On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

OK, it’s not much, but it’s one of the first images from my new Nikon D300. I missed delivery on Friday when I was out with family, so had to stop by FedEx on my way out of town for some business travel. It was too hectic to stop for some real image capture, so I grabbed this just to have something to look at and process.

My impressions so far:

I’m not bothered by the increased weight compared to the D80. It seems a bit longer and more solidly built, but not an impediment to working.

The shutter seems to be better damped so that hand holding at 1/4 sec is more like shooting with the Leica. With a wide lens, camera shake doesn’t seem to be bad at 1/4 to 1/2 second.

The layout is familiar enough that I could start shooting right away. I’ve made a few adjustments to the defaults that were easy matches to the way I have the D80 setup, but there’s more to do on this.

Exposure in matrix mode is absolutely phenomenal. Similar to the D80, it knows what you’re focusing on, so there’s weight given to the “subject”, but there’s more of a compromise in holding the rest of the image. It’s good in camera, but clearly ready for post processing. It’s what I’d expect from a less consumer oriented camera. Still, if the subject is in shadow or dark in tone, the camera will blow out the highlights. This protects the subject’s exposure. Having gotten used to working with the D80’s matrix system I forsee no issues here.

I’m thrilled to have the command wheels working to change exposure even when previewing an image on the LCD. It was my biggest ergonomic issue with the D80.

And that LCD on the back is very nice. I’m used to looking at images on the iPhone and the D300 LCD matches it.

I’ve placed an order for the new D300. I’ve started selling the Olympus E-1 outfit on eBay with the FL-50 flash unit going first.

My reasoning? I just am not that excited about the images I’ve been seeing from the E-1. Over the past year I’ve adapted my vision to the D80, shooting much more with it than I ever did with the E-1.

As a system, Nikon is more attractive to me at this point. I’ll be getting a free Capture NX license with the D300, a $149 that I was going to spend anyway. At first, I tried NX again to get better RAW conversions for Photoshop work. But I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the NX control point interface. It fits the way I work well and provides a simpler path than PS CS3 layers and history brush. It gets me just about everything I’ve been using in Photoshop.

While I’ve considered just sticking with the D80, I really want the 100% viewfinder of the D300. I had it with the Olympus E-1 and have missed it with the D80. There are several ergonomic issues that I have with the D80 which I understand are not problems with the D200/300. For example, I’m forever trying to change exposure on the D80 and instead scrolling through images on the back LCD. The D80 is modal in it’s control wheel usage, violating the idea of one control, one function that I think a camera should have.

I expect to have the first D300 images by the end of the week. I’m not expecting anything substantially different from the D80 in terms of image tone and quality.

It seems we’re in the midst of one of the best fall color seasons in Baltimore that I can remember. I went out today with the D80 and shot with two lenses- the 12-24mm f4 DX and the 105mm f2.8 VR Micro. This image with the 105mm.

For sharpness edge to edge, these are now my go to lenses. While I like shooting with the 24mm and 50mm primes, these two lenses show better contrast on the D80. The range is wide and the lenses are heavy but compact.

My local dealer tells me that the D300’s will be shipping on Wednesday and arriving Friday. The D80 image quality is certainly good enough, but I would like the 100% view and the more pro oriented metering.

I’ve downloaded the demo for Capture NX from Nikon again. Since I have a new laptop since the last download, I get another 30 days with it. As I’ve seriously been considering either the Nikon D300 or Olympus E-3, the RAW conversion is part of the picture.

Somewhere along the line, roundtripping from Aperture to Photoshop became less attractive because of mosaic artifacts. I think it’s the Aperture TIFF converter. Within Aperture, I see no problem at all, but when exported as a TIFF, there is an increase in artifact that is unacceptable.

Since Thom Hogan recommends Capture NX as the best Nikon RAW converter, I thought I might as well give it another try. After converting a half dozen images, I agree that it provides the best conversions I’ve seen. Followup changes in Photoshop also work well so far.

I’m really very happy with the quality I get from the D80, so all things considered I believe I should stay in the Nikon camp. So far, images from the Olympus E-3 don’t look substantially different from any of the other DSLRs available. It seems that testing methodologies must be pretty similar for all of the sensor makers, so with similar technologies available, there’s not much difference between what the sensor provides the software.

I made another short business trip to London last week and took just the Leica M6ttl, the 35mm f2.0 lens and 4 rolls of film, mostly Ilford XP2, the black and white negative film that is processed like a standard color negative film (C41 Process). Processing and scans by National Photo here in Baltimore.

While I was out shooting, I felt uninspired. I was looking for great images and didn’t see any. What I was forgetting, since I’ve been less consistent about shooting, is the tranformative power of the camera. Ordinary scenes, at just the right moment, can be transformed by the emulsion.

I totaled up the cost this time. It works out to $20 a roll. An M8 is about 250 rolls worth at this point. I’ve shot about 20 rolls this year, so I’m ahead of the game on a cost basis.

More importantly, the film/scanning workflow has a different look to it and requires much less post processing than my color digital work. I think I’ll continue working on this Urban Landscape project using the Leica and C41 black and white film for the time being, while the Nikon 80 brings color to the Suburban Landscape project.

I chose to post this image to remind myself that I’m trying to create a landscape aesthetic in the images, getting away from the flat abstracts as formal composition. I want to portray the space and structure, using people in the urban environment when I can.

Flash experiments continue. For this kind of outdoor fill flash, Nikon’s CLS works really well. I independently adjusted ambient with flash illumination until I got this balance. Indoors I don’t have it down yet, preferring to meter ambient at set a manual exposure, then dialing up the flash on the subjects for balance.

OS X 10.5 Leopard arrived this morning. Clean, fast. Time machine has gone to work on it’s first backup. A nice step forward, nothing earthshaking, but definitely recommended.

Since the D300 was announced as having a 100% viewfinder, I was reminded that I gave that up for the 95% view of the D80. The Olympus E-1 had 100%, which was one reason why I chose it over the Nikon D70 at the time.

I compose my images in the camera, generally not cropping during post processing. When I framed this image I was careful to put the top of the frame just below the car that can be seen in the top 2.5% of this image. I could have cropped it out, but it becomes an accidental element in the image.

It seems I finally created a photograph so banal that no one wants to look at it. My shots on flickr generally garner a dozen or more views depending on what group pools I post to. Flash images to Strobist generate the most interest the fastest, but usually the big central groups like FlickrCrazy or Central will get a few views just when posted and the image is on the first or second page of images.

In my quest to capture the suburban landscape using layering and selective focus, I’ve honed the subject down to hedge, bushes and tree trunk. A culmination of my work validated by the fact that no one has viewed the image at all.

Or maybe it’s a bug in Flickr’s view counter.

This image was one of the first I captured with my new 105 VR Micro. Back when I shot with my N80 I had a 105mm Micro which I loved for it’s sharpness. It was stolen out of my luggage on an international flight. The lens was buried in my bundle of clothes, but it was the last time I put camera equipment in a checked bag.

I’ve wanted to replace it for years and finally bought one yesterday. With the VR I finally get to try some image stabilization technology for my image making. I’m working with the Nikon philosophy that the best VR is in-lens for telephoto. I can handhold my favored 24mm at 1/30th sec without too much trouble.

My thought is that the 105mm is going to be useful in these selective focus images, doubling as a portrait lens. It seems to me that the 105 and the 12-24mm DX will serve as my large special purpose lenses for now.