mats nilson photography

I've seen it marketed for the equivalent of $944 here in Sweden. Delivery time remains to be seen.

Once upon a time, I was thinking of getting either a Nikon F3 or a Can*n F1n, and the F1n was definitely winning the race. But somehow I got myself a used Hasselblad instead. I really loved my Hbl, not least for its brick-solidity. Then I got a daughter and simply couldn't focus fast enough to get sharp pictures of her moving about. OK, so I was back to the Nikon/Can*n ambiguity again. This time, however, there was no question about it, Nikon was the clear winner! And why? My Hasselblad period had accustomed me to ruggedness and when I held an E*s1 in one hand and an F5 in the other, I was effectively holding junk plastic in one and a beatiful piece of metal machinery in the other. Superior metering and flash system topped it off nicely!

Because this isn't REALLY a photographer's forum, is it? It seems to me to be more of a computer-enthusiast's-with-an-additional-interest-in-photography forum. If we spent less time in front of the dumb screen and more time in the field, we would also be truly great. Well, maybe not. If we had had that potential, we wouldn't be sitting here in the first place...

I do not own a VR lens, but I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow one for a trip to Canada two years ago. I was driving through the national parks in the Rockies with a lot of wildlife along the roadside. For that purpose, VR worked great. Hand held + VR + a little additional support from the car window worked very well. This photo: http://www.photo.net/photo/1222220 was taken on an overcast day with the 80-400 VR at 400 mm and 1/30. The softness is an artefact from the scanning procedure (I'm still trying to get to grips with that), the original slide is as sharp as ever. This photo: http://www.photo.net/photo/1222214 was taken panning at high speed (same caveat applies)

I routinely shoot in -30 to -35 centigrades with a Nikon F5 and have no problems other than a somewhat higher battery consumption. However, I used to shoot with an old Hasselblad (all mechanic) which gave up on me in those temperatures. I had the factory completely relubricate both the body and lenses for low to moderate temperatures and then it worked fine. I wouldn't have taken that gear to somewhere really hot, though. If I may speculate, I think maybe grease gets stickier when it gets old and therefore more prone to freeze-ups. That's why my new Nikon manages where an old Hasselblad didn't, yet did when tended to.

A little late, but never the less (oh well, maybe somewhat less...). 1) I believe an increased maximum aperture may allow faster and more accurate AF-focusing, since there is more light and "defocus" to work with and 2) as far as I know, a 300/2.8 at f/4 and a 300/4 at f/4 do not produce quite identical results, I much prefer the out of focus areas of pictures taken with the 300/2.8 at f/4.

I love my F5, but I do have a somewhat embarrasing problem relating to the difficulty to see which focus point is selected. I suppose most people are right eyed, i.e. put their right eye to the viewfinder. Well I don't, and by placing my left eye to the viewfinder, at the same time I put my nose on the focus point selector, unintentionally changing focus point when I least want it! I suppose I should be trying to turn this to my advantage by training my nose to perform focus point selection at will, but its not very easy :-) !

I'm currently in the process of restoring a Technika III version 5 myself. Since the rangefinder didn't work, I decided to remove it. This leaves space for an additional tripod-mount socket on the side, which would remedy the lack of front tilt by turning swings into tilts if the body is mounted on its side. Only need to find a good technician to do the metal work. Next comes re-chroming. Haven't found anyone willing to do just a few pieces of unknown alloy, so I may settle for spray-colour as a cheap substitute. I bought self adhesive leatherette from micro-tools instead of genuine leather - heck, its a working camera I need, not a collector's item!

 

Good luck with yours!

Oh, and I should have added:

 

Except for the ED lenses, which not only have expensive glass, but usually have top class specifications in their entire design, these designations do not inherently determine lens price. A few of the first G lenses were cheap plastic ones, but many newer aren't and the D lenses are pretty much standard. I think just about all lenses have the D function now.

G - doesn't have an aperture ring. Can only be used on newer cameras where aperture can be set on the camera, e.g., F5, F100, F80 etc

 

D - the lens 'tells' the camera at which distance it is focused. This information is used e.g. in exposure calculations. Unlike the 'G' such lenses can be used on all cameras, even manual, even if some don't actually use the information.

 

ED - is Extra low Dispersion glass and is mainly used in tele lenses to correct for chromatic aberrations. Expensive glass - expensive lens. No problem to use on any camera - hazardous to wallets, but worth it...

 

Obviously, a lens can have all three properties, e.g. the AF-S 24-85mm/3.5-4G, even though it isn't spelled out in the name.

Having read all these very intricate explanations, I'm afraid mine will seem a bit too simple, or maybe I miss something. But the fact is that focusing on infinity is simply (and exactly) when the lens focuses parallell rays to a point at the film plane. (Rays from a point source closer than infinity will be diverging towards the camera [and those from a source beyond infinity - imagine that! - will be converging.]) The significance of this is that a lens focused on infinity will resolve details of about the size of the aperture no matter at what distance. Read more on this topic in the excellent articles by Harold Merklinger on <a href=http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/HMArtls.html>Adjusting Depth of Field Parts I to IV</a>

Thank you for good suggestions. The simpler the better! I guess I will be able to conceal the snorkle under my parka and only secretly pull it out under the dark cloth :-)

Well, if you want a silvery lawn... Photographic chemicals are toxic to the environment and should be disposed of accordingly!

I don't like ads here, at all. To me, these fora are for sharing of experiences, learning from other peoples mistakes, quick help from a large community etc. There is already a place for selling stuff on this site, why not use it?

This christmas we had -40 for several days (same in both F and C,

actually) and I don't know about cameras, but I don't work in that. -

20F/-30C is closer to my limit and we have that regularly. It's OK to

use an SLR in low temperatures, as long as the batteries don't give

up on you, but how do you manage to focus an LF camera without

breathing on the groundglass?

I think you will find all of your specifications in just about any high-end camera - except non electronic cable release. And why would anyone want that? The mechanical cables are cheaper and maybe a bit easier to attach, but they are nowhere near as useful as an electronic cable release. And why is that? Well, first of all you use a cable release to avoid touching your camera during exposure, but with a mechanical release you are actually transferring a little mechanical force from your hand to the camera (the cable "stiffens" a bit) whereas the electronic cable is as limp as ever. That's not a big issue though. Secondly, there's so much more you can do electronically! Think of all the electronic contraptions you can make to let your camera go off in the event of, e.g., sounds, leopards crossing IR-beams, flashes of lightning etc. In fact, I haven't bought a Nikon cable release as such, but the MC-22 remote cord with banana plugs which I attach to all sorts of home made devices, including a plain two-step release button.

Checking aperture manually is easy as I bet you know: Remove lens from camera, set to smallest aperture (f/16?) and look at the aperture blades. They should be at their smallest. Then open the aperture manually by pushing the lever and let go. The aperture blades should close instantly (with a dryish rattle). If they do, at least that's not the problem. It shouldn't be the camera's aperture coupling since it happened with the D100 as well. My guess is that it <I>is</I> the aperture that is slow. But that normally comes from lack of exercise. An overhaul at Nikon is probably a good idea. Otherwise, I guess that severe flare could be perceived as over exposure.

One good book for a landscape photographer would be <a href=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/082121750X/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-8600001-1214844>Examples: the Making of 40 Photographs </a>by Ansel Adams. Some of the visualisations he claims to have made in advance seem like reconstructions but what do I know? Its a good book anyway. John Shaw is also an engaging writer. From what I see on your website, I can tell that you are already doing very well but that your inspiration is shining through (e.g. J-P L ducks in pond and coastal landscapes, R M pebbles, J T rock formations etc) and that you wish to develop a style of your own. Since you are both young and talented, I suggest more film and time in the field and you are bound to develop your own style eventually. (Not that I have, but I'm in a slightly different field and do not worry about originality much...)If you are going to read anything, read about other forms of art, surrealist painting or whatever.

No solution I'm afraid, but similar problem. Related? When I put an SB-28 on my wifes F70/N70 it either doesn't go off when I want it to, or it flashes at random. Built in flash no problem. I only rarely use my wife's camera and she only rarely uses auxiliary flash, so we haven't done anything about it. I will try the SC-17 though.

I think, by now, you begin to see a pattern from all the answers, namely that pro-grade SLRs show 100% and consumer-grade don't. I believe the rationale is that pro's and serious amateurs shoot slides and b/w where you (have the potential to) use the full image area, whereas aunt Selma wants colour prints. Aunt Selma and the print lab are equally likely to crop heads and feet off the subjects and with a little spare at the margins, chances are that the print comes out allright anyway.

I haven't tried it but the specs seem great which leads to the question of pricing: there's no free lunch. Kodak isn't exactly known for fine grained chromes (oh well they used to be, when trains were powered by steam...)and if they have finally come up with something they must have put some serious money into their research department. Or worse still, maybe they secretly have Fuji make the G series...

Whatever you choose, remember that such decisions are seldom final. I once started out in 35mm, simply because that's what you start out with, right? Then I found that I was striving to achieve "quality" and had also taken fancy to still-life, so I got myself a used 4x5 monorail. Well, I liked doing landscapes as well, and then the monorail wasn't such a good idea. I also found large format a bit too expensive for my budget. So I eventually moved to Hasselblad MF instead, which isn't cheap either but I found a decent used body with a couple of lenses, and film is a lot cheaper. That was a dear friend of mine for several years, but then my daughter was born and I had also taken up wildlife photography. These subjects call for AF, since they're moving so fast. OK, so I traded my, by then rather extensive, Hasselblad equipment for Nikon F5 with lenses. <I>Guess what?</I> I've just bought and am currently restoring an old Linhof Technika since I lack the film size and camera movements for my landscape work. This time I'll keep the Nikon though! And, of course, MF would come in handy for aerial photography.... But than, you can't have it all. Or can you? :-) I know this didn't exactly help, but if I were to have just one system, I don't think it would be LF. It's a bit too much trouble to set up for shots that don't really need the size and movements. But then, if you can have both...

What's full frame? I mount in Gepe glassless mounts for 24x36 and I know they have them in both 2 and 3 mm thickness (the thinner the better for scanning I've heard.) I buy them 1000 in a box and the Gepe nr. for that is 7003. This and other to be found on <a href=http://www.gepe.com/>Gepe's website</a>

Sad to hear that this is a common problem, but I have it too. Although I use my 85/1.8 a lot in the field, I am also meticulous about cleaning, but when the dirt has left the surface on its way in - you've lost the battle. The 85/1.8 is very very sharp, but dust doesn't exactly help.

Ah, but you see there I must disagree completely. I have yet to find and try a tripod that is sturdier than my survey tripod. And I have tried all sorts of legs with all sorts of fancy names like Gitzo, Manfrotto, Benbo and what-not. I haven't tried Sachtler, though, and they do have a solid reputation. And, mind you, I have used all sorts of long glass up here in the Scandinavian arctic where conditions are far from calm at times. (I have, for instance, a pin-sharp image taken with my Hasselblad and a Tele-Tessar 500/8 in gale wind and -32 centigrades. The camera froze up after two shots, but anyway... Unfortunately, I don't have a MF scanner to prove it.)