Recently watched a NatGeo program on their photographers

[woolly1]

<p>As a D300 user and recent D700 buyer I was of course interested which bodies they were using. There were Angel Falls base jumpers, volcanic lava shooters, Gobi desert paragliders, Peruvian mountain climbers and whitewater rafters of the Blue Nile in their number. </p>

<p>Now I can't speak for the Canon equipment as I don't have the knowledge of them but for all the Nikon gear I was surprised to note that the bodies were (for those that I had the time to identify) were all film based.</p>

<p>Obviously battery life is an issue but I wonder what other considerations there were for these weeks long expeditions.</p>

[mike dixon]

National Geographic has been producing television programs for over 40 years. The footage they used in the program you saw might have been fifteen years old.

[woolly1]

<p>True, but I'm, sure I remember seeing the lava shot with a man in silhouette last year on my doorstep.<br>

Not that it matters, my interest was in the decision process if it was recent times. < 5 years.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Right, you might have watched the TV program recently, but the program itself is not necessarily very recent.</p>

<p>Did you record the TV program so that you can go back and check the date? If the program is in HD, most likely it is not old. And what type of Nikon film SLRs were they using? Are they at least the late models?</p>

<p>I only personally know a few professional photographers who shoot subjects similar to those in National Geographics. Most of them started using digital in the middle of the last decade (mid 2000's).</p>

[woolly1]

<p>They looked like F5 bodies. Just been googling and the more I look the more progs they seem to have made. Didn't realise it was such a large inwards looking industry!</p>

[User_276104]

<p>From the scenes mentioned, I believe it is "Through the Lens", with a copyright date of 2003.</p>

<p>http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Through-Gretchen-Jordon-Bastow/dp/B0000AQS73/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1309103863&sr=8-3</p>

[woolly1]

<p>Thanks Eric, that looks like it. 2003 eh?<br>

Well the D100 came out 2002 so it is just about possible that they were in the film but the pentaprism is wrong ... they were flat topped. So either an F5 or more likely the F100 as I don't recall an extended battery compartment. I was concentrating on the top end.<br>

Whatever, surprising how old the program was but I guess extended trips into the wilderness would still demand a less battery dependant body - even now!</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Clive, battery dependency is hardly a concern now. With my latest D7000, a fully charged EN-EL15 can easly last 2000 to 3000 image captures with plenty of chimping. Even though you have no way to charge your batteries at all for a few weeks, just bring a few of those batteries, fully charged, and you are all set. Memory cards are also dirt cheap. If necessary, just bring a number of 32G or larger cards. That wasn't possible as recently as 4, 5 years ago as memory cards were far more expensive with much smaller capabity then.</p>

<p>National Geographics is well known for their deep pocket. When they shoot those videos, they bring a lot of equipment. Video productions is a lot more involved than still photography. If necessary, they'll just bring their own generators.</p>

[User_276104]

<p>Clive, in which scene are you trying to identify the camera? I have the DVD and could take a look & let you know what I think.</p>

[woolly1]

<p>Sadly I didn't have a dvd with me (working overseas again) so I can't look specifically. I remember the guy swinging out on a rope at the mummy site, also the camel trip through the 'empty quarter'.</p>

[User_276104]

<p>The photographers in those segments were both using N8008/N8008s bodies, though the intro to the camel scene shows the photographer with an F100.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Joe McNally shot the first all digital story that Nat Geo printed, in December 2003, he shot it in late 2002 with two Nikon D1X cameras.</p>

<p>He made a big effort selling the technology to the picture editors and the feature editors, but after showing them 16" x 20" and 20" x 30" prints he got the go ahead. It was a 32 page major story commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight called "The Future Of Flight".</p>

<p>Kind of puts the endless camera quality and pixel number angst threads into perspective when nearly 10 years ago Nat Geo editors were happy with the quality of 20" x30" prints from a 2.7mp camera!</p>

<p>Here is a <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6450-6561">link</a>, but I seem to recall his own website had a good write up too.</p>

[joseph_wisniewski]

<blockquote>

<p>Kind of puts the endless camera quality and pixel number angst threads into perspective when nearly 10 years ago Nat Geo editors were happy with the quality of 20" x30" prints from a 2.7mp camera!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agreed. Although you should note that D1X was 5.9mp. ;)</p>

[RaymondC]

<p>And I think the D1x could be upscaled with a Nikon s/w was it ....?</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Right, the original D1 is 2.7MP. At the Nikon booth at the 1999 Photo + Expo in New York City, a Nikon rep demo a large print from that camera. He took a picture of a great blue heron. Pixelization was so bad that the bird's bill looked like a staircase. I didn't tell him outright but my wife and I laughted at it behind his back.</p>

<p>I am not sure I would be happy with the D1X. Back in 2003, we traveled with John Shaw to the Arctic, and he was using a D1X working on a project for Nikon. At that time Canon already had the original 11MP 1Ds and the tide was changing. By 2005 the D2X generation, most nature photographers were switching to digital.</p>

<p>For any National Geo video produced after the mid 2000's, most pro nature, outdoor photographers should be shooting digital on Canon, Nikon cameras. Large format is a different story, though.</p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>I hate to disagree with you Shun, but being an HD movie has nothing to do with the date it was shot, and everything to do with the media that was used to record onto. Yes it's more likely that an HD video is digital, and thus that cameras used are digital. However, <em>Planet Earth</em> was shot largely with 35mm film, and some of that footage is fairly old.</p>

<p>I also have an Iron Maiden blu-ray that was shot from 35mm film in the 80s. It looks phenominal. And the first colour version of King Kong(I forget the date - 50-something) is also availible on blu-ray; if I'm not mistaken, it was shot with 70mm film.</p>

<p>All but the most expensive video recorders have a set amount of lines of resolution, which means they're more-or-less the same quality they were shot at no matter what. Since film does not (and a good film scan yields many more megapixels than what HD actually uses), anything shot on film can be a HD movie, provided the studio wants to pay the remastering costs.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<blockquote>

<p>I hate to disagree with you Shun, but being an HD movie has nothing to do with the date it was shot...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Uh, it does if you're trying to figure out when it was shot. If it's HD, it is most likely not from the early 90s, for instance...</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Zack, my earlier point was that if the National Geographic video is an older one, e.g. apparently this video in question was released as a DVD back in 2003, it should have an aspect ratio of 4:3 instead of 16:9 to reflect the typical television format from that era.</p>

<p>And if the cameras used include the N8008/F801, that part of the video has to be pretty old. With the N8008, we are talking about not compatible with all AF-S lenses. That has a lot of limitations.</p>

[randyhargraves]

<p>The production date of the movie was 2003, but the footage may have been gathered over a few years prior. Even if not, consider that Galen Rowell continued to shoot 35mm slide film during this period, even though digital SLR technology was present (I think he passed away around 2003). </p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Galen Rowell and his wife Barbara died in a small plane crash in August, 2002, on their way home from their final trip to the Bering Sea: <a href="../nature-photography-forum/003bs2">http://www.photo.net/nature-photography-forum/003bs2</a></p>

<p>At that time, the Nikon D100 had just been released and some people who went on that trip to the Bering Sea reported that Barbara Rowell was using a D100. See the post by Bruce Gladstone on DPReview back then: <a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=3197764">http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=3197764</a></p>

<p>Around that time I also bought my first DSLR, also a D100 that I used during my trip to Australia in September 2002. (Our group had a lot of serious photographers. During our discussion, I referred to Galen Rowell as "he was ...." Some people in the group did not know Rowell had passed away in the month before and questioned why I mentioned him in the past tense: "Shun, what do you mean by 'he was'?")</p>

<p>Back in 2002, most digital cameras were point and shoots. Plenty of people saw my D100 and were surprised that the SLR was digital. In fact, in our group to Australia, mine was the only DSLR among a bunch of serious photographers. Even I was mainly using my F5 for more serious shots due to the many limitations the D100 has.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Sorry about the miss-type, 2.7 instead of 5.9 Mp.</p>

<p>Shun,</p>

<p>When I bought my (sorry) Canon 1VHs's I was shown 8.5x11.25 prints from the 1Ds and 1D. The 1D, ( 4.2mp) print was of a great blue heron that had such horrific pixelation it was clear digital was a joke. Funny because I ended up buying one several years later and actually sold a series of 20" x 30" prints off it. It is so easy now to forget the lack of knowledge, and the clunky software, we all had back then :-)</p>

<p>Brian,</p>

<p>Galen Rowell was a very early digital adopter, he saw the real benefits that were present at that time, not capture, but high quality (Heidelberg) scanning, top end manipulation software and then machine printing. That gave him the control and consistency over his large prints, good quality large hand made wet prints have always been problematic and detail colour ones incredibly specialised. His digital workflow truly gave him the control he wanted and we now all take for granted.</p>

[randyhargraves]

<p>Guys I'm not looking to have my Galen Rowell history corrected. I'm just pointing out to the OP that one of the best nature photographers alive during the late 90s/early 2000s was shooting 35mm slide film, so it would make sense to see other pros featured in that movie shooting with an F5, F100, etc.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Brian, the date when Galen Rowell passed away makes a difference in this discussion. Back in 2002 when he passed away, digital was still in its infancy and perhaps it still is today. As I pointed out that my experience with the DSLRs at that time, e.g. the D1 in 1999 to the D200 from 2002, it is obvious that serious photographers should be shooting 35mm slide film instead of those 2.7MP to 6MP DSLRs. (The 6MP D100 was ok, but the AF and buffer size were too restrictive for wildlife photography.) Had Galen Rowell lived for another 1 to 2 years, most likely he would have switched to digital as most people did at that time, and he wife had started shooting digital in that last trip. Rowell was a big time rock climber so that they big and heavy bodies such as the F5 and D1 do not fit him very well. The smaller and slower D100 could have worked for him.</p>

<p>As I mentioned in my earlier post, the tide changed around the mid 2000's, around 2003 to 2006 or so. Canon's 1DS (mark I) was announced in the fall of 2002, months after Rowell's death. Of course my name should not be mentioned in the same sentence as Rowell, John Shaw, etc., but as soon as I bought my D2X in 2005, I hardly shoot any 35mm film any more. And after I bought my D300 in late 2007, I hardly use my D2X any more. Today, I prefer my D7000 over the D300 even though the D7000's AF is not quite as good and its limited buffer size is somewhat annoying ....</p>

<p>Technology marches on.</p>

<p>Part of the problem in this thread is that Clive the OP thought he National Geo video he watched was recent footage. Apparently it isn't.</p>

[woolly1]

<p>Even worse - the program despite looking 'modern day', being in fact released 8 years ago could still have been an assembly of clips from many months earlier with all the post production and business dealings involved. The F100 I saw turned out to be possibly the youngest body in the show. :-o</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Clive, no worries. By no means I am blaming you; this was merely a misunderstanding that can happen to any one of us. As I mentioned in another recent thread, the F801/N8008 cannot drive AF-S lenses. As long as you see that, most likely you are watching some footage from the early 1990's.</p>