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

This looked pretty damn impressive when I saw it today. A set of wedding photographer David Beckstead’s killer images had been transformed by a video company into a “3D Ken-Burns” effect. You know the panning effect which made Show-It Web so popular.

At first I was dumbfounded and said “damn, how is that done?”.

I read a bit about the making of these shows and it seems they are painstakingly made by hand, one image at a time.

OK.

Looking a little closer, the following seems to be happening:

* the original image is separated into separate 2D layers, the fireground, some mid area, background, etc.

* an intelligent “Ken Burns” is then applied which pans the image but each layer is panned at a different speed simulating their distance from the viewpoint, thus creating the stunning 3D effect.

* Some goodies are put into a few of the images, like a real cloud movie instead of a static sky and dynamic flare effects for some of the backlighted images.

Now I just have to find the software which allows this and it should be possible to roll my own

Any ideas?

Update: here’s a great tutorial on how it’s done!

Ok, if you’re a bride or groom, this is not for you. Go away. NOW!

For all others, listen in how six women wedding photographers discuss their business while pulling everything in the dirt. All the while they’re having loads of fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

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!
Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone does it, right?

The camera manual recommends it: “how you focus on a subject which is off-center”.

The “pros” do it.

While it may work with point and shoots or when shooting at small apertures, it is a bad technique.
Read the rest of this entry »

Get RAW capability from your Canon point and shoot? LOL - it’s true!
Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

I found an interesting post about modding a Nikon flash to make it bare bulb [PIC].
Read the rest of this entry »

Why Nikon’s high-end consumer DSLR is not such a good deal.
Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that you can get good image stabilisation with a small piece of hardware you probably already have around the house?
Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like cars or do you like to drive? Do you like cameras or do you like the images?
Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

With the D3 out, albeit in not everyone’s hands yet, the question is: Where does Nikon go from here? Probably Nikon itself doesn’t know for sure yet, waiting for market feedback before plotting the onward route. What I think may happen.
Read the rest of this entry »

With so much hype over the Nikon D3, the company has both delivered the goods and done some darn good marketing. It sorely needed it, with Canon dominating the DSLR market in so many niches for so long. What I think Canon might do now.
Read the rest of this entry »