Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>Basically, I just wanted some discussion on how good I could expect the images I will get from the D300s to be.</p>

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<p>For perhaps 99% of those of us who read this forum, certainly including me and perhaps you John as well, the limitation is behind the camera, not inside.</p>

<p>Today, the D300S is still an excellent camera for still images. I wouldn't mind using my D300 any day, but I now prefer the D7000 for better higher-ISO results, and then there are the D800 for better high-ISO (after down sampling) and more resolution ... However, for video capture, the D300S has never been a very good tool.</p>

<p>AF on the D300S is still top notch. The D4 and D800 use essentially the same AF module with small improvements for f8 lenses (f4 long lenses with 2x TC).</p>

[johncarvill]

<p>@Shun: Indeed. And my limitations are many!</p>

<p>The D7000 is certainly well specc'd; I just found it too small to hold and therefore use. I have no interest in video, by the way.</p>

<p>I'll be sure to check back in once I've played with the D300s a bit.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>John, I know some women feel that the D7000 is too heavy, and there are plenty of people who think it is too small and too light. All of those are valid opinions. I happen to be 6'1" and weight over 200 pounds, but I can hold an F5, D3, D7000 or J1 just fine. I am not very picky about camera sizes, but the lack of a viewfinder (EVF) on the J1 annoys me.</p>

<p>But that is just me.</p>

[richard_barron]

<p>As a news and magazine professional, I always have the reader/viewer in mind. The reader never sees slides on a light table, no will they ever see a projected slide show. They see the newspaper, the magazine, and the web site. For me in the current era of technology, this means that shooting an analog film and scanning it to make it digital creates both an additional workflow burden and, with the exception of the best and most expensive drum scanners for slide film, a decisive loss of quality. For the hobbyist, the look and feel of a mounted color slide might be fun and satisfying, but in the professional world, we are almost entirely digital in 2012.</p>

[johne37179]

<p>This question has really gotten me to thinking. Is the new D800e better than micro brewed beer?</p>

[richard_barron]

<p>Better than Moab Brewery Poison Spider microbrew? Not likely.</p>

[johncarvill]

<p>@richard B: Yes, I know that (I mentioned it above), but we amateurs can afford to be arbitrary dilettantes!</p>

<p>And, finally on the digital/film topic, here's a counter-example: an Ektrachrome image that looks almost flat enough to be mistaken for digital:</p>

<p><a title="Refresh by John Carvill, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/6952471604_b92fb0d241_z.jpg" alt="Refresh" width="640" height="429" /></a></p>

[jose_angel]

<p>I`m going to bed... zzzzzz</p>

[mac_hordam]

<p>"I`m going to bed... zzzzzz"</p>

<p>Trouble is, when you wake up, it'll still be here....</p>

<p>although I did like the sound of "And, finally......"</p>

[johncarvill]

<p>@Mac: Thanks for your intelligent, constructive and highly amusing contribution. Go forth, and multiply.</p>

<p> </p>

[jaophotography]

<p>I kind of got here a little late, but I had this same problem a couple years ago. The digital pictures just didn't look like what I was used to with Velvia. I tried all things with the digital cameras for a while until I tried out a d700. Then that was it. The first picture I took looked like trash, but it looked like film - a higher quality film. It had depth and also that 3D look. I started using the velvia action I had created in photoshop, and it really looked good. Velvia is not just a high color saturation that a lot of people think it is. It also has high contrast which helps the color look more saturated. The first thing to do with a digital image is to get the contrast right, then add color.<br /> The other thing is DOF. 35mm format has a different DOF. Some say it's shallower, but I'm not sure if shallower is the right word. Also to get the same grain, I have to shoot at between 1600 & 3200 to achieve the grain of 400 film. At ISO 200 it's just too smooth. However, when I print large, that smoothness looks really good. <br /> <br /> Here's a shot with the d700 with my velvia action.</p><div></div>

[dan_south]

<p>Jon Reid, that's a nice-looking shot! You've gotten pretty close to the Velvia look.</p>

<p>I agree that contrast (along with white balance and black point) adjustment should come early in the workflow. (Although with the non-destructive developing tools in Lightroom, you can adjust parameters in almost any sequence.)</p>

<p>Lightroom 3 and 4 let you allow grain simulation to photos, so you don't have to shoot at ISO 3200 anymore. I'm sure that PS has this feature, as well.</p>

[jose_angel]

<p>I `m sorry I`m so rude... I don`t get how a D700 digital camera looks like "high quality film" while e.g. the D300 doesn`t have the "3D and depth" of film. Supposedly, here we are not looking at physical parameters like DoF.</p>

<p>But once in the DoF issue, "35mm format has a different DOF"? Isn`t it <em>shallower</em> if compared to DX format? I`m quite lost. Is there any "magic" feature I`m missing here, <em>too</em>? Is DoF related to the media, sensor or film, <em>actually</em>?</p>

<p>The "structure" of digital is quite different to the structure of film, so I wonder how could someone get the"same" grain shooting digital... Noise is the same as film grain? Personally, I wonder why we`d want to emulate the look of film with digital... one of the good things about digital is the "absence" of grain, but wait; if we have it, we don`t want it, if we cannot get it, we miss it... Don`t get mad; take the most of digital, and if you want the "magic" of film, shoot film. Otherwise all what you get are <em>substitutes</em>.. ;)</p>

[jaophotography]

<p>Thanks Dan. Yes the film grain is in PS, but I hardly ever add grain. The reason I suggest contrast first, is because to my eye it's hard to tell how much contrast to add. <br>

Jose, the difference is Dx vs Fx. It does take more work to get a digital picture to look like film, and it's debatable if it ever actually does look like film. However, with the original format for the lenses we shoot, the film look is more prevalent than if a crop is taken of those lenses. I think there's hundreds of variables that play in the different look between film and digital, and format and dof is only a couple of them. <br>

I'm not sure that Dof is shallower in Fx. When I shoot at f/16, pretty much everything is in focus down to about 30" away from the camera at 28mm. With Dx, it's about the same. At 2.8, the dx looks different, but not really shallower. I'm sure someone has taken a picture of a tape measure to measure the difference!<br>

I don't pick apart the grain to decipher the difference between noise and grain. However, I remove all color noise, and the resulting texture at high iso's looks similar to film grain. I've often wondered what RMS size grain we get with digital. :-)<br>

Don't get me wrong, I like film, but I shoot about 90% digital and don't look back. A couple years ago I hauled a film camera and digital (dx) camera around with me for several weeks and took exactly the same pictures of landscapes with both having the same lighting. I printed several of those pictures, from both film and digital. Hanging on a wall at 13x19 I couldn't really tell a difference. I adjusted the color balance of the digital to match the film, adjusted the contrast to be about the same, and I really couldn't tell a difference. That's when the film camera started getting used a lot less!<br>

So, for John...enjoy your d300. If it's anything like the d700 it's a camera that will last you a long time. If you really like film, keep a film body in you're bag for those shots.<br>

-Jon</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>I hope people realize that Velvia is by no means some kind of "ideal" film. As I said, when Velvia first came on the scene, its over-saturated colors bothered me a lot. It took several years before it became my standard landscape film. For wildlife photography, Velvia's over saturdation is annoying to me and I especially dislike its green cast on animals. Once I was in Tanzania and I mistakenly used Velvia to take a picture of several guides on our group with a fellow traveler who is African American. Velvia's high contrast is terrible on those darker skin tones or even lighter skin tones.</p>

<p>In other words, as a film, Velvia has narrow applications. It is good for some and perhaps a lot of landscape photography, but it is very bad for many other things. Velvia's over-saturation attracts some people, especially beginners and even some well known photographers, but I dislike their work for exactly that reason. Therefore, I sure am glad that digital is nothing like Velvia. In other words, it does not take a whole lot to be "better" than Velvia. Late in the film era, I used Provia and Sensia far more often than Velvia.</p>

[jose_angel]

<p>I think the fame of Velvia came from the begining... I remember it was the "only" and first competitor for Kodachrome, and with an easier and cheaper E-6 process. I think I bought it the first time simply because it was "the best" (in that times "the best" for me had the mean of "the finest grained and most saturated", period).<br /> ---<br /> Jon, I don`t understand your statement about DoF with a 28mm lens... I`m one of these guys who shoot "metric tapes", although not this time.<br /> Check <a href="00ZeIY">this thread</a>; there are a couple shots that show the "1.5 times" DoF difference between FX and DX (ninth post). I can imagine than "with a 28mm lens", in a not so representative kind of shot, the DoF difference could not be too obvious, although is there.</p>

[jaophotography]

<p><em>Check <a href="00ZeIY" rel="nofollow">this thread</a>; there are a couple shots that show the "1.5 times" DoF difference between FX and DX</em><br>

Well yeah if you shoot a different focal length on Dx than you do Fx. However, my 55mm micro would fit on the d300, so the Dof would be the same on Dx as Fx. However if you wanted the same area on dx, you would need about a 35mm lens which would normally have a different DoF. So When I use the 28-85mm lens on the d700 the DoF would be the same if I put it on the d300.<br>

Communication...the key to understanding! :-) I was thinking you would use the same focal length on both formats.</p>

[khai_nguyen]

<blockquote>

<p>P.S. I still currently own every one of the cameras I mentioned above, except for the D300S, which I have never owned one myself.</p>

<p> </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Shun,<br>

Just out of curiosity, why do you still keep all your older model cameras? You can still get some returns on your D300 and D2x. I am trying to decide on selling my collection (F,F2,F3s,F100,D1h,D2x) to finance the upcoming purchase of D800 since they are just collecting (hence the term "collection") dusts. But then their worth may so minimal that I should just keep them for sentimental reasons. Sorry for the hijack.</p>

[johncarvill]

<p>Well, I got the D300s, finally. Does it take pictures that are "better than Velvia"? I guess we all agreed that was impossible to quantify. All I can say is I love the camera.</p>

<p>A few results can be seen in my 'D300s' gallery on Flickr, if you're interested:</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/7709253@N08/sets/72157629970898339/with/7145939479/</p>

<p>Cheers<br>

John</p>

<div></div>

[thomas_turk]

<p>For every upgrade of an experimental dull, drab, electronic image taking machine, imagine how many hundreds of rolls of Velvia you can get, while trying to emulate Velvia. Sigma's quattro has come near but thats another how many hundred rolls again. When velvia's 185MP is equalled plus dynamic range, and it needs no computors, PP, etc etc . I may switch.</p>

[phule]

<p>185MP? That is the funniest thing I've read in weeks. Even better than your made-up 180MP figure from the other archive thread. </p>

<p>And dynamic range. In Velvia!</p>

<p>Sometimes the kool-aid is just too sweet to give up.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>Yeah, where do you get the "185MP" number?</p>

[dan_brown4]

<p>There is no way a D300s capture can compare with Velvia projected onto a large screen with a high quality projection lens. I mean, what are you going to use to project a D300s file? See what I mean?</p>

<p>If the image files are to be digitally processed and used for Led display or printing, then yes, I think a D300s capture could be competitive with Velvia.</p>

<p> </p>

[Peter_in_PA]

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<p>There is no way a D300s capture can compare with Velvia projected onto a large screen with a high quality projection lens.</p>

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<p>How often are our images displayed that way anymore?</p>