acarodp

June 4, 2010

That is why I have been saying for a few months that unless you have a compelling reason to get a new D700 immediately (e.g. you have some important shoots within the next few week that you need a D700 now), it is not a wise purchase in 2010.

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More or less like Arthur above, I think this reasoning is flawed. Which makes sense since I bought a D700 in February. Of course, things move so buying a D700 in February is not like buying in June, and the more time passes the more the replacement gets close, the more you have a point. Let's resume how I see it:

- The D700 is about 1900-2000 euro in Germany now. in kit with MP-10 is around 2100. At launch it was 2600-2800 if I remember correctly, body only. If one wants to go full frame Nikon now, and wants to spend less than 2500 euros, it is the only option and it WILL be still the only option, most likely, a year from now. The new camera will be put on the market at least at the same release price as the D700 had, possibly more, especially of it has a high resolution sensor. At the very least, between D700 and D700x at release there will be 600 to 800 euros...

- As you well know, it is an amazing camera with the best AF on the market, the second best high ISO noise on the market and a excellent build quality, ergonomics and speed.

- The D700 is a perfectly tested cameras, with mature hardware and firmware. Be an early adopter is not always a nice experience, there are many examples around, in and out the Nikon camp.

- The OP has a D80. The difference in build quality, speed and image quality between D80 and D700 is massive, to understate. She can either have that now and relatively cheap, or have that plus something else, for more money, in something like 6 months.The point is: what value is that "something else" for the OP?

Take my case: if I was on the market now, I could either buy a D700, or wait at least until summer (most likely July announcement according to the last rumors), but more likely September / October to get my hands on a camera which is at least 6-700 euros more (AKA overpriced since early adopters pay anyway), has some likelihood of showing some initial firmware (if not hardware) glitch, and gives me one feature I don't care about (video) one which is nice-ish but not necessary (double card slot) and either one nice-but-not-vital (one more stop high ISO a la D3s) or one I don't need nor want (higher resolution). Frankly, to put off buying a D700 for a person with my needs would be plain dumb.

My point is, everybody should buy a camera of this price by knowing VERY well his/her needs. Capabilities and limit of the D700 are well known, and it is inconceivable for me that a person thinking about spending that amount of money in professional gear does not know exactly whether they are or not compatible with his/her needs. If they ARE, as in my case, waiting AND spending more to improve in areas I don't care about makes no sense. And feeling bad or upset because your camera is "outdated" is just ridiculous. I would feel more upset because I have waited and paid more for a camera that for me does the same job the D700 did already.

I could just reverse your reasoning: unless one has a compelling reason NOT TO buy a D700 now (e.g. he wants video or he wants higher pixel count), the D700, at its price and with its features is a steal right now, and a VERY wise purchase. This not to say I'm right and you are wrong. Just that perspective is everything. And I'm a bit skeptical about this catastrophic perspective change that suddenly made poor quality videos a compelling creative need.

L.

May 21, 2010

The great Henri Cartier-Bresson used just one lens; a 5cm.

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Which is of course not true. It appeared to strongly prefer the 50, but he used on occasions a 35 and a 85 or 90. He did in fact praise on occasion the "economy of means" of using mostly the same lens, same exposure time, even same distance from the subject, stating that it led to simplicity of expression, which he valued. But it is actually a myth that he used only the 50.

I'm a prime person myself, and doing mostly street, but I don't share the idea that using only a 50 per se leads to developing a vision or things like that. I think it is more subtle than that.

In my experience, when shooting with zooms one sees things, decides how he wants to shoot them according to the three broad classes wide / normal / tele, then zooms to cut out what he does not want to be in (or to bring in what he wants to be in).

When using primes, I tend to think backwards. I know I have my 35 on (or 50, or 85...) and I see the things around me as through a 35. I choose a way of seeing, and THEN I choose subjects and points of view accordingly. Something that cannot be shot through the 35 should be really outstanding for me to "see" it, when I have my 35 on. Same goes if I have a 24 or a 135.

As a consequence, I need to become very familiar with a lens before I can use it effectively: I need to learn the look it produces. The only way is to use only that lens for a while when I buy it. But this holds for ANY lens, not only for the 50 (which by the way is one of the easiest). Once this necessary step is achieved, to use only ONE lens at all is for me a meaningless limitation.

I do on occasion go out with only one lens, in most cases a 35 or a 50. This happens when I just want to take a walk and perhaps take a photo or two. So my D700 and the 50 or 35 is light and easy to carry, and I don't care about the limitation because I'm not out for the purpose of taking photos.

L.

April 23, 2010

Apparently the GP-1 is entirely a mixed bag, with a striking difference in quality between production batches.

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Oh, but I do believe you... I was just stating that my experience differs. It might be a production batch problem indeed, and perhaps I was just lucky.Or perhaps Nikon changed chipset after a while seeing that many units were having problems... Nikon is indeed very secretive about which GPS chip they use in the GP-1, which most likely means that they use, or plan to use more than one. I have mine since February so possibly it is of more recent production than yours? Hard to say.

But I disagree that cities are good for signal: European cities have very often narrow streets with fairly high buildings at the sides, and in my experience in using GPS for many years now, they are the worst possible places for reception together with really dense foliage areas, especially if the GPS had not enough time to acquire all the satellites above the horizon. I have not taken the GP1 in any dense forest so far, but if my experience is of any guide, the way the GP1 performed so far would indicates that it should behave at least decently there as well.

I also wonder whether this might be somewhat related to the kind of cable one uses. I feel that the 11 pin plug used on the D200 and up, where the cable is firmly screwed into place, should be more reliable than the simple lug used in the D90/5000... if the connection gets somewhat loose, a less than perfect contact might disturb the proper functioning of the device perhaps? Again, hard to say.

All I can say is that I turned on mine for the very first time in a relatively open crossroad (but definitely not unobstructed) and got a full fix in 30 seconds, I was indeed impressed. Shot a photo to check the geotagging, and the result was at about 5 meters from where I was. Since then, it has always behaved accordingly, except for the portrait photo issue I mentioned above.

Cheers

L.

April 23, 2010

Promote GPS by far. I had the Nikon and it was a ROYAL PITA.

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This is surprising to me. I have and use a Nikon GP-1 and it works quite well, acquires fast (20-30 s cold start, 4-5 s warm) and holds signal well in the streets. Never had it losing lock. Never tried using it indoors, because I see no purpose in doing so (and it is not what GPS are meant to do anyway), so I cannot say how good it is at that. I have not used it under dense foliage yet. For sure it does NOT lose signal when you move and it does NOT take 10 minutes to acquire. A friend owns one also, and his findings mirror mine (I actually bought mine afer seeing his). The only limit I find in the GP-1 is some loss of accuracy when one shots in portrait mode with the GPS is mounted on the camera, in city environment: the GPS might suddendly geotag the photo 15-20 m from where it was actually taken. I have the impression this does NOT happen when the GPS is properly oriented towards the sky but I'm not sure, adn it is fairly sporadic anyway. I don't consider this a big deal since photo geotagging rarely requests very high precision especially in cities. All this with D700 (me) and D3, D3x, and D5000 (my friend).

Cheers

L.

April 19, 2010

"There is nothing more useless than a sharp photograph of a fuzzy concept." Ansel, of course.

L.

April 13, 2010

But really, who owns numbers?

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I'm sorry Hernan, but this one makes even less sense than the previous one. Who owns numbers? And who owns letters, or words, for that matter? According to this, then anybody could take any written text and disrespect its ownership just because it is made of words and letters. Yes, so I think I will claim I wrote Die Buddenbrock, the Odissey and since I'm at it, why not Neruda's Estravagario. Sorry: my Estravagario. Since when Neruda owned any of the words in "Ahora como siempre es temprano"?

According to the fact that nobody owns the words of a language, no idea expressed in that language could have an owner? You know, this is what the whole patenting business is about: mankind is recognizing the concept that ideas and works of art have owners since before Christ. Or do you think that when Nikon patents a lens is claiming the property of the little piece of glass of the prototype?

L.

April 13, 2010

Hernan,

I guess you are missing the point. I am an amateur, I make no money from my photos and I don't want to. If someone with a blog wants to use an image of mine, sends me an email and asks, I would very likely say yes and I would feel no need to ask money for it. But if someone takes my image without asking, publishes it without credit to me, and perhaps makes even money out of it (these sites attract visits with the nice photos they show, and get revenue out of advertisement) , this is wrong, even if I don't get damaged by it economically. Of course, if I was a professional an my photos had commercial value for me, it would be worse, but it is wrong anyway.

If you knock at my door and ask for a glass of water, I would be happy to give it to you. But if you enter my home without consent, that is trespassing, even if all you wanted was a glass of water. The way you do things makes a difference.

L.

April 12, 2010

Has all this progress really allowed us to take more interesting or intriguing photos?

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Yes it did, but your reasoning looks a bit simplistic to me. Progress allowed for a couple things that were not possible before (you named them already) but much more importantly it allowed a vastly higher success rate: thanks to AF, higher sensitivities, postproduction latitude, more refined automatic exposure system, higher frame rates, larger number of photos that can be shot before reloading. All this made things easier, which means that more difficult things could be made with a reasonable high success rate by people with a given skill level.

Remember, Marco Polo basically walked from Venice to China, And Colombo sailed to America with three laughable, small, slow, unsafe ships. So it can be made. Despite this, the fact that you can now fly from Europe to China in 24 hours makes a lot of difference.

Progress does not divert from the image. It is just that some people think more, are interested more in the progress than in the image. But it is their fault, not the fault of the progress. If you fool yourself into thinking that what you NEED is the new super technological camera model, the problem is with you, not with the fact that somebody marketed the new super technological camera model.

L.

April 11, 2010

It is because what it is worth will fall through the floor overnight when it's successor is released.

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You buy cameras as an investment? I buy cameras to take photos. I came to the conclusion that when people think about a new camera (or lens) there are two possible questions they will ask themselves:

1) will it do what I want?

or

2) will it be the newest & greatest?

Needless to say, one is an intelligent question, the other is not. If the D700 does what the OP wants, then every hour he spends waiting is an hour he does not spend shooting. If it does not, there is no reason to want to buy it. It is really as simple as that. For sure, the release date of the D700, and the release date of its successor have absolutely nothing to do with the D700 specifications and performance, which are well known and for sure will not change when the D700x will appear. So either they work for you, or not.

L.

April 11, 2010

My D700 and D200 sorely lack a button that stops time, or rewinds it to the point I liked. They also lack one to properly set the position of the sun and the kind of weather I want. I would accept also menu items for this, but of course a well placed button would be better.

Everything else is precisely where I want it and in the quantity I want it.

Jokes apart, my cameras satisfy me completely, the only minor exception being the not so good ergonomics of the MB-D200 grip, but the D700's MB-D10 is fully satisfactory in this respect. What I might want are some lenses, mostly the new 16-35/4, which I'm thinking of buying at some point.

L.

April 7, 2010

I mostly don't. The point is, I need to see the scene framed to really decide if I like it, I tried sometimes to shoot from the hip but my failure rate is so enormous that it is not really worth the effort for me. I don't have any preconception about it, simply I'm not good at it.

I actually use a different technique, which I found to work quite well. This kind of scene:

- I frame the person on the street

- The person notice, turns and look at me with "that" look

- I go on framing pretending I did not notice he/she is looking at me.

- After, say, one second, the person begins to doubt whether or not I'm actually pointing at him/her, and starts to feel insecure and stops watching me. At that point I shoot.

- Then I take down the camera, chimp, and look at a point 3 cm above the person's head with a vaguely unsatisfied look on my face. At that point the person is usually convinced I had shoot something else just above, and feels ashamed :-D...

<a href="../photo/10866172&size=lg">This one was done that way</a>. Sort of "hiding in plain view"... ;-)

Cheers

L.

April 7, 2010

1. The standard Nikon 18-55mm lens will be upgraded to the Nikon G type DX.

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Uh? are you sure you have this right? ALL Nikkor 18-55 are G (means no aperture ring) and DX (means they only work on small sensor cameras. Perhaps the upgrade is from the non-VR to the VR version? <a href="http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/lens/af/dx/af-s_dx_zoom18-55mmf_35-56g_ed_2/index.htm">This one</a> is the current non-vr version, <a href="http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/lens/af/dx/af-s_dx_18-55mmf_35-56g_vr/index.htm">this one</a> is the VR version.

2. The standard Nikon 70-300 lens will be upgraded to the Nikon G type IF (Iternal Focusing) ED (Extra Low Dispersion).

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This makes more sense. The only, I believe currently produced version of the 70-300 is the IF-ED VR, <a href="http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/lens/af/zoom/af-s_vr_zoom70-300mmf_45-56g_if/index.htm">here it is</a>. It is a very fine lens, while <a href="http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/technology/archives/lens/af/zoom/af_zoom70-300mmf_4-56d/index.htm">this one was the old version</a>, no longer produced, which is the one you were likely offered in the first place.

If these are the upgrades you are offered, both make sense (by the way, this would make both your lenses VR), since in the 18-55 you gain a somewhat better (not much) optics and VR, in the 70-300 you gain a significantly better optics, very good AF, and VR. If they offer you this for no extra charge and you only have to let the 50 go, I would say go for it. The 50 1.8 is very cheap anyway, you can buy it anytime if you feel you want it (with a DX camera, I would very seriously consider the 35 1.8 dx instead / also). Especially the 70-300 is not a basic lens at all, it is indeed one of the finest consumer-grade lenses in my opinion, and it is likely to serve you well for a long time.

Unless you have misread/miscopied what they told you about the 18-55, however, you should likely be careful because something is a bit fishy...

Cheers

L.

April 3, 2010

I don't understand the need for Mt Palomar in a DSLR.

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Sorry to break this on you, but mount Palomar is ancient tecnology, more or less like an Holga ;-). Now if you had mentioned <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt/index.html">VLT</a>... That is now the second coming. Provided you can get observing time on it. And in a while with <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/e-elt/index.html">E-ELT</a>, VLT will be like a Holga :-D. So it's deja vu all over again, I suppose.

L.

PS in case it escaped you, it's all in jest...

March 31, 2010

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March 31, 2010

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March 31, 2010

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March 31, 2010

I might be wrong of course, but to me it looks like a poor scan where highlights have been blown. When you blow channels you lose detail, of course, because the detail in the pixels of that color cannot be used by the demosaicing anymore. Perhaps they have blown it and attempted a highlight recovery. Besides, the blown parts are hit by light much more straight on than the parts that are not, which are under grazing light. The stone there thus contains less shadows, hence less fine details. But I guess that a bad highlight recovery is the main effect. The proof would be to see the film original, or an analog print.

L.

March 29, 2010

Now that spring is here, I was looking for a camera that I could walk around with, small, light but useful.

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D700 ;-). No seriously: I second the D5000 suggestion. Got to play with one recently and I found it really nice. If you leave DSLR territory, I love my Panasonic LX3. If I did not have it already, I would very seriously look at the Panasonic GF1 or Olympus Pen.

L.

March 25, 2010

Home, I now live in Germany but I'm Italian, so which one is my home country?

Love: Paris, above any other. Buenos Aires. London. Delhi. If I could pick a place in Italy Rome would be very high in the list.

Hate: Santa Fe. Stuttgart. Rio de Janeiro

Want to go: New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Mexico City, Sidney.

Could I go beyond 3? If not, cut my lists at the third one ;-)

L.

March 25, 2010

On Digital the 35mm f2 will be much more usable, think if it as a 50mm on a film body.

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He is using a D700, so the 35 it will be just a 35, a 50 will be a 50 ;-)

L.

March 25, 2010

new 24mm f1.4 will have better performance than the mediocre 35mm f2

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The 35/2 mediocre? Are we speaking of the same lens? The 35/2 is everything but mediocre on a D700. Besides... He cannot decide between 35 and 50 and you suggest a 24? It might well have a better performance, but it is not the field of view he is asking about.

Does the 35 f/2 focus fast? How does it compare to say the 50's?

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Essentially the same as the 50 1.4 D on a D700. No discernible difference for me. Sharpness wise, I would say the 50 is somewhat sharper at f2 (not surprising) but they are practically the same f2.8 onwards. Both have rather bad bokeh, but in average I find the one of the 35 the less annoying of the two. All this applies on a D700, which I find much more forgiving than APS-C cameras like my D200, due to the lower linear resolution. Example, I would never use the 50 1.4 at 1.4 unless really really needed on the D200. On the D700 it is of course not at its best, but totally usable.

L.

March 24, 2010

Pop quiz for all Nikonians: is the front wheel or the back wheel used for aperture control in Manual mode on the Nikon F5 and should we turn that wheel toward the viewfinder to choose a higher aperture number (less light)?

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Front one. Direction depends from chosen custom setting, default is counterclockwise increases. Never had a problem remembering, and I did not even use the sub-command dial for aperture, always preferred the aperture ring. And I don't use my F5 since 4 years. So you see? not so difficult. ;-)

L.

March 23, 2010

If by SLR you mean film, F5. If digital bodies are admitted, D700 is my favorite so far, then F5.

L.

March 20, 2010

I shoot always in raw, and process with Bibble that ignores all camera settings except WB. So I don't care about "image" settings. I'm also always in auto WB, since I don't have strict WB consistency needs, and if I don't like the WB the camera picked, I can change it in Bibble.

My cameras in the last 10 years or so have almost always been set in aperture priority, it is what I'm used to, and it works with my kind of subjects and my style.

In terms of "influences" or conceptual mindset as you call it, I don't really know. You may go to my gallery and decide ;-). What I mean is that it is quite evident to me that my style and tastes are deeply influenced by a number of great past photographers, but I'm absolutely not thinking about it when I'm out taking pictures. The fact is, I need to concentrate on the pictures, and as Yogi Berra had it "I cannot concentrate when I'm thinking" :-D.

L.

March 19, 2010

The specialties are photographic hardware use and techniques, Lighting hardware and techniques, color management and theory (from computer control to printer management), post processing your images (i.e. Photoshop, NX2, etc.) and now video!

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Frankly, I'm puzzled. From your title I would have expected you citing sport photography, wildlife, street, portrait... now these are specialties... for a street photographer like me, shooting the single wedding I did shoot was pretty hard: lots of tricks I did not know. I still hate wedding photography, but I earned a lot of respect for the skills of those who can do it well. And I'm sure it would be the same if I had tried any other genre I am not experienced about.

But what you mean are not specialties in themselves. There is no point in knowing postproduction or color management if you are not expert enough in the techniques you use in the field, be them camera or lighting stuff, to get the image right. What will you postproduce if you don't get the image? or are you one of those who believe someone can get a good photo out of a bad one by means of photoshop?

In my view, every photographer chooses a route between the idea and the final print. Such route has many choices along the way, and every choice is determined by the one before, and determines the ones after. What are your subjects? how do you choose to approach them? which camera you will use? which lenses? will you use artificial lighting or not? will you shoot in studio or not? will you postproduce, and if yes, how? will you print your own images or give them to be printed? and you can imagine 100 more. The answer you give will lead you across some bit of every single one of the "specialities" you cite, and leave vast parts of each completely untouched. But a bit of each is needed to produce all and every image.

Some examples? I shoot street, so I mostly use lenses between 24 and 135mm. I have no clue how to use very long tele lenses, or tilt-shift ones, or how you shoot a bird in flight, or a model in studio. I use Nikon, so I know little of Canon or Pentax cameras, lenses, flashes... I use mostly primes, so my technique and way of seeing is adapted to that. I exclusively shoot digital, so I know little of darkroom stuff. I postproduce with Bibble 5 and GIMP, so I don't know, say, Lightroom. I almost never use flashes, so I know very little lighting technique.

But if I had chosen to use zooms, or Apple Aperture and Photoshop, or Canon cameras, I would likely get the same images, only through a slightly different route. You choose your way through the maze, but there is no way (and no need) you will ever know ALL the maze.

L.

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