bahi_p

<p>@Dave Lee:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Actually the depth of field is better, you get more with FX. With DX you had to stop down one additional stop to get what you would get with FX at f11, for example. If you were shooting with a Nikon 35mm lens, and you used the scale printed on the lens to calculate your hyperfocal distance, with DX you have to stop down to f16 to get what it says on f11.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If you can see the same scene from a given spot through the viewfinders of both an FX and a DX body (if, for example, you have a 30mm lens on the DX and a 45mm on the FX) then the FX camera will provide less depth of field at the same aperture, not more. Generally, you'd need to open up the DX camera one stop (this is very approximate) or close the FX down one stop to get a closer match between the two. <br /> Think of how difficult it is to obtain a very shallow depth of field on compact cameras, with their tiny sensors, using normal focal lengths, even at f/2. Conversely, remember how many large format photos have a very limited DoF at normal focal lengths and, say, f/8. (Hence the f/64 club co-founded by Adams, Weston et al for their LF work.) As sensor size increases, DoF decreases for a given aperture, assuming angle of view and position of photographer remain unchanged.</p>

<p>I asked Thom Hogan and a couple of others about D300 vs D90 comparisons for raw shooters, following that odd DPR review. He has rested a few sample of each camera and has seen the difference that DPR saw. He's very fussy—much more so than me—so I'm guessing that DPR had a bad sample. Going be the samples I've seen so far, I'd say that the raw images from the D90 are significantly less noisy at high ISO and show no less detail. DXO's raw tests seem more in line with what I see than DPR's results.</p>

<p>I had to do this for a Nikon D50 here in London—I called Nikon UK and they sent me the part very quickly. Based on the UK cost and the usual UK:US cost ratio for this kind of thing, I'd guess that Nikon USA would charge you around $5 including postage. In my case, I'd removed the old part and cleaned up the adhesive residue so installing the replacement, which was self-adhesive, took me just seconds. The worn and peeling rubber piece was the camera's only fault and replacing it made a big difference to the feel of the camera. (Sounds wrong but that's how it was.) Well worth doing.</p>

<p>In the designs of the D80 and D90 (which are based on the body design of the D50 and not the larger D70), Nikon modified the body's shape to reduce the lateral force on the rubber pieces and appear to have largely eliminated the problem. I was impressed when I saw that change on eventually upgrading from my D50 - they changed the mould in two places, both of which were affected by wear issues on the D50, presumably at some considerable cost. And I bet that most users wouldn't notice—it's just someone inside the company trying to do things right.</p>

<p>Rob, further to the suggestion to rent, Calumet in London is offering a decent week-end deal - you can have a D700 for the week-end and only pay for a day's rental. I don't know if you're in the area but if you are, it's a good deal.</p>

<p>Do take a look at RAW Developer and Raw Photo Processor - both offer sharp, detailed results and can be tried for free. You sometimes see in the results they produce a level of detail and local contrast that can be astonishing. Capture One 4.6 also has its strengths. The Lightroom/ACR engine is very easy to use and quick, and Lightroom works well as a catalogue manager. The raw conversion offers a good highlight recovery mechanism but can produce odd artefacts and often fails to do justice to either lens or camera.</p>

<p>David, I shoot the way you do, for the most part, and increasingly so. You can't really beat the control of manual exposure and if you're shooting M, can even dive into the menu system and back out without losing your exposure settings. And if you're choosing your own focus point, it makes sense (to me) to have the metering done by the active point. It's easy and harmless to move that spot around to meter on various objects but isn't so harmless to move the central focus point around, focus and recompose. (At least if you're shooting close subject wide open with a fast lens. If you aren't, focus-and-compose is usually fine.) But Mike, the D80 does indeed have an exposure lock function. I use it when I shoot Aperture priority but I do that less these days than I used to.</p>

<p>Ray is right if you've selected Single Area in custom function 2 to tell the camera to use the focus point that you've selected yourself . If you've chosen Auto-area AF, then the spot metering is always from the central focus area. If you've chosen Dynamic Area, things get tricky. For one thing, if the subject moves to a different focus point from the one it was originally under and which you originally selected then you won't see which focus point is active because it's not highlighted, regardless of which option you chose for highlighting focus points. Trickier yet, spot metering will be done on that active focus point, and (as above) you might not know which point that is. I avoid that combination and tend to stick to Single Area. I choose the focus point and hence spot-metering area.<br>

<br /> I'm very often shooting things outside the dynamic range of the D80 (scenes that include light sources, for example) and tend to use spot metering in manual mode, with the Single Area option rather than let the camera decide what to blow out. It works really well and the D80 makes it easy to switch between spot, centre-weighted and matrix. For less contrasty scenes, I stick with matrix and aperture-priority and am then happy to switch on dynamic area focussing and AF-C as required.</p>

Rui Lebreiro wrote:

 

> It's not the pictures (even if i don't like most of them), the main issue

> here is the lack of respect, and the respect for people you see in HCB

> photography is far beyond his style. That is an essencial point on HCB

> (and magnum) principles!"

 

HCB took many pictures of people without asking permission first. Sometimes, he took pictures of people without their

knowledge. He touted the Leica's virtues - small size, quietness and so on. Bruce Gilden is also taking photos without

permission and, liked HCB, often producing results that the subject wouldn't think of as flattering.

 

The difference is that Gilden is brazen about it. That's not disrespectful. If anything, the fact that he sees no need whatsoever

to be furtive about what he does might be seen as laudable. (HCB often hid his Leica under his coat and taped over its shiny

surfaces to make it less noticeable.) HCB sought invisibility - Gilden does not. I wouldn't differentiate between their work based

on the respect they had towards their subject. HCB came to photography after a period of hunting and selling meat to locals,

didn't he? I don't think he saw his photography very differently. :-)

 

For what it's worth, I'm very taken by those pictures of Bruce Gilden's.

Zeeshan: when you're next checking for the absence of a shutter on a DSLR, don't use the mirror lock-up function. Power

down the camera, remove the lens and, with the camera still powered off, gently lift the mirror to see what's behind it. You'll

want to be sitting down, though, the first time you do this because there will follow a moment of profound shock.

 

The mirror just redirects the light to the finder. (For the most part, anyway. On the D80, some light makes it through areas of

the mirror that are only partially reflective and is redirected downward by a secondary mirror to the autofocus sensors in the

lower part of the camera body.) The mirror does not control exposure in any way, hence custom option 31 on the D80,

intended to reduce shake induced by the rapid movement of the mirror: with this option active, the D80 lifts the mirror 0.4

seconds before the shutter opens. The D80's exposure times are controlled entirely by its shutter but even in cameras like the

D50, which have hybrid electronic/mechanical shutters, there is still a very similar physical shutter that completely controls

slower exposures.

When the SB-400 was released, Nikon said that the only camera that would function

correctly with this unit while set to M was the D40. It's likely that the D40X later inherited this

ability. I'm not sure about the newer cameras, like the D300.

 

So it's the fact that you are shooting in M mode on your D50 that is causing the issue here -

manual mode on a D50 won't work with the SB-400, regardless of lens. Of course, with this

older prime, you have no choice but to shoot M. The conclusion is that you'll have to rely on

the onboard flash or another flash unit if you use this lens with the D50 and the SB-400.

Apologies - I should have checked that preview a little more carefully.

The salesman at a photo shop in London had one, boxed, for ?200 inc VAT. By UK standards,

that's not too bad a price - there are places selling it for ?235. We didnt' go for it - I haven't

seen a single review and we didn't want to have to trek back there if the lens proved

disappointing.

We had the greenish tint on a MacBook with a Huey Pro, purchased from Dabs in London

in October 2007. A 17" HP LCD display connected to the MacBook didn't display the same

issue. A replacement Huey Pro, sent directly from a support guy at Pantone, pretty much

fixed the greenish cast of the MacBook's glossy screen but now we're seeing a slight

magenta to some (not all images) which I suspect was a result of the previous, faulty Huey

Pro.

 

Anway, I wanted to point out the following:

 

1) It's not just the Huey. People with ColorVision Spyders and other similar devices are

reporting the same greenish cast. (Try Googling.)

 

2) It doesn't affect only glossy screens by any means. (Again, Google it.)

 

3) I don't recall seeing report of 8 bit-per-channel screens or a CRTs being affected. I'd

like to come across one.

 

To clarify: most (all?) laptop screens and certainly all those used by Apple to date, and

even some fitted to low-end desktop displays like cheaper iMacs display only 6 bits per

channel. Apple Cinema Displays and equivalents from other manufacturers display 8 bits

per channel. The complaints about Hueys, Huey Pros and other similar devices appear to

come from those using them with 6-bit displays. My survey is limited but you can help -

just reply here. :)

 

Is it possible that the Huey and the Huey Pro, cheaper than many competing devices, are

more likely to be bought and used by those on a budget? And that this might mean that

they're more likely to be used to calibrate a laptop's built-in screen on the screen of a

low-end iMac? (The 17" Intel iMacs had 6-bit displays - there are reports that the current

20" also does.)

 

I'm not drawing conclusions - just asking questions.

Someone mentioned the lower noise of the D50 compared with the D70s (true, though

only significant if you're doing a lot of low-light work) but mentioned that ISO options

were limited to full stops (200, 400, 800, 1600). That is true and is a drawback; however,

the Auto ISO function can help. Shooting a 28mm f/2.8 lens in the evening, I set the Auto

ISO to kick in when shutter speed would otherwise fall below 1/30th or (if I'm feeling

steady) 1/15th of a second. I see ISOs of 240, 360, 640, 480 and so on. (Important note:

Auto ISO continues to work even in manual mode, to allow you to choose fast shutter

speeds and small apertures, should you so choose - it will set ISO accordingly. Remember

to switch this off if it's not what you're expecting.)

 

If my D50 breaks (it shows no signs of trouble after more than a year) I'll get another one.

I'd get a D40 (even lower noise, better detail) but I use primes without inbuilt focusing

motors and I'd miss autofocus. My next camera will be an equally low noise, full-frame,

affordable Nikon DSLR. Sadly, I might be one of _very_ few remaining D50 users by then?

 

BTW, I bought the 18-70 AFS-S DX with the body (got a great deal) and love this lens for

daylight work where I need the depth of field. No good later on in the evening, of course,

but that's where the primes come in.