markwilkins

December 25, 2015

Thanks, Steve! The kit lenses have definitely gotten a lot better for landscapes since they've started building them wider at the wide end (and since software like Lightroom started packing in presets for correcting distortion and vignetting.)

Since moving to Iceland, I've definitely come to feel that lens choice is a secondary consideration to getting in front of an amazing scene with a camera at all. Some of my iPhone images rival the Nikon's for impact, even though its images lack the latter's fine technical detail.

December 24, 2015

I've had a total of three lenses in my life that have really stood out. The first was the 50mm f/2 on the Pentax K1000 I bought for myself in college. The second was my Summilux 35mm f/1.4 which I bought as part of a Leica M7 kit I bought as my sole personal indulgence after a sudden financial windfall. The third, and the one relevant to this discussion, is my Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 AF-S bought in 2005. This lens has survived a few camera body swaps, from a D1x to a D200 to my current D800, and it just works so well for me in so many circumstances, from indoor personal photography to landscapes that I rarely reach for anything else. I'm not a huge equipment partisan, and since moving to Iceland I have occasionally carried, instead, the much-maligned 24-120 f/3.5-5.6 VR (which everyone's favorite lens reviewer Ken Rockwell has on his 10 worst Nikkor lenses of all time list!) However, since a slip on ice while visiting Þingvellir in late March that resulted in a broken ankle and a damaged lens, I've retired it and replaced it with the current AF-S 24-85 f/3.5-4.5 VR, from which I'm looking for greater things. Still, when it came time to decide what lenses to risk dropping in the drink on a Zodiac tour of Jökulsárlón in September, out came the 17-35/2.8 AF-S. <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18095235-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18095236-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18095234-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" />

A couple nights earlier, watching for the aurora from a cabin near Vík, the same lens came in handy under very different conditions:

August 12, 2015

Nice colour is one thing and thinness is another. It's like flat panel speakers. They are very clear in their reproduction but they have no body.

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I don't mean to be rude, but you're using words that don't mean anything. You have to process your images to get the degree of contrast and saturation that you want. They don't magically emerge from the camera as a finished product.

Edit: Low contrast and low saturation allow you more flexibility in processing your image to your liking, and are often a sign of a camera system optimized for high dynamic range. The raw product of a high-quality digital camera is almost never "punchy," or contrasty and saturated, for exactly this reason.

August 11, 2015

"You truly don't know what I'm talking about?"

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On film, a "thin image" to me means one that lacks density. I have no clue what you're talking about in relation to a digital image, unless you mean an extremely low-contrast image that suffers from quantization or other issues related to using too little of the available dynamic range of the image format.

July 17, 2015

However, when Nikon is trying to improve their service, by offering to inspect and repair 3-year old cameras for free, you reject this offer and claim that it is really evil at work and they're hiding something.

</blockquote>

I'll note that I was not doing this, I was simply trying to discern their motivation. Whether it's driven by a specific issue or set of issues or just by good PR, I haven't ever asserted that their behavior is "evil."

July 15, 2015

Various rumor sites always come up with some conspiracy theory to generate discussion and web page hits

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Considering that Thom Hogan and I (with no financial interest) had the same thought, I think it's unreasonable to accuse him of having that motivation for his comments.

July 14, 2015

maybe Nikon USA is studying how their cameras fare after 2, 3 years. Note that both the D800 and D7100 were introduced 2, 3 years ago but both have been superseded by newer models: D810 and D7200, respectively.

</blockquote>

On reflection, I think this is the most realistic guess about what's going on with this.

July 13, 2015

I don't think you're thinking hard enough about why this approach might be better than a recall in the case of one or more known defects in early versions of a particular camera model. A recall amounts to admitting fault, which may have legal implications. A recall requires that they treat everyone the same with respect to fixing problems, and probably has a higher response rate. Doing this, they can spread repairs out over a period of time and decide to issue a recall later. Also, it may well be that they suspect there's a recall-level problem with the cameras in question, but they're not sure, and wish to use a program like this to collect information about them.

I think that keeping an eye, over the next couple of months, on reports from people who do take them up on this offer will probably yield useful information about what they're doing. If, as Shun suggests, they are simply using it to drum up repair business, then we should hear people reporting that they're being asked to pay for repairs after sending in their cameras. My prediction would be that they return many cameras with significant part replacements for free.

Edit: One motivation for this may simply be to collect data on the performance of cameras that didn't have certain engineering changes. Even that seems more likely to me, given Nikon's history of not using repairs as a profit center, than scaring up repair business.

July 13, 2015

I don't think that's it, since it seems to be targeted at a narrow S/N range of two specific models. Also, Nikon has not done this in the past.

July 13, 2015

Nikon just sent me a message saying that my relatively early D800 (with a 3007xxx serial number) had been "selected" for Nikon's "Free Maintenance Service Initiative."

What will this Free Maintenance Service include? This Free Maintenance Service will include the free inspection of your camera and its operation by a Nikon trained technician and if Nikon’s trained technician identifies any service necessary or desirable to perform on your Nikon D800 camera, we will perform that service free of charge to you (excluding normal warranty exclusions such as misuse, abuse, alteration, negligence or accident). We will also clean and return your Nikon D800 camera at no charge to you.

</blockquote>

Has anyone else received one of these? If so, what's your serial number? Cynical me wonders whether this might be a repair campaign in lieu of a recall, or maybe just that they want to bring earlier D800s up to speed on engineering changes for some reliability-related reason. Any thoughts? (Or, better yet, does anyone know what motivated this?)

Unfortunately for me, I'm no longer living in the U.S., so it's a little inconvenient to take advantage of this before the deadline. However, I'm seriously considering it.

January 13, 2013

I'm obviously a latecomer to this discussion, but I picked up a Retina MBP last week and I think digital photography is one of its killer applications.

In particular, the latest version of Photoshop CS6 defaults to displaying images at 1:1 on the high-res display, and at 220 DPI it has a comparable resolution to a good-sized photographic print from a digital image. Getting in close on that display is like closely inspecting a nearly perfect inkjet print of the image. It's an excellent preview of what a photographic print will look like in terms of detail, much better than zooming in to 1:1 on a lower resolution monitor.

My criticisms, which are minor, are mostly a matter of the unavailability of a retina-enabled Quicktime Pro or equivalent tools, which is important to me because I'm mostly using the system for CG animation, and often need to convert movies from one format to another.

To Steven P. who had difficulties with his prior Mac laptop purchase, realize that hardware issues are fairly common among all computer manufacturers, and Apple's customer service is pretty good when compared against their competitors. Yeah, navigating that can be frustrating. Of course, odds are that most people won't have to most of the time.

December 21, 2012

Alex: An M9 is not all-mechanical or battery-independent!

Unfortunately, even with those constraints, the end of the world will present issues with film processing. However, assuming I elide those problems, I'd go with a Rollei TLR.

December 21, 2012

Yeah, why does this always happen when we're out of the country??

December 20, 2012

Yeah, I did this with one of my rolls on a trip to London. I was mortified, but I finished the roll and hoped. Most of the pictures on the roll did have some kind of light leak damage but nevertheless there were still some nice pictures in there, great for sentimental value if not printing and hanging up on the wall. This one is typical of the damage: <img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5189/5770181418_73fe15f46b_b.jpg" alt="" width="456" height="674" />

December 20, 2012

That's awesome! Congratulations!

December 20, 2012

A scratch like that is going to cause flare and might reduce the lens's sharpness. However, 100 pounds is about half the normal price for that lens, so it might be worth a shot.

December 18, 2012

Yeah, this kind of thing is annoying. Let us know how it turns out!

December 18, 2012

I'd send it in and have them look at it before getting too upset. You'll almost never be able to get them to promise you warranty service over the phone unless the problem is the subject of a recall. Once they examine the camera and make an assessment of what's going on, they may accept warranty responsibility without further comment, and even if that takes further prodding, you can have a much better-informed discussion with them once they see what's wrong with the connector.

Edit: I'd also point out that unless the camera dealer has an unusually generous return policy, suggesting that you go through Nikon's warranty repair process is a very reasonable reaction. They're not in a position to handle manufacturing defects the way the manufacturer can, and this isn't a case where the dealer has been negligent in some way.

December 15, 2012

How much did you spend for it? The 80-200 should be substantially cheaper than a new 70-200f/4.

I bought the 80-200 f/2.8 in 1999 and have been using it ever since, including with my D800. It's a great lens. While you might have had other options in that focal range, you should use it a bunch and see how you feel about it.

There will always be newer lenses, but this one has held up well since its introduction, and at these telephoto focal lengths there aren't huge advances to be made with new technologies like aspherical elements. VR is really the only big new thing, but whether that makes a difference depends a lot on what you're planning to shoot with it. The older, faster lens will be better for fast-moving subjects like, say, birds.

My personal view is, don't stress. The lens you're getting has incredible potential and there's no shame in using it until it falls apart.

December 13, 2012

December 7, 2012

Was the image underexposed? What did you do to it in the postprocessing?

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Brittney can speak to her own description of what was done after the fact, but from the metadata in the image, it was shot at ISO 100, f/5.3, and 1/200 sec, which for typical hockey rink lighting is (ballpark guess) 4 or 5 stops underexposed.

From the blotchiness of the dark regions, I'd guess that it was shot in JPEG format and then brightened up in Photoshop, but it's possible it was a raw image.

December 7, 2012

I just want to chime in to reinforce what people are saying about working on technique with the lens you have available.

You should be able to set your camera to ISO 3200 and get pretty nice results. There will still be some visible noise, but it will look a lot better than what you got in your example picture. In a hockey rink, you'll probably need to use such a high ISO. This gives you two advantages: one is that it keeps your shutter speed high enough to have a chance at stopping action, and the other is that it helps compensate for the kit lens, which doesn't let a lot of light in.

It looks like you were shooting that at a focal length of 40 mm and then cropping a lot. If you're using the 18-55mm kit lens, you should take care to zoom in all the way so you don't have to crop as much. If you can get closer to your subject, that will be even better, but I can't really tell from this where you were located. 55mm is not really as long as you'd ideally want, but you should be able to get some interesting shots with it.

For a situation like this, I would recommend taking a little time before the game to do the following:

<ol>

<li>Set your ISO to 3200 (for faster shutter speeds).</li>

<li>Set your camera's exposure mode to M.</li>

<li>Zoom in all the way and open your aperture to the largest it'll go (which should be f/5.6 if you're using the kit lens.)</li>

<li>Then, point your camera at a white part of the ice where there aren't any bright reflections.</li>

<li>Leaving the camera pointed at the ice, adjust your shutter speed until the exposure reading in the display is centered (meaning good exposure.)</li>

<li>What you've now done is picked an exposure that will make the ice look like a midtone gray. Since you actually want it to be closer to white, take your shutter speed (let's imagine it's 1/1600) and multiply it by 4 (making it 1/400) and then set it to that. Every factor of 2 in shutter speed is one stop, and you probably want the ice to be about 2 stops brighter than a midtone gray.</li>

<li>Finally, take a few pictures and make sure that they look pretty good in the display, tweaking from there if you like.</li>

</ol>

Since the light level in the rink is pretty even and isn't going to change, by doing this you've taken one huge annoying variable out of your photography, which is how the autoexposure is going to change as you point the camera around the rink. All you should have to do is point, focus, and shoot at the right moment to catch the action.

December 7, 2012

The preferred way of shooting the moon (as it were) is actually with a web cam and stacking to compensate for atmospheric disturbances.

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When you say "web cam," what do you mean? If you're saying an actual web cam (meaning an extremely inexpensive video camera attached to a computer for capture) then your atmospheric conditions must be pretty bad where you are not to be able to get a better result with a DSLR on a proper tracking mount, with mirror lock-up.

June 29, 2012

This is apparently the current behavior for both the D800 and the D4. A couple of people with whom I've spoken have been told by Nikon that the current behavior is what's intended for those cameras.

Posted June 29, 2012 · June 29, 2012

If you do decide to upgrade your camera at some point in the near future, you might have a look at the D3200. It's relatively inexpensive (at about $700) and will do a lot better than the D200 in autofocus and low light, which will help a great deal with kids. Also, as a long-time D200 user, I can tell you that the more recent Nikon bodies do a LOT better with auto white balance, which can mean less time processing your images after the fact even if you're shooting raw mode.

Meanwhile, the D200 is an excellent camera overall and you can get some great results with it. :)

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Posts posted by markwilkins