D2X pics

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Well, I've had a hard time trying to figure out how to display pics

from the D2X on photo.net to at least give some idea of the camera's

power. It's the same problem HDTV ads have convincing you how good

the picture is when you're watching on a regular tv. But here

goes. I took a full, unedited pic and saved it at the lowest jpeg

setting and also uploaded a crop from that picture which I upsized

about 200% then saved as jpeg so you can see the image quality. If

you're interested, they are posted in my portfolio in the single

pics folder: the red door and the crop of the posted sign. This

weekend I had my first chance to really use the camera, shooting the

Div III Hockey Championships. The camera really does handle like a

dream and the high speed crop mode is phenomenal. The only downside

is the files are so large that processing them even with a gig of

ram and a p 2.4 processor is a very slow procedure.

[dan_brown14]

Impressive! What lens and focal length was that taken with?

[jeffrey moore]

"...the high speed crop mode is phenomenal."

 

Well, lookie here Shun. Another ringing endorsement of HSC.

 

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. :-)

[bill_chiarchiaro]

Paul wrote:

 

"The only downside is the files are so large that processing them even with a gig of ram and a p 2.4 processor is a very slow procedure."

 

I assume that's with Nikon Capture 4.2. How many seconds does it take your machine to convert one image?

 

--Bill

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

That pic was shot with the kit lens at 18mm. I almost had to stand in traffic as it was to get the whole door. I haven't timed it yet but several seconds to open it in capture. Each adjustment takes a few more and then at least ten to open it in PS from Capture. Hopefully adobe will have a D2X upgrade for Adobe raw soon. I'll try to time it when I have a chance and post some real numbers.

[chris haake]

Cool pics, Paul. I understand that we can't really see the resolving power of the D2X over the internet, but it's still great to hear glowing reviews.

 

By the way, what team does your son play for? I'm a college hockey nut, but I only really know D-I (I'm from Grand Forks, ND). However, I wish your son and his team the best of luck. Any chance we'll see some pics of that?

[ShunCheung]

Jeffrey, you are being childish. If every time someone has something positive to say about the HSC mode and you need to respond, you will be very busy. I can care less whether there are 10000 people who like the HSC mode, and I have no doubt that it can be useful in some occasions. However, having only one useful AF point will always be a very severe limitation. I don't even like the limitation of 5 AF points on my F5 any more, let alone just one in the dead center. Having 9 useful AF points is critical to me. If the D2Hs were 8MP instead of 4 at 8fps, I would have taken it over the D2X any day.

 

Right now my options are to accept 5fps on the D2X or switch to Canon, or hope for some 8MP D2Hs replacement even before it becomes available.

[juan_su]

Hi Paul,

 

I just checked out your profile but I don't see any pictures from the D2X but did see many from your D70. Nice work by the way. But can you post the link to your D2X pics?

[aardvarko]

> Jeffrey, you are being childish.

 

Shun, you are overreacting to an obvious joke. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself" is the hallmark of a merry jab.

[vivek iyer]

Would it be possible to post some pictures taken with a bit more decent lens than the 18-70 (at 18mm!)? Even 65-70mm range from this D70 kit zoom should do.

 

Thanks!

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Chris, he plays for The University of Texas. They went 1 and 3 but were probably robbed of an overtime victory in their last game as it appears the ref missed a goal. Juan, the D2X pics are in the "single photos folder" of my portfolio and are of the weathered red door and the crop of the "posted" sign. Shun, it sounds like you're implying that HSC mode only has one focus point. Am I misunderstanding? because there are nine. Two of the eleven focus point are excluded in HSC mode.

[lex_jenkins]

Paul, the full frame shot of the door appears to have a ton of field curvature. At first I thought it was barrel distortion but there's a definition "roundness" across the entire frame.

 

Was this taken with the kit lens? If so, what focal length and how far away from the wall and door were you?

 

I'm planning to get this as my first DX lens just to try the concept before committing to a "better" lens. But if every shot at the wide angle end has this kind of field curvature I may skip it.

[geof_grieble]

<i>"However, having only one useful AF point will always be a very severe limitation.

</I><p>I must be missing something too because there are 9 AF areas inside the HSC

zone.

The outer most ones are certainly closer to the HSC border than they are for the entire DX

frame but I didn't have any issues using them so far.

[ShunCheung]

Geof, we have discussed this before. In the HSC mode, the outer 8 AF points are very close to the edge of the frame. At least I wouldn't put my subject on any one of them as part of the subject can easily be outside of the frame. Moreover, typically a subject being so close to the edge is not a good composition anyway. (Ocassionally you might have a few images that are exceptions, but that is rare.)

<P>

If anybody still has questions, try to post some action images shot with the HSC mode with the entire HSC frame. Of course, you can further crop the HSC frame to fix the composition, but now you are cropping from a 6.9MP image and you can easily end up with a 3, 4MP image from a 12MP DSLR.

<P>

I am not sure it would be technologically feasible, but I wish Nikon could come up with a high-speed mode that takes every 2nd pixel from the entire frame so that you won't lose any one of those AF points. You end up with a 6MP action DSLR that is superior than the D2Hs. But I would imagine that it is much easier to simply crop the center part of the frame, and some people might prefer the narrower angle of view in the crop mode as their lenses "become longer."

<P>

As far as the distortion from the 18-70 DX does, it is serious at 18mm. We had this discussion a year ago:

<A HREF="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007r7T">

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007r7T</A>

[geof_grieble]

Shun

I honestly don't recall having discussed this with you before but I understand what you're saying. I will need further experience using HSC to confirm or deny your theory but so far I don't see this as being a major issue. In fact from the accounts I've read various pro's seem to really like the feature (like Rick Rickman who posted positive comments at sportsshooter.com).

[jim_gifford]

<<I wish Nikon could come up with a high-speed mode that takes every 2nd pixel from the entire frame so that you won't lose any one of those AF points. You end up with a 6MP action DSLR >>

 

You'd be taking every 2nd pixel vertically, and every 2nd pixel horizontally. In other words, you'd have 3.46 megapixels (square root of 12).

 

Be well,

[jim_gifford]

Shoot, maybe it's simpler than that... 1/4 of 12 (HALF thisaway times HALF thataway) for 3 megapixels remaining.

[ShunCheung]

<I>You'd be taking every 2nd pixel vertically, and every 2nd pixel horizontally. In other words, you'd have 3.46 megapixels (square root of 12).</I>

<P>

Jim, that is not what I meant. Think about a checkerboard with alternate black and white squares. In the high-speed mode, only the black (or only the white) squares/pixels are activated.

<P>

In reality, because of the Bayer Pattern (50% of the pixels are actually green, 25% red and 25% blue), it is not quite as simple as I just described, but I am sure something can be worked out.

[vivek iyer]

Lex, There is nothing special about any DX lenses. The kit zoom vignettes big time at 18mm. This lens is reasonable from 30mm onwards and is, in fact, impressive around 65-70mm. Think hard before you get one. The only factor would be this "value for money"thing.

IMO, there is no value for any money at the wide end!

[tony_cabrera]

I just did a wedding this weekend with a D2X, 17-55DX, 17-35, and 70-200VR. But I have about 400 images to sort through. I should be able to post by end of week.

[ShunCheung]

Tony, did you shoot RAW/NEF? If so, are your NEF files compressed? For 400 images, I am wondering how much CF card space is necessary. I am afraid that more 2G or even 4G CF cards will be necessary.

 

And as Paul mentioned earlier, we may be talking about a more powerful computer, more memory, disk space ....

[tony_cabrera]

Shun,

 

My camera came in on Wed and didn't have time to pick up extra cards. I only had a total of 6gb with me and a laptop. To avoid having to upload, I did a little shuffling.

 

I used Compressed RAW for Church and Portraits since they have the trickier lighting situations. I'm confident outdoors and the reception, so I shot those in JPG Fine. I think the camera starts out understating what you can fit and as you shoot, you can tell that you can actually fit more images as you shoot, depending on the details of each imgae.

 

I don't remember what my mix % of Raw and Jpg were so I can't accurately tell you what I can fit in a 1gb card. But the JPG Fine images averaged around 5mb to 6mb and the Compressed Raw averaged around 12mb to 15mb. With the 400 or so images I have, I came in under 5gb.

 

Once I stock up on cards, I'll shoot Uncompressed RAW.

 

I can live with my 1gb RAM and 2.8ghz PC for now, but it definitely can't multi task when batching files.

[ShunCheung]

Thanks Tony. I was at John Shaw's seminar a week ago. He is now shooting digital exclusively with two D2X's. He mentioned that each 512M card can hold only 20 NEF images from the D2X. I forgot to ask him about compression. To go through the ceremony part of a wedding, I'd like to have sufficient space for at least 100 images so that I don't need to swap cards. That pretty much implies a 2G card for (uncompressed??) RAW. If we are talking about lengthy Catholic weddings, 4G may be preferable. Hopefully CF card prices will continue to drop.

 

Whether you are willing to trust the reliability of a 4G card is another issue.

[jim_gifford]

Okay, Shun, I understand you... but I wonder if you can do the checkerboard thing *quickly* for use in a high-speed mode.

 

I'm pretty sure you could drop out entire rows of pixels, and entire columns of pixels, but that leaves you with fewer "live" pixels and that's the sort of cutting-in-half I was thinking of.

 

Be well,

[tony_cabrera]

When I put in an empty 2GB card on uncompressed RAW, the camera reads 98 shots. (or was it 99) I don't have the camera with me but I remember it was close to 100. Uncompressed RAW reads the same number of shots as well. It just counts down slower and you can fit more.

 

I can tell you this though... I had 2 D70 bodies with me and had planned on having different lenses on the D70's so I don't have to swap lenses. I ended up not touching the D70. I feel like I'm cheating on it. =)