Nikon D700 and 24-70/2.8 lens, mixed tungsten/daylight, camera on Manual, ISO 200, 6400 and 25600, White Balance on Manual, JPEG Normal/Large. These are Straight out of the Camera images, each is about 3MB. All the EXIF Info is intact.

The shutter *IS* louder on the D700 than the D300, but subjectively quieter than the D3. Do something about this, Nikon.

ISO 200

ISO 6400

ISO 25600

Now that the D300 is out, and the D700 is out, and the D90 is out: What’s next?

I don’t care too much about Nikon’s flagship, the D3. It’s just too big, too conspicuous and too noisy for my style of wedding photography.

I do like the current D300 - and possibly - the D700. But I hate the concept of carrying two cameras with differing formats, DX and FX on the same gig. I want a new camera, a D400, which will be all I need for my job. Nikon, please add these features to it:

*  much quieter shutter than the D300, even quieter than the D80. A little damping should go a long way here. This is crucial so I can get more and better shots in quiet settings

* Keep the DX format. I’ve gotten so used to it that I like it. It works. FX is unneccessary.

* Add dual card slots, preferably of the same format. Two 32-Gig CF cards in place would keep me going all day and night.

* Add an easily retractable display hood so it’s visible inbright sunlight

* Add a mechanical ISO-Dial like film cameras for quick ISO changes

* Improve White Balance handling. How about a WB meter similar to the exposure meter showing the current color temperature? A mechanical °K WB-Dial? Nirvana!!! Green-Magenta compensation also has a dedicated button.

* Optionally save JPG images with maximum (14 bit) depth (maybe in a special format, not RAW) so highlights are recoverable in post processing where neccessary.

*  Add a couple of programmable buttons to which ANY menu function can be assigned (I’d want to access CLS flash settings with a single button, e.g.)

* Same light strap as the D3, but with no Logo or text on it. Just a plain black strap, please. I hate those which scream “D3″ or “D300″ at you. Ugh!

* Eliminate the top display and move it to where the corresponding buttons are (the back), same as on the D3.

* Add a 1:1 “image sharpness check” key.

* Add even more AF points, especially at the edges.

That’s it.

The end of this list.

Nikon R&D: To work!

Holy mo!

WHERE IS CANON?

It seems the whole R&D crew of Canon has gone to Nikon!

In almost breathtaking speed, Nikon is announcing new cameras to spruce up it’s whole range to push them to the forefront of what is available today.

The object at hand:

After the D700 has essentially many of the features of the D3 needed by low-light shooters and being full frame, the new D90 has essentially many of the features of the relatively new D300 packed up in a light amateur body. The price will be nice. For starters, the 12MP CMOS sensor (the D80 has a noisy-ish CCD sensor) is the same, which pretty much defines the ISO levels, going up same as the D300 up to 3200 plus boost. Pretty darn good.

Comparing to the D300, the D90 has a slower maximum frame rate, only 11 AF points instead of 51 (a deal breaker for me). On the other hand, it has HD-Video Capture (albiet WITHOUT autofocus, so that’s pretty much a dud sold as a feature, haha). Who the heck would roll a video without autofocus???

I love the dedicated Liveview button and wish the D300 and D700 would have it. The shutter is quieter than the D300, nice! The camera is faster on all points than the D80: Maximum frame rate, scrolling when using the display, etc. And also better on all points, effectively rendering the D80 obsolete.

It has a dust shaker which the D80 didn’t have (marketing ploy, these shakers are not good for much. All they do is shake the dust around the insides of the camera, so it will eventually find itself back onto the sensor. You need to REMOVE dust, not shake it around!)

So all in all, a welcome upgrade to the D80. It’s just of matter of time till this technology trickles down to the budget DSLR line of Nikon (D60), but at this rate, Nikon is running out of model numbers…. The D70 is already taken.

Here’s a glowing report with some of the shortcomings of the D90 (NY-Times article)

I got a D3 with the 14-24/2.8 today.

My first reaction when I picked it up was: “It’s not as heavy as I though it would be”.

You get a feel of the quality just when turning the ON-OFF switch. Butter-smooth, ahhhhhh, Mercedes Benz! This camera oozes quality!

Does this get you better pictures? NO. It’s all about holding the state-of-the-art in your hands. The flagship. The best there is.

Nikon, while being great of ergonomics haven’t yet mastered making all their cameras the same to operate. Even among cameras which were released together, like the D3 and the D300. Switches and dials are maddeningly different places (metering, ISO, WB, Quality), this function differently (e.g. the magnify-button will not react to repeated presses like on the D300, which is again different in the D80, but you must press the button and turn the thumb wheel).

There is a back display for ISO, WB etc., which is nicer that to operate the buttons on the back and look at the top.

The strap is beautifully light, this seems like some kind of high-tech material. Lots of anti-slip.

Ah, yes: It does not have a dust-removal mechanism and no built-in flash to trigger CLS flashes.

There are two continuous-frame modes, high and low, as on the D300. The high frame rate is SUPER-WICKED.

The mirror slap is very loud and not good for weddings. The D300 is already loud coming from the D80, and now that I’ve finally gotten halfway used to it, along comes something even louder! Fix this, Nikon.

The camera comes a beautiful dual high-end charger which displays the charge level through a couple of LEDs and it also comes with two batteries. Man, these batteries are large!

The dual CF-card slots are nice too, but I’d be hard-pressed to use this feature. I’d probably plunk in 2 16GB cards for a wedding and forget about changing cards.

I couldn’t get used to the vertical grip yet, because it makes me rotate the camera the wrong way for verticals. I think my method is at least as stable and convenient for verticals as is the grip. No no points for this one.

Image quality? Nice at ISO 6400, although image quality is nowhere that at ISO 200. There IS noise in dark areas, contrary to what all the media hype has made everyone believe. So there is no way I would leave the camera set at those high ISOs.

Auto white balance is, well, not usable for me. I did some tests with halogen lights and the shots were too yellow for me. I guess it is ok but I am an all manual guy and will probably get better results much of the time.

So all-in-all: A beautiful bit of machinery to hold, it does have good high-ISO performance, but apart from that: I prefer my D300. So, as soon as the D700 comes out I will be testing it and that will probably be my low-light camera of choice.

D3 - nice to have known you. Bye.

As has been widely speculated since the announcement of the Nikon D3, two cousins of this sensational camera are in the works and are due to be announced soon. The naming is similar to the D2 series, so few surprises here.

The D3x will be a high-resolution studio camera with 21 MP and a frame rate of 3 images per second.

The D3h will be a lower resolution sports camera featuring a blistering frame rate of 16 images per second.

Wow, Canon has some catching up to do!

Not only has Nikon replaced it’s entire R&D department but also it’s marketing department. R&D is busy churning out sensation after sensation making former big-boy-on-the-block Canon look so yesterday. After the D3, which really is a pretty revolutionary machine - much to the chagrin of some die-hard Canon-ites who can’t stand being have-beens, and the D300 which is a pretty nice camera as well, now the D700 is finally offical.

D700, an ultra low-noise full frame camera without the bulk and the price of the D3.

A dream come true!

The ‘leak’ of a Chinese printing press employee who was near the printed D700 marketing material and ’snapped a few pictures of it’, published the pictures in an east Asian blog, and swiftly got picked up by photo blogs all over the world didn’t convince me. I rather thought of this as a planned leak by Nikon’s marketing department, which created tons of free buzz and anticipation to photogs all over waiting for a ‘cheaper D3′. Well, it’s here.

The D700 is official, and above is the picture.

http://www.nikon.ch/product/de_CH/products/broad/1627/overview.html

Nikon’s got this interesting interactive demo using 4 remotely controlled speedlites to light a sitting bride. Turn individual flashes on and off and control the power on the front and rear flashes and view the result. Cool!
(more…)

Get RAW capability from your Canon point and shoot? LOL - it’s true!
(more…)

If you thought that getting macro shots meant getting a Nikon “Micro” lens, think again. It is possible to do macro photography with a smaller and cheaper option.
(more…)

I found an interesting post about modding a Nikon flash to make it bare bulb [PIC].
(more…)

Why Nikon’s high-end consumer DSLR is not such a good deal.
(more…)

Did you know that you can get good image stabilisation with a small piece of hardware you probably already have around the house?
(more…)

Do you like cars or do you like to drive? Do you like cameras or do you like the images?
(more…)

There have been fireworks from Nikon at the end of 2007. The D3, D300, some darn good lenses and marketing to match. I own 2 D300’s, so I thought I’d write a post about this gorgeous camera.
(more…)