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The Nikon D200 on Vacation
by Allan Lim - February 7, 2008

Edwin's comment - I’ve known Allan for a few years and whenever we get together, our discussions always seem to resolve around toys for big boys, but from an enthusiast’s perspective. Me more on photography and him more on his expensive, German made cars. We also share an interest in audiophile quality music playback and it was Allan, curse him, that got me into headphone listening back in 2005. I wrote about Allan in my last vignette of 2007, so you may want to read that as a preamble to this experience of Allan’s using my D200 on a family vacation. You may also want to read about my own experience in Disneyland, using the same kit as what Allan discusses below.

I’m a co-worker of Edwin’s, the one who lent him the Leica M3. The same co-worker who he’s written about a few times.

For a few years now Edwin has been trying to get me to buy a D-SLR camera because that’s the only way to get the quality of picture I would ultimately want. Of course cost and bulk of the camera have been issues that prevented me from going this route. Finally around Christmas time, I was all set to finally dip my toe into the world of digital SLR, but then we suddenly had some unexpected large expenses and my wife was suddenly out of work.

This meant I’d have to delay my camera purchase and take my Coolpix 8800 on vacation with me. That was a bit disappointing as we were taking the kids for their first ever trip to Disneyland and we wanted good photos. Now generally, I’m reasonably satisfied with the quality of photos that I get from the Coolpix 8800. However, my biggest complaint with the camera is that it’s slow to take a picture and really slow when I try to take successive pictures. On the plus size, though larger than most digicams it doesn’t weigh that much, isn’t too big and bulky and I don’t mind carrying it around.

I’m nowhere near the photography enthusiast that Edwin is and will never spend hours on my computer editing pictures or collecting a vast number of lenses.

Edwin’s comment – he says this like it’s a bad thing?

My hope is that advances in technology would give consumers a faster camera about the weight and size of the Coolpix 8800. Alas, as Edwin has explained before there’s not really a market for this type of “bridge” camera and likely I’ve bought the last of a breed now dead.

Edwin’s comment – I explained to Allan that higher-end digicams like the Coolpix 8800 type camera are not viable due to SLRs being reduced in size and weight, however, I should acknowledge that there are still digicams offering super zoom lenses in an SLR style for less than what the CP 8800 initially cost.

Anyhow back to my vacation and camera. When I mentioned to Edwin what had happened he graciously offered to lend me his D200 with 18-200 VR lens, knowing that if I bought a D-SLR I’d get a lens like the 18-200 VR that covers the full range and never change it. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to carry around such an expensive camera but the thought of testing out the world of the D-SLR ultimately prevailed and I took Edwin up on his offer. Since Edwin was so generous I thought I’d at least give him some content for his website readers. I thought every camera enthusiast must have friends or family who are like myself when it comes to photography. I want a camera that can take the pictures I want, but size and weight are really important to me and I’ll never take RAW photos as I’m just going to take the pictures and go to a photo lab and get them printed.

Prior to going to Disneyland, we were going to San Diego to visit the Zoo and Seaworld, then onto a cruise and then finally Disney. Making the camera evaluation even more fun was that I was meeting a friend and his family in San Diego who is a Canon devotee (Pat) who had recently purchased a 40D. He’d also be on the cruise as well so it was also a chance to compare the two brands. I know someone is reading this thinking, wait a minute it’s not fair to compare the relatively old (what is it a whopping 24 months or so?) technology of the D200 to the 40D and this puts the Nikon at a disadvantage. Well maybe, but maybe not. The 40D is actually priced closer to the D200 than it is the D300, though I would acknowledge that the D300 and 40D came out around the same time and considered the same class.

Edwin’s comment [brand bias alert] – on the surface it may appear that the D300 and 40D are of the same class, but the D300 has to be considered the better camera for superior weather sealing, superior 51-point AF module, 100% viewfinder coverage, faster frame rate when used with the accessory grip, superior metering and flash technology, better ergonomics and direct access to camera controls, superior LCD, etc., etc. All of which help explain why the D300 costs more than the 40D, which was another point Allan made to me.

The first stop was the San Diego Zoo and for the first time ever I appreciated the usefulness of manual focus. When we were on the bus tour through the Zoo, Pat told me use the manual focus when photographing animals behind cages. Hmmm, I never would have thought about that, but it made sense to focus on the animal instead of the cage. Hey, an advantage of the D-SLR over a digicam that I wasn’t aware of, cool. It was also great to get a picture immediately when I pressed the shutter and be able to take another picture right away. I also loved the wide range of the lens, even though Edwin has told me that any lens with such a range has significant compromises.

We went to Seaworld the next day and as soon as you enter there is a staff member at every gate equipped with what I think was a D50 to take your picture. It’s a slick system as they transmit the photos wirelessly to an office a couple of hundred feet away and you can go there to purchase your picture if you like it. As I passed through the gate, one of the photographers noticed I had a Nikon D-SLR with me. He asked me which one and I showed him the D200. An instant oooohh, I would love that camera, as he explained he was saving for a D80. Here I was a noob to the D-SLR world and I had instant respect because of the camera I was carrying around.

While I was at Seaworld I noticed that there were a lot of D-SLR cameras there, far more than I ever see back home in Vancouver. It must be the cameras are a lot less expensive in the US than in Canada, then again other factors like more disposable income and being more willing to take on debt are probably at play as well.

I also noticed a couple of people with digicams and huge tripods. I thought why bother with a tripod with such a tiny camera, but then I realized the tripod was merely to allow the people to take pictures of everyone together rather than to extract maximum quality from a tiny $200 camera.

During the Killer Whale show the amazing speed of the D-SLR was obvious as I started to go with a philosophy of take a whole bunch of pictures and I’ll get something I like. I was deleting pictures in camera (something Edwin told me is called “chimping”) to save memory which I chuckle at now since I didn’t realize that I could actually take many more pictures than the readout on the camera said.

Edwin’s comment – this is because Nikon is conservative with the manner it shows how many shots remain on the flash card; Nikon uses the theoretical maximum resolution and size of a JPEG file to count shots, whereas real world JPEGs can be all over the map for file size and few are ever captured at the maximum resolution possible.



SeaWorld

At one point during the day at Seaworld I kind of thought to myself, why did I even bring a D-SLR for this part of the trip? Pat (my buddy with the 40D) was snapping an insane amount of pictures as well and we had agreed to share pictures by burning DVDs for each other. Hmmm, shouldn’t I just let him take all the pics and just bring a small digicam for more personal pictures J

I swapped cameras with Pat briefly to see what the Canon was like. He had the optional battery grip on, making the camera even bigger and heavier which of course I didn’t like. Two things really stood out about his camera in comparison to the D200. The first was holy cow did it ever focus a whole lot faster. The difference in speed was unbelievable. It was like Pavel Bure compared to Dana Murzyn (Edwin you may have to explain to the non-hockey crowd).

Edwin’s comment – in the early 1990s, the Vancouver Canucks hockey team was finally able to suit up a Russian phenomenon that would soon be known as the Russian Rocket for his blistering speed. Pavel Bure is the best pure goal scorer to ever play for the Canucks and though he attained his dream of making millions playing hockey, Bure soured on the fish bowl life of playing in a typically hockey-mad Canadian city. Conversely, Dana Murzyn, who played for the Canucks during the same period as Pavel Bure, was the slowest player on the team. Murzyn was a defenseman who played many years in the NHL by being a very smart positional player who used his size to his advantage to obstruct opposing players. It’s likely that under the current NHL rules that try to reduce obstruction such as hooking and water skiing behind an offensive player, Murzyn would not have lasted as long as he did in the 1990s and Bure may have gone on to score even more goals than he did in his glory days.

I realize that the 40D was newer and likely had something to do with that, but Pat also brought a 24-105 professional L lens compared to the consumer lens I was using. The Nikon combo actually focused reasonably fast at the wide end, but at the long end it was glacial in comparison to what I’d describe as virtually instantaneous with the Canon combo. The other big difference is that the Nikon felt a bit more natural in my hands, it was subtle and took me a while to realize but it just seemed to be more comfortable, but then the battery grip on the 40D might have been part of that.

Edwin’s comments – the 40D uses an AF module with 9 cross type focus points whereas the D200 only uses one cross type point in the center. Combine that with a faster, professional grade L lens in the 24-105 f4 and I don’t doubt that the D200/18-200 VR combo is slower, especially at the long end of the zoom lens, which is f5.6. Unfortunately, Nikon does not offer a 24-105 f4 lens at this time, so no apples-to-apples comparison can be made, but I suspect that it would have been closer if Allan had tried one of my pro-grade Nikkors.

Another minor but significant difference was that I noticed the focus and zoom rings on the Canon lens were reversed compared to the Nikon. If I was lazy and didn’t unscrew the lens hood and put it on properly then zooming on the Nikon was awkward because when the lens hood was on backwards it got in the way of zooming. Of course this would be true of the Canon as well, but it would affect the manual focus. So if I was using autofocus I could leave the hood on backwards and still use the camera. I eventually developed a technique that allowed me to use the Nikon with the hood on backwards but it wasn’t as easy to use as the Canon.

Edwin's comments - this is being lazy, really lazy given how fast and simple it is to twist on the lens hood. I also find the complaint rather odd, given that the zoom ring on the 18-200 lens is right where you'd want it to be for comfortable access with the left hand, while still being able to maintain good hand-holding technique with the camera and lens combo. Two of my Nikkors, the 28-70 and 17-55 have the zoom ring closer to the camera with the focus ring at the front of the lens and I'd prefer that they be the opposite like on the 18-200 lens.

I also have to add that not using the lens hood properly on the front of the lens and using it reversed (for storage) is poor practice. I know everyone does it from time to time, but a lens hood should always be used on the lens for its intended purpose, which are:

To reduce flare from bright light sources

To provide some measure of protection against knocks and bangs against the lens and if worse comes to worse that you drop the lens, to have it absorb the shock instead of the lens

With the size of the 18-200 lens, it would not be good for hand-holding technique to reverse the current placement of the zoom ring with the narrow focus ring. The left hand would be too tight against the camera, which would eventually lead to discomfort in longish shooting session.

On the cruise I took many more pictures and by this time I was getting used to people who were serious photographers noticing the D200 and coming up to talk to me. Everytime I told someone that it wasn’t my camera but a friend’s I always got a startled reaction and a comment about how nice my friend was. After I explained my friend had two D200’s and a D2X there was normally a look of disbelief or a jaw dropping open J

Mexican panorama

Mexican panorama, a bit closer

Although I loved the power of the Nikon I was carrying around it was starting to get bothersome to carry around something so big and heavy. Other than Pat (there were about 8 families on the cruise that we knew), everyone else was using digicams and I was starting to envy how easy it was for everyone else to carry around their camera. Since we had to pack clothes for a one and four year old as well, we tried to go light on other items and that meant we did not bring a digicam with us. Big mistake!

Carrying around a D-SLR everywhere was getting annoying, though it didn’t seem to bother Pat, as he used a backpack that made it easier. It also allowed Pat to carry around this cool little cleaning device that looked like a pen that had a brush to clean the lens with and what I think was a rubber tip to rub off smudges. Pretty cool since I noticed that dust had gotten on the lens. Pat gave me his pen and told me how to use it. I figured if Pat used it on his L lens that it was fine to use on Edwin’s lens (I hope he’s not reading this in horror).

Edwin’s comment – since the 18-200 VR lens has a filter on it, as is the case with all my lenses, I’m not that horrified by it, because Allan was only cleaning the filter. I'd be quite horrified if the pen tool was used on the actual front element of the lens. My preferred method of cleaning filters and lenses is with a blower bulb and microfiber cloth and for really tough jobs, lens tissue and cleaning fluid. I have never used a pen-style cleaning tool on any of my lenses and I don't know of any serious photographer that uses this type of cleaning aparatus. Geez, might as well clean your electrical contacts with an eraser head 8^)

I actually met two professional photographers on the trip. One woman had this cool diffuser on her flash that I wish I’d had with me (I’m sure people are laughing at this since I’ve complained about size and bulk and now I want a diffuser) as I really was starting to not like in-camera flash. In fact I’d liken the quality of in-camera flash to Petr Nedved’s defensive abilities, in a word it sucks.

Edwin’s comment – Petr Nedved is another 1990s era hockey player with the Vancouver Canucks, which is now revealing Allan’s age, since he keeps referring to the early 1990s, which must have been his glory days J

I found that I often needed fill flash, but when I used in-camera flash the subject was too harshly lit. The irony is that this had never bothered me before, that is until Edwin showed me some pictures demonstrating how poor flash can be sometimes and pointed out how harshly lit subjects were. Sometimes ignorance is bliss! (Note, some of the terms I use may make it seem like I’m not that new to photography. I am, it’s just that Edwin has taught me a lot of buzz words!)

The other professional photographer I met with is Bill Grami. He was walking around with a D300 and the same 18-200 VR lens that I was toting around. What struck me as interesting was that I was always very careful with Edwin’s camera since it was an expensive combination. But, here was this guy with an even more expensive combo holding his camera in one hand without using the neck strap and he was holding it over the edge of the boat! If it slipped, the camera was going ten decks down and into the water. He never dropped it, but his attitude towards the camera was very different to mine.

He gave me a few shooting tips for capturing the sunset and advised me to go with an ASA of 100. I then wondered why for digital cameras it’s always called ISO but in the film world it was ASA.

Edwin’s comment – I explained to Allan that ASA and ISO are the same, but someone that references ASA is dating him or herself as someone who came of age photographically in the 1960s or 1970s.

Mexican sunset

Our first night at Disneyland I tried to take pictures of the kids on a firetruck that was dimly lit and then came to appreciate Edwin’s comments about some places being cavelike with the amount of light available. Again using in-camera flash was frustrating as I didn’t like my results. Pat and his family had gone home and were not at Disney with me. So, I no longer had an enthusiast with me to advise me how to take shots.

Hmm, even carrying around this big combo and there are limits, they’re just a lot higher. Did I wish I had some f1.4 prime to get that one shot? Hmm, no, because then for everything else I’d have to change lenses and carry even more gear. I think I can live with not getting some shots.

Disney has scores for staff photographers just like Seaworld. They take your picture and then hand you a card which allows you to see your photos on-line to decide if you want to purchase them later. Some of them who seemed to know more about photography often commented on the D200. Some even declined to take my daughter’s picture with a princess when I stood beside them shooting the same photo as they figured I wouldn’t bother buying their picture. Some offered to take the picture with me in the photo with the D200.

Edwin’s comment – I had a similar experience at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto last fall. The older gentleman setup to take photos of visitors with the Stanley Cup (using a Nikon as well), never asked if I wanted a photo taken, but was quite willing to use my own camera to take photos of me with the Cup.

All the attention I got with the D200 was interesting and definitely something I did not expect. It gave me a chuckle, especially when I saw reactions to the explanation of this wasn’t even my camera.

So, what was my non-enthusiast verdict to using the Nikon combo for two weeks? Definitely it was a pain to carry around at times and I think I’d want to get a lower level camera which is smaller and lighter. Edwin had me sold on getting a Nikon because I had gotten used to the controls and I could always bring the camera to him and ask him to set it up for how he knows I’d use the camera. However, with recent announcements I’m having second thoughts. Primarily because the recently announced Rebel Xsi seems to be better than the D60 which was just announced. I’ll see what test results say, and Edwin had been pushing me towards Canon, saying for someone like myself the additional in-camera processing of the Canon was better suited to a consumer like me.

Edwin’s comments – at the time, given what Allan wanted from an SLR, Canon seemed to be the most appropriate choice for little to no editing required of JPEGs to please a consumer photographer. I did advise him that Nikon is similarly “seasoning” its in-camera JPEG processing to be more like Canon’s and for 4x6 prints, he’d be fine with either system.

Well, my wife is still not employed so it will be a few months before I purchase anything. When I do, I’ll relay my comments and impressions as an average Joe in the world of D-SLRs.

Edwin's final comments - when Allan told me about how heavy the D200/18-200 combo was and how near the end of the trip, he dreaded wanting to take it out, I was taken aback. We discussed this a bit and I mentioned that I considered this combo to be my lightweight kit that was purposely designed so as not to weigh me down.

I also mentioned that when I photograph weddings, I'm usually weighed down by two full sized SLRs with pro lenses on them, one of which is usually the heavy 70-200 VR lens. I can't imagine what Allan would think having to haul 10 plus lbs of gear on his neck and shoulders for 10 or more hours. Different strokes for different folks.

However, Allan's comments did serve to bring me back down to earth with how non-photographers consider equipment. The bigger and heavier the gear, the less likely they'll bring it and thus, no photos. So, I can appreciate Allan's desire for as small and lightweight an SLR as possible. But, his unstated desire for an SLR that's as fast handling as a D200 with the D3's high ISO noise quality in a D60 form factor for the cost of a D40 is not likely to come to fruition for years, if ever.

Cost factor is also always of concern for consumers who tend to think that spending $1000 on an SLR kit is a lot of money. Not even close and I can only wonder what Allan would think if he knew how many times I used to haul out gear worth as much as a new Honda Civic on a photographic outing. I'm not saying you gotta spend this much money to be considered a serious photographer, but buying an SLR and lens can be a drop in the bucket, or the tip of an iceberg, as Thom Hogan has quite accurately written about.

I also hope that if and when he does finally succumb to finally buying an entry-level SLR that he will, despite finding fault with the D200's size and weight, be able to keep his expectations realistic in not expecting D200-like handling and speed in a D60 or similar class of camera.

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