D2x update plus images

[bill c.]

The D2x did OK today at the shoot. No more corrupted images than expected.

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Gary Woodard , mar 07, 2005; 04:57 a.m. wrote:

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You are not worried about returning from the white house with a camera

full of corrupt images?

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I was in the the White House during the Clinton years. Trust me, you

can't get any more corrupt than that!

--!>

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But anyhow-- Chris, I was downloading the images via USB directly out

of the camera. The card is a brand new Lexar 1GB. It's possible there

could be something wrong with it, but what makes you suspect the card

or the reader? Anything specific?

<P>

Had one of the other photogs fall into me, and it knocked the

auxiliary battery off the SB-800. I clipped the battery back on,

turned on the flash, and kept shooting, not having a chance to pay

attention to the info readout for a couple of frames. Big mistake. I

was shooting in high-speed flash mode outdoors, and when the battery

was knocked off and then put back on, the flash reset itself--out of

the high-speed mode. I was shooting aperture-priority, and ended up

with a series of way overexposed frames. Nothing too much lost, but a

lesson learned.

<P>

Here's a good example of what the D2x is capable of. This is a detail

of a shot of a seagull in flight. It was done in fine JPG mode (not

raw). It is unmanipulated except for the crop. Then take a look at the

reduced sample of the entire frame that the image was cropped out of.

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70-200 f2.8 VR lens with 2x teleconverter, VR function on, lens wide

open, zoom cranked out to the max, shutter speed 1/640 sec. Actual

focal length 400mm, field-of-view equivalent of a 600mm on full-frame

35mm.

<P>

Seagull detail crop:<div></div>

[bill c.]

Now here's the full field of view of the image it was cropped out of (image re-sized for ease of download).<div></div>

[bill c.]

Here's a sample of the problem I'm having with corrupted images. Original image is fine JPG, reduced in size for ease of download.<div></div>

[blakley]

Was the fringing around the wing edges present in the original file from the camera, or is it an artifact of compression for posting on the web?

[bill c.]

I just looked at the close-up of the seagull, and it doesn't look much like what I have on my computer. I'll try to re-upload it.

[gary_woodard]

Its hard to get any kind of exposure in the white house these days.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Bill your corrupted image is definitely weird and certainly I've not seen anything like it from my camera. I guess I would try a different CF and hope that's the problem. If not, sounds like your camera is headed into the shop.

[tholte]

Both you guys are not impressing me with your $5,000 cameras. My $1,000 D70 is looking like a heck of a deal.

[carl smith]

I have to admit that's not too stunning to look at. What was the ISO for the gull shot (not the corrupted one).

[ShunCheung]

Well, having a $5000 camera doesn't automatically give you master piece after master piece immediately. I am sure they are still getting familiar with their D2X's and will have better images later on. Just be a little patient.

[gary_woodard]

shun, it never has or never will be about the equipment, once you get past the

marketing concept that your images will get better if you buy better equipment,

you have matured enough as a photograper to discover what makes a good

image.

[vivek iyer]

I say "Ha!"again to Gary's musings.

 

Bill, thanks for taking the time to show us some test pictures. It is unfortunate some people would be impatient and start rating these already.

[lex_jenkins]

Gary, for some types of photography it *is* all about the camera.

 

I've seen one - 1 - photographer on photo.net who can do outstanding wildlife photography using a Leica rangefinder. But he was photographing mountain goats, not hummingbirds at 10 paces or wolves 500 yards away.

 

At most distances with reasonable sized subjects moving at consistent speed in any direction I can manually focus as fast as most AF SLRs I've tried. Even if they're faster, they hunt more than a good bird dog.

 

But without even handled the D2H I just ordered I'm certain it can beat the stuffing out of my best efforts for moving targets, especially with SWM lenses. That's why I'm buying it.

 

There comes a time when one has to admit that faster horses win more races and a mediocre heavyweight boxer can knock the snot out of the best lightweight who ever laced on gloves. It doesn't matter how determined the jockey or talented the fighter.

[edward_h]

That's a good example of what the D2X is capable of? Um. Oh. Ok. If you say so...

 

Here's a seagull straight out of my camera shot at close range (bread sure does work wonders when photographing birds... :) )

 

http://edward.dyndns.org/stuff/_p6n02342.jpg

 

The exif tells you everything you need to know.

[tholte]

I am not being impatient, I am just trying to figure out what is so difficult about taking a camera, putting it on a tripod and taking a couple of shots of little johnny or Lassie and posting them. Both Paul and Bill are great guys and good photographers but they are spending a lot of time writing about the camera instead of showing us some simple images. I am a technical dim-wit but I could have taken an image five minutes ago and have it posted for everybody right now. It's like "how do you keep a chump in suspense?"

[geof_grieble]

Heres a comparison between a D100 and D2x. Both were jpeg large/fine files and I resized

the D2x file to 3011x2000 pixels to compare to the D100 3000x1000 pixel file. The crops

are 480x660 pixels. Both cameras were set on Auto WB. Please keep in mind that I was not

trying to craft a keeper photo: I wanted to gain an understanding of resolution differences

between the two cameras.

[geof_grieble]

Whoops, I have a typo in the previous post....the D100 file is obviously 3000x2000 pixels.

Here's the original uncropped shot.

[geof_grieble]

Note to self - drink coffee <i>before</i> posting.<p>

 

Please ignore the first "Crops" jpeg. The apertures on the D2x and D100 weren't set the

same. I meant to use different files - both of the crops in this photo were taken with the

cameras set to f4.

[vivek iyer]

I am going avoid any posts with 100,000 pixel images of D2X pictures from now on.

 

IMO,what Paul did by creating a folder in his work space is better.

[walterh]

Vivek Geof wanted you to drink coffee during download ^^ did he not say so?

 

Anyway big or too big - the images give a good feeling what we can expect in terms of improvement of detail: quite a bit. Low flying chairs might have obscured the details so the testobjects are well selected :-P. Still I vote for "outside landscapes" not livingroomscapes to get further impressions.

 

thanks for the info Bill and Geof

[gary_woodard]

Lex, do you think you upcoming d2h will get you better images or just more

images in focus, I think the latter, as far as fighters go when I'm in the mood to

watch a fight on TV, I watch a welterweight or a lightweight anyday, 12 rounds

of action not 3 rounds of missed punches and the following 9 rounds of two

sweaty lugs hanging on to each other cause they are exhausted after the 3rd

round. The bigger they are the harder they fall. Hope you like you new Nikon

wish I could afford the d2x bomb.

[geof_grieble]

Well, the crops are full sized....:)

 

Next up are outside shots. Since I'm going straight from the D100 to the D2x there is a

definite learning curve and it made sense to me to understand the camera first. Asides

form the "livingroomsdcapes" I can say that my Dx lenses (12-24 and 17-55) exhibit more

CA than I care to think about. Depending on scene and lighting it varies between grossly

obvious to "there but not real bad". Bjorn's review of the D2x has shown the strengths and

weaknesses of DX vs FF sensor. At this point I'd say CA is going to be more of a concern

with the DX sized sensors.....I was happy with the 12-24 and 17-55 with my D100 but

they aren't as sweet with the D2x.

[walterh]

Geoff dont scare me - i got the 12-24 only a little while ago.