Sony, with it’s NEX VG-10 Camcorder.
(I was hoping Nikon or Canon would, but they’ve been such slouches lately)

• APS-C Exmor CMOS Sensor.
• Interchangeable lenses.
• 1920×1080i.
• 14 MP Stills at 7 fps (wow).

Now it’s time to finally forget all those crappy DSLRs posing as video cameras.

Sony NEX VG10 Camcorder

Check out the Kling and Antonella’s websites for more images from the series.

What a beauty!

An unusual and captivating pose:

The Yummy Lady Antebellum Cover

Technically: nothing special. Looks like a 1 light, 1 reflector job and a plain backdrop. The pose and the expressions do it all, with a number of triangles adding to the magic.

Btw: In case you don’t have the song up to your eyeballs yet, here’s one of the live renditions.

Since everyone seems to say the same stuff, it doesn’t really work.

“I’m passionate about photography”

Yeah. You’d have to be, because you aren’t really earning much money. The passion somewhat compensates the low income. The ones who are financially successful have their passion elsewhere: in running a business.

“I got my first camera at age {x}” (insert any low digit)

Everyone has, so who cares? Now if your mom gave birth to you holding a camera in your hands, that would be news.

“In my first year I shot {xx} weddings!!!” (insert high double or triple digit number)

Of course you did, your prices were so ridiculously low!

You won’t say that you
i) didn’t earn any money
ii) almost killed yourself through work-overload
iii) nearly ruined your relationship/marriage in the process.

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.

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 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 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.

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

All nicely sitting in one place!

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

Here’s the link.

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!

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

More DIY here.

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.

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. 

F-Stop Beyond

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….

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

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?)