Nikon

Nikon cameras

Nikon Marketing Screwup

Every month, I buy PDN, Photo District News, the photo magazine. I do not subscribe to it, the subscription is more expensive than buying it at the newsstand. PDN is a magazine directed toward the professional photographers and is a must-read for anybody/everybody that wants to keep current with the business, the marketing of photography and the commercial photography trends. Every issue has big ads from both Canon and Nikon.

In the May 2012 issue, Nikon USA did a double truck spread, that's a two facing pages, about a wedding photographer, Doug Gordon, on page 42 and page 43. Two large photographs, and two smaller ones. Excellent photos (they'd better be), great inspiration…

His go-to cameras: the Nikon D3x and the Nikon D3s…

Then Nikon USA goes on explaining the D3X and the D3s… engineered for professionals…

There's only one problem with the ad, it's a small photograph, 3 inch by 2 inch, of Doug Gordon, the photographer, taking photos with a Canon camera (that looks like a Canon 5DMk2) and a Canon 70-200L f/2.8.

Color Space and Your Camera

If you are only using print and not using the web, then don't bother reading this blog post. For the rest of us, this is one of the most important and fundamental to photography and the web. BTW ain't you reading this on the web?

Go to this web page: http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/color-spaces-page2 but not yet, let me first explain. You will need to have Javascript enabled on your web browser to analyse the web page.

There a big photograph that you can view in the various color spaces: sRGB, AdobeRBG, ColorMatch, ProPhoto, WideRGB and AppleRGB.

D800: Where Are the Lenses?

Nikon D800

Now that Nikon has shipped the D800 and the D800E, that's when the rubber meets the road. I mentioned in many of my “rants” like D800: Thanks but No Thanks that the problem is going to be the lenses and their capacity or lack of capacity to resolve the 30+ megapixels.

Lens Rentals of http://www.lensrentals.com tried the D800 on their lenses. Not only they have “everything”, they have more than everything! They tested the D800 with their Nikon mount lenses. The sensor may be fantastic but most Nikon lenses are not “that fantastic.”



Canon 7D: Why is my 1st Photo Fuzzy?

One of the common problem with the Canon 7D, 60D and 1DMk4… is that the first couple of photographs are fuzzy, and all the other photos after that are sharp and crisp.

The 2 major causes are:

  1. The IS/VR, in the Canon lingo: Image Stabilization, in the Nikon lingo: Vibration Reduction in the Nikon world
  2. The focus

Image Stabilization/Vibration Reduction

In Canon and Nikon cameras, the image stabilization (VR in Nikon) is in the lens. The other camera manufacturers followed Olympus' lead when it created the image stabilization directly in the camera body.

The image stabilization/vibration reduction uses some motion sensors and 1 or 2 micro-gyroscopes to shift, either some element of the lens, or the CMOS/CCD sensor. Basically, it introduces another movement to counter-act your movement. You can see it in action if you mount a “not a new generation” IS/VR lens on a tripod with mode 1 enabled with the head slightly loose, then the camera will start to drift.

It takes half a second for the Image Stabilization/Vibration Reduction to kick in. This means that the IS/VR engages half a second after the focus has been engaged. The IS/VR has started, but it hasn't achieved stabilization yet. It can take between another ½ sec to another full second to achieve stabilization. With the new Canon L lenses and the new Nikon VRII lenses, when the IS/VR has been achieved after another second, the IS/VR reaches the Lotus position and achieves “nirvana” to give the full 4 or 5 f/stop of improvement.

Image Stabilization Canon calls it: Image Stabilization, Nikon calls it Vibration Reduction, Sony calls it SteadyShot, Pentax calls it Sensor-shift Image Stabilization, Sigma call it Optical Stabilization and so on.It's very much black magic. It's based on between two to as many as six tiny gyroscopes that track the pitch and the yaw to compensate for the pan and tilt either on the CMOS/CCD sensor or on one element in the lens. They will give you between 2 f/stops to as many as 5 f/stops, it depends on the technology and the circumstances.The secret to using the IS/VR/SS… is keep engaging it, usually by keeping the finger half pressed on the shutter for more than ½ of a second to ¾ of a second and keep it there, then use the continuous shooting. The IS/VR/SS… keeps improving as you keep on shooting, especially if you are steady.Overall, the image stabilization is more effective when it's built-in the lens instead of the camera. When it's in the lens, the image stabilization is done before the focus and this help with the auto-focus. When the image stabilization is done in the camera bodyimage-stabilization.jpg — ©2011 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

2 photos taken 0.125 sec apart with Image Stabilization on for both photos

This is the equivalent of using a tripod.

Focus mode

Is My Flash Strong Enough?

Do you remember when you were in high school? When I was in high school, we had to study physics. We had to study light, waves… For the people that either didn't have to study physics or have forgotten it:

The light coming from a flash bounces like billiard balls. This means that light that bounces against a reflecting surface will bounce back with the same angle, i.e.

Nikon: You Must Not Be A Good Photographer

Last night, I was doing my exercise on the couch in front of the TV, aka channel surfing and exercising my thumb on the remote. Suddenly I found a camera ad. Cameras? Lets watch, It was an ad for Nikon with Ashton Kutcher. Nikon even has a full website, just for him: http://ashton.nikonusa.com/. Ashton Kutcher knows nothing about camera or photos but he has a Nikon camera.

Nikon D800: Thanks but No Thanks

Canon 7D

Now that Nikon has finally announced the D800 and the D800E at around $3,000 and $3,400. The biggest, the meanest camera at 36 megapixels, but great looks. This is a full-frame FX camera. The megapixels are the numbers of a medium format camera: Mamiya starts at 22 megapixels for $11,000, Hasselblad and Phase One both starts at 31 megapixels and at $14,000 each.

We don't know if the trinity, that's the 12-24 f/2.8, the 24-70 f/2.8 and the 70-200 f/2.8, will be able to resolve the full 36 megapixels. Let's hope so and that will be great news.

The Secrets of Huge and Sharp Prints

I just printed this photo 20" by 30" or 50 centimeters by 76 centimeters.

Pouch, the cat Wile E under his favorite tripod/platformpouch-20080810-0104.jpg syv ritch ©2008 foto-biz.com: http://http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

You can't see it as a print, you can only view from the web. But... It looks great on the wall. Viewed even close, there's no pixilation, no visible noise with a naked eye even at 5 inch from the print. All the hairs and whiskers are sharp.

The Secrets of Straight On Flash

One of the most popular photography website is the http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/ from David Hobby. I'm not in the same league and I don't even pretend. But I use flashes regularly. I specialize in simple setups. The problem with most of the photos sites where they give you the lighting diagram, they tell you how they did it but not why they chose this or that solution.

Jasper is not a happy camper. Jasper clearly doesn't want to be here. If he could escape and go back home he would. Treats and weird/special noises didn't help to get his interest.

Jasper clearly doesn't want to be here. If he could escape to go back home he would. Treats and weird, special noises didn't help to get his interest.charlie-20120126-2457.jpg ” ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Jasper is not a happy camper   click on image for gallery

First look at eyes, "evil" glowing eyes, good definition and not hard shadows. Here's the technical data:

Lens Acronyms

I was talking to Marg who, proudly, showed me that she just discovered that her lens was also a macro. It's one of these, wide angle to extra tele, all in one lens (no name mentioned). The “macro” is not a macro mode, I would call it a close-up mode and that's not even that close. Then I looked at her lens… so many acronyms

Canon

Syndicate content