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Home >> Old News Items What's New Archives 2007 - July to December December 31, 2007 - More comments about UPS' service to Canada:
I checked the S&H prices from the vendor that I ordered from and based on the rates, I would have been no better requesting the faster and brokerage fee-free service. I have some doubts about the vendor's rates and believe that there is likely a fair bit of "padding" similar to KEH Camera Brokers always padding the true cost of the S&H to Canada (double what US Postal Service actually charges). It's unfortunate that some vendors look at S&H charges as a way to increase profit instead of passing on the true cost of the S&H. And, in fairness to UPS, I have had a shipment delivered via its Worldwide Expedited and in that instance, UPS did only collect the appropriate taxes. However, the S&H charges were petty generous for a moderate size box, of moderate weight to ship from the USA. I paid less S&H for my heavy Tronix Explorer 1200 battery pack to ship from the Philippines to Canada via DHL (and no brokerage fees either). December 30, 2007 - Reader's comment:
As I know it, UPS is huge in the US with drop-off boxes and outlets everywhere and the vendors using them probably don't know about the fees charged by UPS to purchasers from outside the USA (although some do and also refuse to use UPS for that reason). I've always been partial to FedEx, but that could be because there are more drop off locations around where I am for greater convenience. I've been told before that UPS does have a S&H option that incorporates the brokerage fee into the price and that the purchaser will not pay any extra fees when delivery is made, but I question why I need to pay extra for such "premium" service when FedEx doesn't have any extra fees, period! I hope to have the new desktop up and running this weekend to do some basic configuration, but it may still have to undergo a modification in the near future. Thankfully, I have the new Acer notebook to tie me over until the new workstation is up and running the way I want it. December 29, 2007 - Hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a great Happy New Year. I’ve been busy chugging away at my kid’s hockey game photos, trying to catch up on the backlog of photos to edit since the beginning of November. I’m almost done, as at this writing with only one game left to finish off the first half of the season. I held off on editing the files because I was to receive at least one of my two new computers sometime in December, which I figured would be more efficient than continuing to edit the files with my old Toshiba P4 notebook. Both computers are now in-house, but only one is up and running while the other awaits some surgery to correct some of my parts screw-ups. You can read about the Acer 9810 computer I’m currently using now, while the write-up for the other computer will have to wait for probably another two weeks. Although I haven’t written an Edwin’s Vignette in a long while, preferring, for lack of better term, to “blog” my thoughts on this page, I decided to write a new one up based on the length of this posting. And finally, what year would be complete without an annual bashing of UPS by me. My most recent purchase from the US for a total of $115, resulted in UPS charges of $57. Shipments coming into Canada from the US are charged provincial and federal sales taxes, which for me in BC, is 13%. UPS charged $15, which is the correct amount and then tacked on another $42 for their brokerage fee, which is more than 1/3 of the shipment's value. Consider that when I received another shipment from the US, valued at $400, FedEx charged me only the appropriate taxes and did not double-dip and apply its own brokerage fee. As far as I know, no other major courier company double-dips like UPS, because not only am I charged S&H by the shipping vendor, but UPS adds insult to injury so that by the time UPS has taken their excessive fees, I will have paid 50% of the value of my order just for S&H. I am now at the point that if a vendor only offers UPS, I will move on and find another vendor that ships using FedEx. Brown is bad! Anyways, all the best to everyone for 2008! December 18, 2007 - Bibble Pro Version 4.9.9 Adds Nikon D300 and D3 Support. Oh what fun it is this season trying to build your own computer. I'm such an idiot, but I'll save my dumbass experiences for the article on the new computers. The big box finally arrived yesterday, but it's not fully configured, nor is it up and running due to some poor thinking on my part for, er, parts. I'll likely have to wait until after Christmas before I have the new box running, as I wait for some adapter pieces to arrive. My only hint is PCI-E x16 and PCI-E x8 ;-) December 13, 2007 - It's been a busy time chez nous, with Christmas soon to be upon us, hockey season continuing with no breaks planned and an always busy household filled with kids. It's been a challenge to get the new computer configured the way I want it due to a lack of time; however, here are a couple of quick items to note, as I prepare the future article on the computer upgrades. Tim Grey’s DDQ Tim is a Photoshop and digital photography expert, who gives free advice through an email newsletter called the DDQ Daily Email. A couple of years ago, a friend tipped me off about Tim Grey’s email advice and after recently reading about his new print quarterly, I signed up for a three-year subscription for US $75. The DDQ, or the Digital Darkroom Quarterly, is a 32-page digest sized newsletter that more resembles a professionally published magazine than a newsletter published by just one eager digital photographer. It reminds me of the old Stereophile or the Absolute Sound, when those two magazines were published in digest sized format. The first two DDQs offer plenty of information and even though there have only been two DDQs to date, I think I can already discern a pattern of how they will be published. Two detailed articles followed by a smaller and more general article. I would place the two detailed articles in the same class as what you would read in a book, which, given the cost of the DDQ subscription, is appropriate and expected. I also feel quite confident that Tim will make good on the desire to publish and treat the DDQ as a going concern and that my $75 will be well spent. This is in contrast to another three-year, $75 newsletter subscription I signed up for some years back, of which I received only half the allotted newsletters before the author, who shall remain nameless, pulled the plug. It certainly appears that snow will fall in the Dark Prince’s domain before a pro rata refund or a newsletter in some form or another, will ever appear. Which is a shame, because the defunct newsletter, which name rhymes with lame, was not lame in content and was looked forward to when they were actually published, sporadic as they were. Another interesting and refreshing aspect of Tim’s writing is that he writes for the PC user first and the Mac user second, which is the opposite of almost all other digital photography/editing authors (Scott Kelby and Martin Evening being two of the better known ones). In all the books I have bought over the years, the authors always use screen shots from Macs and in their instructions, always reference the Command or Option keys with Control and Alt in brackets (for PC users). It’s nice not to feel like a second class citizen when reading Tim Grey’s articles or emails J Of course, Tim does work for Microsoft, so you would expect that he would highlight the OS of his employer and as expected, Tim doesn’t suffer from allergic reactions whenever Vista is mentioned J Both the email and the DDQ newsletter are worth a look. Maha Battery Charger From the all postings about battery chargers, two names keep being mentioned, Maha for quality batteries and chargers, and Thomas Distributing for being a reputable online retailer to buy them from. I didn’t need to buy any batteries, as I have some 70 or so AA cells of varying vintage and power rating (as low as 1200 mAh and as high as 2500 mAh), but I felt the need to upgrade my chargers, which do not have any conditioning functionality. The Maha MH-C801D is the one mentioned as being the best of the AA chargers on D1scussion, and I bought three from Thomas Distribution a few weeks ago. The MH-C801D is an eight-cell AA/AAA charger that has a fast or slow charge option, as well as a conditioning function that discharges the cell, before charging again. Conditioning a battery helps to refresh older cells and reduce possible memory effects of poor charging habits. NiMH cells are less prone to memory as NiCD, but it seems to be a good idea to refresh NiMH cells every 10 charges. The MH-C801D can charge cells individually, so you can pop in as few or as many as you desire to its eight-cell capacity. The MH-C801D also offers an LCD display for each cell, so you can see how quickly each one is being charged. The display is a key feature of the MH-C801D, as it can clue you onto which specific cell might be a problem cell that should be disposed of. When I was refreshing my oldest cells, I was able to see that couple of them were totally dead and remove them from use, which is safer and better for the electronics that you would use with the cells. I’m certainly no expert on batteries, but I know enough (thanks to one D1scussion member who is an expert on batteries) that in a group of four cells used to power a flash, for example, you want the load shared by all four cells and not three plus one dud. Similarly, you don’t want the load shared by three fresh cells and one low powered cell. Yes, do follow the tips and instructions provided by the battery makers to never mix and match old versus new batteries. Always make sure you have good cells and swap them in a set for best performance and consistency. The MH-C801D is a tad less than US $60 from Thomas Distributing, but I think it’s worth it, especially compared to my old Energizer chargers that are monstrous and don’t offer conditioning or details of individual cell charging. In fairness though, the old Energizer chargers are half the cost and are able to charge everything from AAA to D cells and 9-volts. December 10, 2007 - Well, finally, one of my two new computers has arrived; the other is slated for delivery later this week. Hint, the old Toshiba notebook is going to be sent packing as soon as I finish loading the software on the new machine. It's a beast...and that's all I'm going to offer for now 8^) It's been a long wait, but now I'm giddy with anticipation, being so close to Christmas. My replacement Portable Micro Amp with built-in DAC should be arriving later today, so, by the end of this week, I should be up and running with two new computers ready to tackle all the RAW file edits that have been backing up the past month. Now to figure out how much is left in the pot to build a new NAS RAID box...oh yah, and to buy some Christmas presents for the family, now that I've received some of my presents early 8^)
My first reaction to hearing about the 16 GB version of the new iPod Touch, which shares much with the super hyped Apple iPhone. However, as the weeks progressed and the more I looked into the iPod Touch, the more I desired one. A nearly buttonless interface, touch screen technology and Apple's always slick user interface made it hard to resist, but $450, which translates to over $500 after the taxes are paid, is quite a few loonies to pay for a what is in the end, a 16 GB multimedia device. Last week though, Future Shop advertised the 16 GB model at $50 off to make it a $400 purchase, and thus I bit and bought my own iPod Touch two days ago. I actually went to London Drugs first since it opens a couple of hours earlier than Future Shop, to see if it would match the price. Alas, no flyer to prove the price and since Future Shop would not have been open anyway, even if I had a flyer, London Drugs would have likely told me to take a hike, because LD's policy is to call up the store and determine if the competitor actually has stock of the item. Suggestions of checking the price online had no effect on LD's sales staff with a subtle insiuation that maybe Future Shop had no stock at $50 off list price. Ah, right...Future Shop, a huge chain in Canada, owned by a huge chain from the US (Best Buy) is going to falsely advertise something and try a bait and switch on consumers? Man, dude's smokin' some good ganja, gotta get me some of that mojo 8^) Two hours later, when Future Shop opened for business, I walked in and saw that their display case probably had more 16 GB iPod Touch models in stock than the LD store had of all the iPod models. And yes, the sale was bonafide.
Since the amp is so new and will be replaced, I can't say much about the sound quality, as amps usually need 50-200 hours of break-in before sounding their best. Describing the sound from first use would not be accurate or insightful. The Portable Micro amp with built-in DAC appealed to me for a few reasons.
Another version of the Micro does not have a built-in battery and just runs of AC, it does have an extra line input, which is nice, as the Portable version only has one line input at the front of the amp. If I had the bucks, I'd have preferred the larger and beefier Headroom Desktop amp with built-in DAC, but tricking it all out with the options and the requirement for an upgraded and DAC capable Desktop amp to be powered by an external PSU, would have taken the price to US $2000, which is a tad too rich for me now. The Grace Model 902 would have also been a contender for that kind of quid. As I did my search for a relatively cost-effective USB DAC capable pre amp, I was struck by how few options there are for such a device unless I was willing to spend two or more thousand dollars. After finding possible candidates, I always came back to Headroom, because the Micro amps had the right mix of price and feature. Plus, Headroom has been around for years and likely will be for many more years. Headroom is a pioneer in audiophile quality headphone listening, so there's a lot of good history and design coming from it. Mate the Portable Micro amp with the iPod Touch and you have a rocking sound system. The finishing touch is a cable from Audio Line Out (ALO) so that you can get direct output of the iPod's sound via the docking connection instead of the headphone output jack. ALO has a variety of cables at varying levels of price and quality. Definitely recommended, but I'd suggest enquiring about longer lengths of cable than the default lengths offered, as they seem too short to me. I lucked out and got a one foot long cable for a nicer price, because ALO had already made it without a pending sale. 16 GB for the iPod Touch is nothing for filling it with 320 bit rate MP3 files, let alone full resolution AIFF files, but one of its big potentials is for watching videos on it. The first video I uploaded was Nikon's 90th Anniversary video - after I converted the WMV file to MPEG-4. The downside to the pissing match between Apple and Microsoft is Apple's refusal to acknowledge that the vast, vast majority of the world uses PC and that WMA and WMV files are very common, even if Apple does own the market for online sales of music and video files. Ironically, Stereophile posted a recent news item about iTunes for Mac being inferior to iTunes for Windows. Benchmark, the makers of the highly regarded DAC-1 (I still own mine) did some testing and research and discovered that OSX's volume control is 16-bit, whereas Windows volume control has 24-bit capability, meaning that if you have high resolution files and try to play them back on Mac iTunes, the OS will truncate the bit depth down to 16-bits, while Windows will allow the full resolution. However, how many of us actually have 24-bit music files? More details at Stereophile and Benchmark. The quality of the video played back on the Touch is quite good, but then my source was the 200 MB version of the video. Another cool feature of the Touch is the wi-fi capability...so long as you're in a free wireless zone, like a Starbucks. The 3.5 inch screen viewed in landscape mode is just big enough to make web surfing meaningful, but does anyone know if it's possible to view Flash movies on the Touch? I'll have more to say about the Touch and the replacement Portable Micro Amp once I've used them for a spell.
December 4, 2007 - Thom Hogan has a nice little essay about reviewing and evaluating cameras and how the Internet forums tend to go to extremes and don't really say much. It's good, sober second thought that's in contrast to others rushing to publish "reviews" of a camera they've only had for a day or two. Hogan also has some comments about the use of in-camera JPEGs for review purposes, and based on what I've seen of RAW versus JPEG, I can only say be wary of reviews that don't use or add RAW files to the mix in the review. As DPReview has shown time and again, some cameras can produce good in-camera JPEGs and some cameras do not (the Pentax K10D is one example of brutal in-camera JPEG conversion). If you really want to see what an SLR can do, you gotta shoot RAW and if the reviewer does not, you have to take the review with a dosage of salt (season to the taste and reputation of the reviewer). Last week, I discussed how photo books had become too mass market now that a drugstore and electronics chain (Future Shop) are offering them in my neck of the woods. After showing some of my own photo books, it sparked enough interest with a couple of coworkers for them to order their own, which I hope that they will bring in and show me, so that I can compare them to my Unibind books. Coincidentally, here's an interesting news item from the people that run the annual PMA shows in late winter:
December 3, 2007 - I had a chance to use an older Canon dye sub printer, the CP330, for a few weeks. My comments about it are now posted. November 29, 2007 - Michael Weber, a German pro, has posted his review of the D3. I'd been waiting for his review to arrive to get a sense of what the D3 can really do in the hands of a real working pro. There are plenty of test and sample photos available from any number of websites, but not many reviews by real photographers instead of the usual suspects of professional reviewers. Michael has confirmed the excellence of the D3's FX sensor for low light photography, as well as marvelled at how good the new focus module is. He plans to review the D300 in due course too and me thinks that his wallet will be brutalized some more when the new VR super telephoto lenses become available ;^) Some rumours are floating around of some new Pentax SLRs to come; the K20D and K200D, which would be the logical successors to the current K10D and K100D. The K100D is to offer 10 MP, which is no surprise given that 10 MP is the new 6 MP for entry-level SLRs, but the real surprise is the talk of a 14 MP chip for the K20D. Huh? Where the heck did that come from? That's totally out of left field, unless someone can point out some news of a sensor maker having announced a 14 MP chip. If true then I'm thinking Samsung, given the partnership the Korean giant had with the old Pentax (pre-Hoya takeover) to re-badge Pentax SLRs with the Samsung name. I can't see Sony being the supplier since it would only make sense for Sony to have used the chip for its own A700 SLR. But, what do I know, the supplier could be anyone and until the official announcement is made, this is all idle speculation. November 28, 2007 - Yesterday, I brought in my camera to work to finish the project I mentioned in yesterday's post, except that idiot that I am, I forgot my flash cards. So, I popped by the province-dominating London Drugs to buy a compact flash card on the cheap. I picked up a no longer current 8 GB Sandisk Extreme III for CAN $160 (before taxes). It made me think back to five years previous, when I bought a 512 MB Sandisk Ultra II flash card for $500 (ouch!). Back then, the 512 MB cards were the only cost-effective choice for a beginning digital photographer with 1 GB cards selling for about $1000. Last year, when I bought my last two 8 GB 150x Ridata flash cards, the cost was $300 per card. What a difference five years makes to receive 16x more capacity at 1/3 the cost. Is that even better than Moore's Law for computer processing chips? However, I should note the current Extreme IV, Ducati or Lexar 300x flash cards of same capacity cost double, for those willing to pay the price for state of the art speed. I've been able to tryout some Lexar 300x UDMA flash cards with the Canon 30D and Nikon D200 SLRs, and while I can't say I'm noticing much difference in shooting speed (I'm generally not a machine gunner), the download speeds do seem much more spritely when I import the files via Lightroom. The old Ridata 80x cards (my oldest 8 GB cards) really drag compared to the 150x Ridata cards and they in turn drag compared to the Lexars. However, I will save more comments for when I'm finally finished upgrading the digital darkroom and have replaced my two ancient Lexar USB 2 card readers (about 3 and 4 years of age). Incase you missed it, Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape fame (or is that infamy for some of you) has taken delivery of a D300, has a D3 on order, and has or will purchase a number of Nikkor lenses to use with these two SLRs. I'm not sure what to make of this, given Reichmann's generally praiseful commentary on things Canon and his declaration that he's not switching systems, but merely wanting to see what Nikon has to offer now that it has some impressive new tools available. Canon's been quite generous in providing him with review equipment over the years (not that he's ever benefited from it other than getting an early look at new cameras or lenses, as he buys his own gear after returning the review equipment), while I cannot recall Nikon doing anything for him. The guy's got the bucks and he can spend them the way he wants, so I can't begrudge the guy other than feelings pangs of jealousy at his ability to spend so largey and casually. It will be interesting to read what he has to say about the new Nikons. November 27, 2007 - London Drugs, the store that wants to sell everything and eventually takeover the world...oops, sorry, that's actually Wal-Mart. London Drugs is a drugstore chain based in British Columbia and is slowly expanding eastward into the Canadian prairie provinces. It is the likely the largest chain of drugstores in my home province, but it is more than just a traditional drugstore. London Drugs is also a well stocked computer store and in the larger stores, also sells a large amount of electronics, such as TVs and stereos. Every weekend, when the local community paper is delivered with the London Drugs flyer, I immediately pull out the middle tech section to see what's new at LD. Last Saturday, I was surprised to see the store offer photo books ranging in price from $35 to $45 for 15 pages. Additional pages are available up to a maximum of 36 for $2 per page. The covers are offered in cloth, silk or leather and the photo pages are printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, i.e. real photographs. The books appear to be letter sized. Coincidentally, HP also announced that it would offer photo books of similar size and cost. Where once upon a time, there was not a crowded market for photo book makers, now there's plenty of choice from big names such as Hahnemuhle and Moab, as well as Unibind, and probably a few more others that I'm not aware of yet. For the professional market there are any number of custom album makers creating custom wedding albums. Even Chapters (the Canadian Barnes and Noble) is offering photo books. With so many photo book options available to the consumer, what was once unique is no longer special anymore and it's a sign for wedding photographers to move on and find something new to offer to their clients, because photo books are now, metaphorically, a dime a dozen. It reminds me of an old tale from pre-Depression America, when a Wall Street magnate is either buying a newspaper or having his shoes shined, when he receives unsolicited investment advice from the little boy selling or doing the service. The magnate promptly sells his stock positions, because if the masses are involved in stock investing, the market is a huge bubble waiting to be burst. Sometimes this story has Joe Kennedy, father of JFK and RFK, as the magnate in question. While I'm not that familiar with Depression-era history, the more recent tech crash from 2001 was similarly a bubble that popped from a number of maladies, one of which was that just about everybody thought they could invest and make huge returns from investing in the dot-com sector. I feel the same for photo books now being offered by a drugstore chain and from the largest maker of PCs and printers in the world (HP). However, before it all becomes doom and gloom, I do recall London Drugs making a big splash in its flyer for printing services using the large Epson K3 printers. Huge, poster sized prints could be ordered from LD, but somehow, the pro labs in Vancouver are still in operation and have not shut down due to LD trying to cut a piece of their pie. On a sort of, kind of related note, if you haven't done so, I recommend buying the latest edition of Lenswork magazine for a very interesting editorial by Brooks Jensen. Jensen writes that from his perspective being heavily involved in the publishing world and with his background in fine art photography, he is witnessing a paradigm shift in how the photographic print may be regarded. It has long been accepted that until recently, the finest prints generally came from the photographer's darkroom. Book and magazine reproductions have improved over the decades, but always are a step or three behind the quality of the darkroom print...until now, when Jensen contends that the best off-set printing presses have surpassed the quality available from the darkroom. It's quite an interesting and thought-provoking read. November 26, 2007 - For local Vancouver readers needing or wanting the services of a pro lab, one of them (the Lab) is at a new location:
Be wary of entrusting a photographic project to non-photographers. I'm currently working on a project now to create a couple of photo books; one with the Unibind system using Moab paper and the other using the Moab Chinle cover set and pages. The Moab Chinle book will have 28 pages with 27 pages of individual photographs and 1 page for a text message and dedication. It's somewhat of a monologue of my images taken over the years and incorporates photos scanned from film and digital files, mostly from my D100. Since the images are mine and I have total control of the process, there's no issue with the quality of the Chinle book. However, the other book, which is to celebrate the working life of a person about to retire, is, shall we say, one of those exercises where you sometimes want to bang your head against the wall, because others are involved and have little to no knowledge or experience of what it takes to print quality digital photographs. Due to me being quite busy the past couple of weeks, I had to call upon others to gather up digital image files and what I thought were going to be old 4x6 prints, so that I could scan them and create a keepsake photo book. I imposed a deadline to provide me with enough time to scan and print the photos for the book, but when the deadline came, there were no historical prints for scanning, just a bunch of digital files of varying sizes, the majority of which are suitable only for creating postage stamp sized photos. The whole monitor versus print resolution thing is probably at fault here, in that people seeing what appears to be a good sized image on the monitor, somehow think that it will also translate into the same size print. The disconnect is not helped any when people print off those files with a laser printer and get an image that can fill most of the letter sized paper, although it doesn't take a set of eagle eyes to see that the laser output is jagged and of poor quality. So, I receive a slew of these little image files, which if they were of even 1 MP file size, would have been enough for me to fill the book properly. Unfortunately, I received files mostly in the few hundred k-byte range, with a few that were larger and a few that were even smaller. I ended up with throwing all the small files onto one page as a collage and when I wrote about postage stamp sized images, I meant it. Fortunately, I have a Plan B of what to do incase I did not receive enough or any old photos or digital files and I will still be able to create a book full of images, even if the book has to be delayed by a couple of days. I was asked recently about when I would buy my own D3. My response was not to hold your breath and that isn't because of Nikon Canada's policy of only selling D3 to pro photographers in the short term, but more of that small matter of a $5000 price tag. I'm not silly enough to say never given my huge amount of lust for the D3, but the D300 is much more of a realistic possibility given its relative cost to the D3. However, I can't say when such a purchase might happen, as I need to sort out other pressing issues in the old digital darkroom first before I worry about another D-SLR to sneak into the house ;^) The D300 would be fantastic to have for the son's hockey games, but I could have really used one last week at a work function, where I took photos in a cave-like hotel ballroom. Due to moving subjects, even the f2.8 pro zooms didn't cut it at ISO 1600, so I had to use the Sigma 30mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8 lenses at f2 to try and squeak out motion stopping shutter speeds. With the number of shots I needed to take in a short period of time, I would have burned out my SB800 flash units if I called upon them to illuminate the stage. Flash would have also been distracting and an intrudence in the performance, something that consumers never have a clue about as they snap away at such events and weddings. November 23, 2007 - Okay, is it just me or does anyone else think that all those new D300 owners posting pictures and videos of their box openings seem completely dweebish? Oh, wait a second, I did something similar with my D100 and Epson R2400...never mind. News release from Nikon Canada about its reduction in prices:
It's nice of Nikon Canada to recognize the strength of the Canadian dollar and economy vis-à-vis the US economy, but it's lame that the prices are still higher than in the US, especially when the Canadian dollar has at times been well above par. However, even if better deals are available in the US, I'd still prefer to buy major gear in Canada for warranty and servicing reasons. Although, I have to admit that of the five Nikon digital cameras I own, I've only taken the Coolpix 950 in for servicing to repair the battery chamber door (plastic latch wearing down and failing, which the replacement door also suffers from now). November 20, 2007 - Ken Rockwell posted a link to a photo of yet another 18-xx consumer lens from Nikon. This one is another update of the entry-level 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AF-S DX, but with a VR motor for stabilization. Just as Canon offers its users an entry level consumer IS lens, so too will Nikon to counter the in-camera IS/AS/OIS, etc. stabilization from Sony and Pentax. Rob Galbraith posted information about Nikon Canada requiring photographers wanting to buy the D3 to essentially justify why they deserve to be amongst the first to buy the D3 and a promise that if one of the chosen ones, that the D3 will not end up on eBay. Nikon Canada is also restricting sales of the newest lenses to only those photographers also buying the D3. It's similar to when Nikon only allowed the initial sales of the 17-35 f2.8 AF-S lens to purchasers of the original D1. Nikon is protecting the professional photographers by only allowing them to purchase the hot new products first before the rest of the unwashed masses (like me, sniff, sniff) can get their grubby paws on the D3. Not that I'd have any money to buy one in the first place even if I could get my hands on one of the first to arrive in Vancouver. I'm sure this will rub a few people the wrong way, but Nikon has a long history of looking after the pros, even if that relationship has become strained over the years. So, I can understand the restrictive allocation of D3 SLRs, but the lenses seem a bit odd. While very welcome, how many exotic super telephoto lenses does Nikon expect to sell in the short term? Not everyone is Moose Peterson, itching to buy a 600mm f4 VR lens with their D3 (hell, Moose will probably buy the 400 f2.8 VR too). However, doesn't this all seem like Nikon needs another factory to build more photographic equipment. The Thailand plant is full steam ahead, but the Sendai plant only has one 8 hour shift. Huh? Hello? You've announced one of the most anticipated SLRs in history and the one factory that it can be produced is only running one shift. Couldn't you have hired and trained a second, or even a third shift to produce the goods when needed? Once initial demand has been met and sales become steady, start that second line on producing all the products that are backordered, or even better, producing all those damn lenses missing or requiring an update in the line-up. Reader's comment:
I don't know about bad forecasting, because it would take a bunch of idiots not to figure out that the D3, even at US $5,000, is going to sell all that Nikon can make for probably the next 18 months. It's more bad implementation in the form of insufficient production capability on the part of Nikon. It's a bit like oil refineries; North America needs a few more, because the existing ones are already at full capacity and any hit to one exacts an immediate toll on consumers in the form of gas shortages. Unfortunately, due to onerous regulations and the threat of litigation by environmentalists, the US has had no new refineries built for at least a couple of decades. It's only been recently that Nikon has been able to supply the 18-200 VR lens while the 200-400 VR lens is still in demand and backordered at many stores; this despite it being a pricey lens. November 19, 2007 - I'm bummed out my BC Lions lost in the Canadian Football League's Western Conference Finals to Saskatchewan. Next week though, I'll color myself green and cheer on the Roughriders from the Canadian prairies, as they take on the Winnipeg Bluebombers in the Grey Cup championship. Between the action on the field and taking notice of the Felions cheerleaders (yes, I'm married, but I'm not dead ;-), I took the occasional glance over to the sidelines where the pros hang out to take their photos. Merely took notice that there seemed to be parity between the white and black lenses, but that could be because the two local Vancouver papers shoot Nikon (and have for at least a couple of decades) and probably had a few shooters covering the biggest game of the year for the local team. Just started printing with a borrowed Canon CP330 personal dye sub printer. Will have some comments about this type of printer after a few more days of printing and testing with it. The CP330 is no longer a current Canon printer, but I don't think there are any significant qualitative differences between it and the current models. November 17, 2007 - Tokina has a couple of new lenses of note. An 11-16mm f2.8 lens for DX format cameras, which should be of interest to those that need faster than f4, as currently available in the Nikon 12-24 f4 AF-S DX lens, and a 35mm f2.8 Macro lens, an homage perhaps to the old 55mm Micro lens of old. Not as exotic as the two new Sigma fisheye lenses, but still quite welcome for the millions of DX format users world wide. News items of interest:
November 16, 2007 - Reader's comment:
Probably more accurately, it's the consumer SLR and digicam success that allows Nikon to manufacture the D3. The design, I'm sure would happen anyway in the R&D lab, as there's a lot of gear that never see the light of day for whatever reason, be it economic or immature technology unable to support the vision of the engineers. A tenous analogy and no comment about the quality of the work, but George Lucas stated in one of the last of the "new" Star Wars movies, that the Clone Wars sequence he had thought of so many years ago, was not possible with traditional film effects until CGI came along. No surprise that it was his own Industrial Light and Magic division (ILM) that revolutionized digital special effects. Six degrees of separation trivia, John Knoll, a manager at ILM, is the brother of Thomas Knoll; the two created Photoshop. You can read the Photoshop history here. I can imagine that there's a lot of gee whiz stuff happening at Nikon and Canon that we would wish would be commercially available, but won't be because the bean counters have no vision beyond the bottom line. November 15, 2007 - Reader's comment:
Ahh, why be so bitter? Dump the Nikon and Nikkors and find bliss with Canon. I don't why I do this, but here goes (all in good nature now, of course)...is Canon that much superior for you, other than having that 300mm f4 IS lens that you continue to desire from Nikon? The 100-400mm does have USM in addition to IS, but while a decent lens for the film era, it's not exactly a humdinger with D-SLRs. No indications from Canon that this lens, which is in need of a revision as much as the Nikon 80-400, will be updated anytime soon. A VR prime below 200mm and for less than $5000 does exist and I happen to own it; the 105mm f2.8 AF-S VR Micro lens (sells for under $1000). Only two pro-quality zooms in two years, but every indication that they will set new benchmarks for quality. How many wide-angle zoom lenses has Canon had to go through to get acceptable performance with D-SLRs? Why are there Canon users using the Nikon 17-35 and other brand's (Zeiss) wide angle primes with their 1Ds SLRs? Granted the 14-24 lens has a beastly front element that won't accept regular filters, but it's offering edge to edge quality that even prime lenses would have trouble matching. But, I know, it's a big-ass zoom lens and you want primes... The Canon 24-70 f2.8 "pro" lens also doesn't have IS and has had QA issues with it, so much so that some users consider it to be a de facto 28-70 lens because the 24mm coverage is so poor in some samples. I don't recall the 17-55 lens ever selling for $2000, even after the onerous and poor value sales taxes inflicted by the provincial and federal governments. Current price is around $1400, which for me in BC would be $1600 after said taxes. While I'm no advocate of using decades old lenses on state of the art D-SLRs, not all lenses are obsolete just because they are old. As silly as it might look, you can still take a fine picture with a stopped down AI lens on a D3, unlike trying to run Photoshop CS3 on an original 1990s Pentium box, or as I've experienced, Photoshop Lightroom on a Pentium IV (not blistering, but livable in between the crashes). However, while I am a Nikon fanboy, I will certainly agree with you that Nikon can be tortoise-like with lens updates and some lenses appearing now are about a decade too late. Meanwhile, 18-XXX consumer grade lenses proliferate like humping hares, but Nikon's no different than Canon and other brands in chasing the consumer-grade buck. While Canon makes a shiny penny or two from SLR and lens sales (just like Nikon), it probably makes an even prettier penny or three from digicam sales (unlike Nikon).
Reader's comment:
Yes, indeed, as the first commentor desires from Nikon, but, Nikon has been known to be an engineering dominated company without a clue about how to market its products...until fairly recently. November 14, 2007 - Sigma has introduced two new fisheye lenses for DX format cameras; a 4.5mm and 10mm, offering a full circular 180 degree view and horizontal 180 degree view respectively. A circular 180 degree lens presents a circle in the middle of the frame and distorts just about everything, whereas a horizontal 180 degree view is full frame but with severe barrel distortion except along the center horizon. The 4.5mm lens is like what an 8mm full frame fisheye would offer while the 10mm is equivalent to a 16mm fisheye lens. I've said as much before, but, I gotta give a lot of credit to Sigma to have the moxy to produce such lenses; lenses that Nikon used to be known for way, way back in its glory decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Although I'd be remiss not to mention Nikon's own 10.5mm DX fisheye lens, available for a few years now. With tongue somewhat in cheek, what Nikon could use is a few statement lenses that few would ever buy, but would set everyone abuzz with excitement. Lenses such as a 400-800 f5.6 AF-S VR, 800-1600 f5.6 AF-S VR that comes with its own dolly, and for good measure, a 2000mm f8 AF-S VR that only the FBI and CIA could afford (don't laugh, probably most of the 2000mm f11 mirror lenses made by Nikon were sold to government agencies and the military). News item about the demise of Pentax the corporation (the brand will live on though). While I'm all for a free market economic system, it's still sad to see such a venerable company become subsumed by another company. Such is life in this digital age, but I do hope that Hoya does well by the Pentax name and offers the backing and resources to strengthen the photo division.
November 12, 2007 - Last week, during the weekly, early morning practice for my son's hockey team, the coach asked me about the possibility of creating some picture pucks to use as pieces for a big spread-out hockey rink used to position out plays. Before a game, the coach goes through what the players should do using a small marker board the shape of a hockey rink, but he also uses a large floor board. Having hockey pucks with each player's face would allow him to clearly identify where and what he wants each player to do on the large board. The picture pucks could also be used as souvenirs to give out to the kids he determines to be the hardest working after a game. I promised him I'd look into what could be done and so began my search for how to adhere a picture of an individual hockey player onto a chunk of vulcanized rubber. First the pictures. Should I use the specialty photo paper with an adhesive side to it? Epson happens to make such a paper, but after checking out the specs, I notice that this paper seems only suitable for dye ink printers instead of the K3 or Durabrite printers I have at home. Scratch the Epson sticker photo paper. Next up was a borrowed Canon CP330 compact dye syb printer, which has 4x6 label sticker paper available too, but good luck trying to find any even at a relatively well-stocked computer and printer shop such as London Drugs (my usual source for R2400 and CX4800 ink cartridges). No media, no prints, so scratch the Canon CP330. I also came across some specialty 2.5 inch labels with a photo quality finish, which seemed promising and uses an Avery template for orientation. However, I'd have to profile the paper and order enough quantity to make it worth my while. On the short list for the project, but not my first choice. Then I thought, why not print with my own papers and printer, which are already profiled and easily printable whenever I wish and then look into using double-sided tape to adhere to the hockey puck. But, how the heck do I cut perfect circles to fit the puck? Google is your best friend for searching for products and in short order, I found that Fiskars makes a circle cutter. But, other than buying online, where can I buy such a specialized cutter locally? How about Staples or Office Depot? No such luck. Doing additional Google searching pointed towards arts and crafts stores for such cutters. Ah, now we're getting somewhere and I just need to find an arts and crafts shop in Vancouver. As luck would have it, an arts and crafts store just happens to be across the street from where I get off the bus when I come home from work. I dropped by and found a circle cutter, but not the Fiskars cutter. The Fiskars I found through the Google search, is a one-piece design that can cut from one to eight inches, but the non-Fiskars cutter at the arts and crafts store requires the purchase of a cutter and a set of templates offering an assortment of circle sizes that you would use with the cutter. I was about to make the purchase, but I asked if this was all the store had for cutting circles. The young girl nodded her head, but one of the store owners heard my question and suggested that the product I had in my hand was less than ideal for cutting circles.
She showed me a different Fiskars product, which is also a separate cutter with a template, but she advised me that the Fiskars kit is much easier to use and more appropriate if I only needed a few circle sizes. Then she told me where to go to find them for cheaper than she could sell them to me. Wow, what service and advice. As it turned out, London Drugs just happen to have the Fiskars products I needed, which incude the cutter, the one-piece template with seven sizes of circles ranging from one inch to four inches in half inch increments, and a self-healing craft board that you do the cutting on to protect your table or desk.
I printed a sheet of 3x3 inch photos of some of the players on my son's team and cut 2.5 inch circles that fit with a quarter inch space outside the photo. Exactly as desired for this project with a total cost of about CAN $60 for the three Fiskars products. The final piece of the puzzle is 3M double-sided tape, which adheres quite effectively to the hockey pucks.
November 9, 2007 - In 1999, when Nikon introduced the Coolpix 950, this 2 MP digicam would have cost you CAN $1500. I picked one up a couple of years after its introduction when the Coolpix 990 came onto the scene and pushed the price of the CP 950 down to around $600. The CP950 is a classic thanks to its relatively high image quality for its day and rotating lens section that paved the way for today's articulated LCD screens (or did camcorders introduce the articulated screen first, before the CP950?) Today it's a dinosaur with slow and noisy AF and a poorly designed battery chamber door. The contacts on my CP950 are also somewhat intermittent in operation, but the kids like using it for happy snaps. In November 2007, $1500 buys you a new Nikon D200 with 10 MP, 5 fps, and host of other features that totally destroy the CP950. Okay, I neglected to mention a tiny detail, the D200 needs a lens whereas the CP950 came with one, but let's not quibble 8^) We've come a long ways in 8 years.
November 8, 2007 - Reader's comment:
It’s hip to be square. When I made the choice to buy the medium format Bronica SQ-Ai, I did so knowing that I really wanted a 6x7 format for more film size, but chose the 6x6 as a compromise that would offer me more flexibility post production. Cropping a 6x6 to a traditional rectangular size gave me an effective 6x4.5, which is quite a drop in film size compared to 6x7, but if you keep the original 6x6 size then you only lose a cm in size, which is not much at all. After a while, I took to the square format for its own aesthetic and often found myself not wanting to crop any part of it. Square was good in itself, but sometimes a pain to deal with for printing and framing. While the majority of the world shoots the rectangle, I find no magic in the 35mm format ratio of 2:3. It’s an awkward format to deal with for printing to traditional sizes that have their origins from large format sheet film and their companion contact sheet sizes (8x10, 5x7 and 4x5). Shooting square makes sense optically too, as one would utilize as much of the lens’ image circle as available. Analogous to this use of the full image circle, the silicon wafers used to make sensor chips are also round, and wouldn’t one get more from the wafer if the sensors were square (I don’t know, I’m just guessing because I’m a dunce when it comes to numbers and math)? Operationally, using a square sensor would allow camera makers to dispense with a second set of controls in the pro sized SLRs like the D3. However, pro cameras would (or should) still be as big as they are because of the superior ergonomics in having a solid grasp of the camera. The downside for the camera makers is that there would probably be a decline in the sale of accessory grips, because no one would have to rotate their cameras anymore, as there would no longer be portrait or landscape orientation to worry about. Flash brackets would be simplicity, as there would be no need to flip the flash or camera. Brackets would be all about getting the flash up higher off the camera axis, be more solid and make bounce lighting less of a hassle without a constant need to flip and rotate flash heads. Printer makers could produce square format sheets, which would be nothing more than simply cropping their largest sheets, e.g. cut six inches off the 13x19 sheets for a 13x13 sheet, or 11x17 to 11x11, etc. Epson already makes 12x12 matte sheets, but these are marketed for scrapbookers and not to the serious or fine art print maker. However, while I like square, I’m sure most people would prefer going about their rectangular ways, but the square is totally hip for that. What square lets you do is shoot first then crop later. Whether you print at the drugstore kiosk or at home, cropping is no big deal and takes but a few seconds to decide whether you want a landscape or portrait oriented photograph. What are the chances of a square format SLR coming from Nikon or Canon? I’d say about the same as me getting the call from National Geographic demanding that I set out on an all-expense paid photographic expedition to cover whatever crusade du jour the magazine happens to be championing (currently climate change). It would need another brand to think outside the box to produce a square format SLR. Olympus is that type of brand, but it made the "mistake" of doing the 4:3 format. I mean, come on now, if you’re gonna design a whole new camera and lens system from the ground up, at least be hip and be square. Kodak was on the right track with its self-contained digital backs that offered a square view of the world, but after offering a 16 MP 4000x4000 back, Kodak up and quit the digital back market and more or less handed it to Phase, even if Kodak continued to develop the (rectangular) sensor chips used by Phase and other makers. Hasselblad continues the Kodak tradition with its own 16 MP square format back, but who the heck has $10,000 to blow on a back? About the only cost effective digital square format option is the Ricoh GR Digital II, but it has a rather princely sum of £399, or almost CAN $800, for a digicam. As much as the original Ricoh GR was lauded for having a fine wide angle lens and RAW format, it’s still a camera with a tiny sensor and in no way can displace even an entry-level SLR like the Nikon D40X for ultimate image quality. Looking at the DPReview test, the original Ricoh doesn’t even beat a cheaper Canon digicam.
Sakic is the long time captain of the Avalanche and one of the best and classiest players in the NHL. For fans of the game, who can forget that moment in 2001, when Colorado won their second Stanley Cup championship, Sakic was handed the Cup as captain of the team, but instead of hoisting it up in the air, as is tradition and the honor for the team captain, Sakic called on Ray Bourque to come and do the honors. Ray Bourque was the long time captain of the Boston Bruins and while he had come close to hoisting the Cup in the 1980s, those pesky Edmonton Oilers foiled his championship dreams. In the twilight of his career, Boston granted him his wish to playout his remaining years on a contender and see if he might sip from the greatest trophy in professional sports. Colorado faltered in Bourque's first year as an Avalanche, but made his dream come true in his second year with the team. He retired after the 2001 championship season, but his example has continued with old war horses such as Dave Andreychuk winning with Tampa Bay and most recently, Teemu Selanne with Anaheim. What Sakic did in 2001 for Ray Bourque is the pinnacle of sportsmanship and while I'm a Vancouver Canucks fanboy, I'm quite proud that my son plays in the same colors worn by Joe Sakic, who never forgot his roots (his parents still live in metro Vancouver).
Anyway, back to our regular programming...Photographing my son's hockey games has been an interesting experience. It has given me much respect for the real sports pro plying their trade day in and day out in the arenas and pitches of the sporting world. I ventured into this project, both to document my son playing his first year of organized sports, as well as for me to keep at photography in some meaningful way as family and work life take their toll on my ability to pursue other personal photography. I'm nowhere near doing what Cartier-Bresson did everyday, which was to shoot off a couple rolls of film before breakfast just for practice, but I do think shooting off hundreds of frames for two games a week is helping me stave off the hard rust. Shooting action is challenging and I'm surprised at how fast even children's level hockey can be let alone compared to major junior or the NHL. At the Atom level (9-10 years old), which is my son's level, kids can be divided into three groups; relative newcomers like my son, who are learning the game; the competent players that have the skill and experience to play well consistently; and the skilled players that probably learned to skate before they learned to walk and are so good that they are consistently game breakers. As much as I'd like my son to be a skilled player, he has a long ways to go, especially being three or four years behind in development to the other kids that have been playing since they were in kindergarten. Many of these kids already have fine skating skills with speed and fluid motion and while passing the puck is relatively easy, receiving a pass is actually quite a challenge when you consider that you have to stop and control a piece of vulcanized rubber at velocity. Photographing hockey first requires exposure compensation due to the massive sheet of ice that will cause underexposure if shot in Matrix metering mode. With the Nikon D200, plus one and a third stops is about right, because going to plus 1.5 or one and two thirds will result in too many exposures blowing out highlight detail, although Lightroom can bring back some detail in the editing stage with RAW files. I generally like my photos to have a warmer tone, but warm is not what you want for photograhing hockey with that big, bluish sheet of ice. 4000 degrees Kelvin is about the right white balance to my eyes, but also getting the right tint is important as ice reflects the color of the seats in the arena. In one old Vancouver arena, the ice takes on a warm, caramel tone, because that's what the bench seats were painted. With the Canon 30D, I think this camera's meter could just a touch more compensation than one and a third, but probably better to play safe and boost the exposure slightly rather than trying to reclaim detail from 99% white. I'll have more to say about comparing this camera's high ISO quality to the D200's in a future article. Five frames per second is usually okay, but sometimes, when you want to get a nice flow of images from an offensive rush developing, having 8 or more fps would be beneficial. However, it hasn't stopped me from being able to get a few shots with the puck bulging the back of the net. I'm still learning the flow of composing my shots better instead of always using the crop tool in Lightroom. I hate having to flip from landscape to portrait mode and vice versa and would love to have a square format camera (how about 4000x4000 for 16 MP) that I could crop to appropriate printing dimensions later on. While this may seem like a contradiction to this paragraph's first sentence, in the former, I mean I need to learn how to fill the frame fully with minimal dead space, whereas the latter is for final print purposes. The most important factor (for me) of all these technical considerations is ISO. The most obvious benefit of good high ISO quality is less noise, but more importantly for shooting sports, good high ISO lets you use a faster shutter speed without worrying about noise. With the D200 and 30D, I'm using ISO 1600, but I lose shutter speed due to having to use plus exposure compensation. I've not tried ISO 3200 on either camera, but based on what I see from ISO 1600, I have no desire to given my allergic reaction to golf ball sized noise patterns. The new D3 would be ideal for this project, but $5500 is a lot of bones to be spending on a personal project. The auto focusing capabilities of the camera is also important and the D200 and 30D have both faltered regularly in being able to acquire focus on a moving subject and bang off sharp images. Not having really fast shutter speeds available is another contributor to more motion blurred photos than I care for. The season is still young and I'm still learning, so we'll see what my experiences will be by season end. November 1, 2007 - So, Nikon has an English language version of its 90th anniversary video available now (interestingly, the English narrator pronounces "Nikon" the same way that the Japanese version does, which is the say, the correct way of "knee-con" rather than the North American "n-eye-con"). If the link above from Nikon USA seems slow, you may be better off going to Nikon Japan's website. Anyway, take a listen to the music track and if anyone knows the artist and song, please let me know. I'd love to buy the song for a project I'll be working on. October 29, 2007 - Catching up on some things that I'm finding ever so hard to have enough time for. First up is a review of the Lightscoop, an accessory that allows users of consumer D-SLRs with pop-up flash units, to bounce the light and obtain a much nicer quality of light. If you have such a D-SLR and have no external flash unit, the Lightscoop is just the ticket for a reasonable US $30 cost. Reader's comment:
My son's hockey coach let me sit in a box at ice level for our last home game. This box appears to be one dedicated for photographers, just like the pro arenas have. It's positioned between the home and visitor's benches and with no glass, I was able to take unobstructed photos. I loved it! It was great to be at ice level without getting in anyone's way or blocking anyone's view, as sometimes can happen when shooting from the stands. The pace of the game feels much faster at this level and the photos come across as "being there." I'm still learning how to anticipate the action and follow the flow for good photos. Continuing on last week's theme of what's to come from digital cameras of the future, I missed out on some other aspects that sometimes get lost in the race for increased resolution and improved high ISO quality. These would be improvements in the user interface and system integration. Michael Clark's latest PDF newsletter had one very interesting idea, which is for a heads up display, or HUD. HUDs are used in fighter jet airplanes to allow the pilot to be able to fly and monitor various operations of the airplane at the same time. Clark also suggests a user selectable option to do away with the traditional information found in the viewfinder's display and allow for viewing a histogram, which for many photographers, is the key information needed to obtain proper exposure. Taking the viewfinder display idea further, how about focus points covering every part of the viewfinder? It's an idea I've discussed before, way, way back when I tried out a friend's EOS 3 and thought that eye-controlled focus would only make sense if there were focus points covering the whole view. Right now, with the top-end Nikon and Canon SLRs, there is a plethora of focus points (51 and 45 respectively), but they are all clustered around the center of the viewfinder. Such an array is better with DX format sensors, because more of the view is covered with the focus points, but not as effective with FX sized chips. I know I've made much noise over the years expressing my preference for metal build over plastic and I'm not the only one with such an opinion, as the camera makers always point out the metal build in their higher end cameras. Few if any, have ever marketed the "superiority" of plastic build. However, are we are now at a time where composite materials could finally trump metal parts? Boeing's newest passenger jet, the 787 Dreamliner, is being trumpeted for all the composite material being used for its fuselage. If composite materials can survive the vigors of high stress subsonic jet travel, surely photographers can live with the same in their cameras? The reward? Lighter cameras that won't dent like metal and hopefully, won't scuff like plastic. Next up, how about full system integration in a given brand's cameras? I don't mean how Nikon and Pentax have kept using the same lens mount over many decades, but of true standardization of parts and accessories, so that we don't end up with umpteen different types of batteries, chargers, and viewfinder accessories. Nikon is moving along the right path by finally allowing a prosumer camera to use the same battery as its pro-level SLRs. The D300, when used with its accessory grip, can use the same battery as the D3. Most of the consumer Nikon SLRs use the same basic battery introduced with the D100 back in 2002, but it's irksome that while I can use a D200 EN-EL3e in the D100 (or D50, D70, or D80) I cannot use any of the older EN-EL3 batteries in the D200, because of the EN-EL3e's third contact used to provide battery information to the D200. Why can't I use the older battery and just forego the detailed battery status information? Why can't Nikon produce a universal charger with adapters so that all of its different types of batteries could be charged without digging around to find the right charger? Carrying it further, while the use of AA batteries in external flash units is good, it would also be nice to be able to juice the flash with a camera battery. Being able to use an external battery pack that uses the same battery type would be another step in the right direction. While Nikon has standardized viewfinder accessories into a consumer and pro line, the consumer line lacks the options that the pro line has. Specifically, I'd love to be able to use the same round rubber eye cups on the D200, as is available for the D2X. I'm sure there is a way to jury rig or adapt pro viewfinder accessories to the consumer line, but it would be nicer for Nikon to take care of such details. To sum up, there are a lot of little (and some big) things that camera companies could address that would help make the photographer's life easier. October 25, 2007 - Okay, I know this is too geeky, but catching some snippets of the ALCS and Game 1 of the World Series, I noticed that Canon and Nikon seem pretty equally represented in the photographers' box behind the home plate. Also noticed that a large number of them are Asian, which seems to indicate that the Japanese are following the exploits of their homegrown talent, pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka (there's also Hideki Okajima in the bullpen). With Nikon firing on all cylinders, will the sidelines finally stop being a sea of white (accepting that some of those white lenses could actually be Nikkors) and perhaps fade to black? The Olympics will soon be upon us, so expect a huge presence of D3s and the latest VR super telephoto lenses to descend in Beijing. Speaking of sports and pro shooters and their equipment needs, I thought Thom Hogan's comments about the new Olympus E3 are spot on as to why this camera is too little, too late. Bear with me while I flesh this out. Without repeating too much of Hogan's comments, the E3 is built to a level and price point to compete against the Nikon D300 or the Canon 40D, not against the bad boys of the D3 or the Canon 1D3. However, I'd have to wonder why any major sports or news shooter would switch from Nikon/Canon to Olympus. The E3 and Olympus is not without its champions, such as Michael Johnston over at TOP, who has written that Olympus is perhaps the best lens maker at the moment with the 4/3 line-up. However, even Johnston has wondered about the less than comprehensive lens offerings from Olympus. Even if it were true that Olympus has the best quality in lenses, if it doesn't make the right type of lenses that the pros need, it's not going anywhere beyond the fringes. But, even if Olympus did make the right lenses, I have to wonder about the quality of the 4/3 sensor at 10 MP. Smaller than DX format chip with smaller pixels packed in tightly is not a recipe for the kind of high ISO quality needed by demanding pro shooters. The D3 and the 1D3 offer more flexibility for photographers shooting in cave-like conditions and have set a new bar for what will be accepted by photographers and their editors. I know that it's always dangerous making assumptions about a product no one has used, but I can't see a 4/3 sensor providing the same quality as an FX chip, which I don't think is going out on a limb. Another reason I don't see Olympus doing well with the E3 is that pros need support and only Nikon and Canon offer on-site support at major events. Both companies also have professional services that provide additional benefits for the pro shooter. As far as I know, Olympus and Sony are not stepping up to the plate to provide these types of support that pros expect, which is why I also consider Sony's attempt to grab a slice of the pro market with its vapourware SLR to be another Beta-like product. This isn't to say that Olympus cannot do well with the E3, but the company would have to target the serious amateur market, but as Hogan pointed out, that means going up against very well established models such as the Canon 40D, the Sony A700, and highly anticipated Nikon D300. Continuing the sports theme, I've photographed six of my son's hockey games so far and although I've only been to four different rinks so far, I find the exercise to be quite challenging. The best rink by far, is the home arena for my son's Burnaby minor team, Bill Copeland Arena. It's a newer facility that's larger than the typical suburban rink, because it's also the home arena for the Burnaby Express, a junior A team that won the national championship last year. Being newer and larger means that it has relatively good sight lines and the lights are bright. Other rinks have low seats with near ice-level sight lines. Some have support beams blocking views and all the others have dim lighting. I shoot the D200 at ISO 1600 with a plus 1 compensation for the most part (sometimes more, depending on the rink) and f2.8 with the 28-70 and 70-200 lenses. I've also brought along the Canon 30D with the 70-200 f2.8 IS lens to a couple of games, as I try life on the dark side to mix things up. In short, I won't be getting any shots worthy of Upper Deck hockey cards (as far as I'm concerned, the only "real" hockey cards are the O-Pee-Chee ones I collected as a kid ;^). Pros shooting in NHL arenas have special cut outs in the glass to get unobscured photos, as well as remote controllable strobes strung up in the rafters, so they don't have to suffer noisy, high ISO image quality. Using the 30D and 70-200 IS lens took some getting used to for the first game. Much different UI than the D200 with lens mounting, zooming and focusing that is the opposite of Nikon. The second game, it felt less cumberstand, but a couple of days of shooting are not going to match my ten years of experience using the Nikon UI. Going back and forth between the 30D and D200 made me really appreciate what experience and familiarity mean in being an effective photographer. The D200 felt like an extension of my hand and it rarely calls attention to itself, whereas I was always aware of the 30D. There are some other quirks between the Nikon and Canon systems, but I'll get into that in a coming review of a flash accessory that show off how the two brands utilize built-in flash units, as found on the 30D and D200. October 23, 2007 - Okay, one of the readers (don't worry Joe, I won't mention your name), suggested I take another look at some interesting new technology being developed given my less than out on a limb comments a few days ago. Some items that escaped my increasingly dim grey matter are:
For the post production focusing, egads, just another excuse for consumers to never learn a darn thing about the basics of photography. I mean, how hard is it to just aim that center spot on your subject, wait for the focus confirmation then snap the shot? Digital has already allowed consumer photographers to "cheat" by just snapping then chimping with the LCD. We're losing a lot of the artistry of photography in this Facebook, PBase world where every snap "deserves" to be posted and foisted to the online world. How about an "Editorial" function built into the camera that displays "Lame" for more sunset or flower photographs the world doesn't need, and yes, I'm as guilty as those I've just damned with more clichéd, copycat photos than I care to show ;^) The Gigapxl Project appeals to my inner geek because of the incredible amount of hardware and post production required to make a successful image, however, I don't know if it's just me, but this sure as hell seems like a masochist's way of doing photography. The reward is almost worth the pain though given how spectacular the final image quality is. Would you rather shoot some custom pieces of film that come from military surplus, or would you rather shoot all digitally and stitch the files together like the Italian HAL9000 team did using a D2X and 80-400 lens to create a 9 gigapixel file? How about a shoot off between the two groups for the ultimate in film versus digital? To throw a dark horse into the race, does Polaroid still make 24-inch sheet film for their monster sized view cameras, the type that Ansel Adams used to take the official presidential portrait of Jimmy Carter? The combined video/still camera is where a number of pros believe the market is headed, at least for the professional PJ ranks. Dirck Halstead at DigitalJournalist.org, wrote an article some time ago, wondering which camera brand would survive to service the changing needs of the photojournalist. Halstead concluded that only Canon would be dominant enough to survive. Color me Nikon yellow, but I was thinking that Halstead said such, because he and most of his cohorts are Canon usesr, but in fact, his reasoning had to do with Canon being a multifaceted consumer electronics company that makes it own sensors for its still cameras and (probably) its camcorders. Canon will soon be producing its own chips for its digicam line in response to Sony planning to upgrade its digicam chip making facilities. Due to Canon having expertise in both video and still images, Halstead reasoned that only Canon would be able to produce the kind of products that the working PJ would desire. That desire being for more video capabilities to meet the demands of editors needing multimedia content to feed their web-based publications. Halstead mentioned that a large number of PJs are now carrying camcorders to supplement their still images, something that Halstead does too. I think the article was written before Sony became a major player in the SLR sweepstakes and I don't see Sony rolling over to allow Canon to steal a larger piece of the video pie that Sony does very well in. However, no matter who dominates, I do think that this is going to be significant and that we will see certain traditional still photography segments gravitate towards the video/still convergence. The aforementioned PJs, sports shooters, weddings and other kinds of photography that are about capturing action or fleeting moments are the ones mostly easily adapted to video coverage. Instead of worrying about capturing the peak action, the cameraman now just has to frame properly and keep the solid state, flash-based hard drive going with the 30 fps of date coming in. In post production, pull the best single frames for use as still images and away you go if prints are desired. Consumers will love this way of shooting, given how popular video capabilities are in digicams. All we need now is just meaningful improvements in video quality so that good quality stills can be extracted from it. The ideal camera of the near future? A compact version of the Red able to use Nikon or Canon lenses with the plenoptic micro lens array, able to shoot video at 12 MP resolution and produce a still image with D3 quality. For sure digital SLRs will have surpassed the quality of the D3 by then, but video is still in catch up mode to still image quality. Maybe we'll see ISO 102,400 available in the D5, because it will be the only way SLRs can compete against video cameras. Could an SLR hit frame rates approaching that of video so as to sort of mimic that kind of capture in short bursts? No, I don't think so, due to the mechanics of the shutter. In all the years of the SLR, no camera that I'm aware of has hit faster than 12 fps in some specialized Nikon and Canon film cameras. In five years time, just as we have photographers marketing their use of film in this digital age, will we have photographers marketing their use of still cameras in the video age? October 22, 2007 - Reader's comments:
October 20, 2007 - Reader's question:
Well, keeping in my mind that I have no crystal ball and that my guess is as good as yours...in the next few years or generations of cameras, we’re probably still going to tread along the same path of evolving current technology to the maximum that it’s capable of. While someone will probably produce a SLR with 28 MP of resolution in a 35mm sized chip, given what we know of the pixel sizes and how noise is affected by how large or small the pixels are along with how dense they can be packed, I can’t see a camera going past 28 MP while retaining the quality we desire. Of course, we could pack a huge amount of pixels on a 35mm sized chip, because we already have 12 MP digicams using pinkie finger nail sized chips, but it would be objectionable to push the ISO beyond a stop or two from the chip’s default sensitivity. There would be little point to having a 100-plus MP SLR if the image quality is of digicam quality. I think color fidelity will be addressed. We have it pretty good now with the Bayer filter and interpolation, but I can’t help but think that a sensor with true color sensitivity at the pixel level is what we need to capture true color fidelity. As some would point out, a 12 MP camera is not really pumping out 12 true MP of color resolution because of the 50% green, 25% red and 25% blue Bayer filter. The Foveon chip is one way to address the color resolution issue, but not everyone is enthralled with the Foveon’s quality, which is likely why none of the major brands have adopted it. If we could get rid of the Bayer filter and maybe get some better processing of files to also get rid of the high pass filter, we could see a big jump in image quality. Thinking about how digital photography might advance makes me think about the CD. For the first decade, the quality was dismissed by audiophiles (film users), because it did not match the fidelity of analog, which is similar to early digital being compared to film (Kodak’s early D-SLRs). The second decade saw some companies think outside the box (literally) and move the digital-analog conversion into a separate box, so as to allow for easier mixing, matching and upgrading of the disc transport and digital processing. It was at this point that CD was taken seriously as a music medium, but still not considered superior to analog (the Nikon D1 breakthrough). As the CD nears its third decade of existence, the CD players coming out now are truly superb and the format is finally mature enough for audiophiles to consider on equal or better terms as good analog playback (the D2X generation). The irony though is that the CD is on its way out as a consumer medium, as digital music files (legal or otherwise) have taken over. Other digital mediums such as SACD and DVD-Audio provide even better quality than the CD and the promise of Blu Ray and HD-DVD makes audiophiles salivate at the thought of super high resolution fidelity that would truly bury analog playback. Unfortunately, just as the majority of consumer photographers do not really need more than 2-3 MP of resolution, I don’t see Blu Ray or HD-DVD being viable music formats, because most consumers don’t care enough about their music quality to demand better than a bit rate of 128 kbps (audio geeks like me don't count for much in the marketplace). I would consider the D3 to be an advancement like SACD or DVD-Audio, but we’ll have to wait and see what comes out that will offer a similar advancement in digital photography as Blu Ray and HD-DVD are now offering for movies and music. It could be argued though that medium format digital backs offer the kind of quality jump that Blu Ray and HD-DVD provide, but digital backs are so astronomically priced, as to be out of the realm of even relatively wealthy photographers. Meanwhile, if I wanted to, I could buy a Sony PlayStation 3 and get Blu Ray playback capability for a mere $500, something even I could afford ;^) But the smart money would be for the LG combo Blu Ray and HD-DVD player for $800. It would also be nice if maybe a manufacturer or two could go back to the future and redo Kodak's monochrome D-SLR. Kodak once produced an SLR based on the Nikon F5 that had no Bayer filter, so it was pure monochrome output. Either this, or else someone's gotta put Kodak's new Color Filter Array into use in a camera and see what it can do for B&W quality. Thinking outside the typical SLR box would be another nice thing to see, as in a digital FM, say a FM4D. While Pentax would be one company that should produce such a camera due to its extensive K mount legacy, probably only Nikon would have the history and wherewithal to produce a bare bones basic digital FM. Someone also has to come up with another digital rangefinder and get a piece of that Leica pie. Given how well the M8 has sold at $5000, you gotta figure that a $3000 M compatible rangefinder with the D3's chip, would be a runaway success. If Leica knows what's good for it's continued survival, it should dump Kodak and jump in bed with Sony to get the FX chip in the future M9. A little side deal with Nikon to deal with the in-camera processing would also be a good thing. October 19, 2007 - Reader's comment:
Actually, I have seen it on DPReview and just about every other website that posts new news stories. Sony's making a big splash with the product and it could very well be the next big thing...or, given Sony's track record, another white elephant. However, I would note that some members of my extended family had already abandoned 4x6 prints some time ago when they received digicams as X-mas presents. The preferred way of viewing photos is now more interactive and flashy using a slideshow application to create DVDs that can be played back on the big screen TV. In my house though, my daughters still like actual photo albums, or the custom ones I created using the Unibind system. They love looking through their own baby photos and marvelling at how tiny they once were. For them, having the actual print to view at their leisure provides a different kind of enjoyment than a DVD slideshow, although they enjoy those too. With consumer NAS drives coming down in price and increasing in capacity, along with bridge products like Apple TV, it's becoming easier to integrate the computer into the living room. Stereophile's editor is big into integrating his digital files into his expensive mainstream hi-fi and he's reviewed a number of products to make computer playback of music files possible through the big rig. Even though I should know better than to play back lossy MP3 files on the iPod through my small office system, the convenience factor of having 80 GB of files (my entire collection of music) available at the touch of my thumb is hard to resist. Playing back CDs is so 20th century and almost akin to still listening to music on vinyl records ;^) October 18, 2007 - Check out this news item pulled from a feed specializing in photography:
Not to beat a dead horse...but, is that the sound of hoof beats I hear...the four horsemen of the apocalypse ;^) October 17, 2007 - Reader's comment:
Factoring in the computer and cost of storage is a good point, especially if your penchant is for shooting RAW and processing to 16-bit TIFF files. I wonder where I'll be at come next spring when hockey season is over for my son and I'm left with many thousands of images to archive. I do still have some rolls of 35mm and 120 film in the fridge, but I've not found myself in a situation where I've desired to use them for a shoot. While not used in a couple of years, I cannot bear the thought of losing far too much money by selling my medium format gear at a massive discount and I harbour a hope that someday, medium format digital backs will come down enough in price to allow me to afford one (plus an adapter) for the old Bronicas. For me, I like computers and all the ancillerary equipment that goes with them and I have no trouble sitting in front of the computer for many hours every day, as I edit, print, or conduct research. Unfortunately, computer and writing time are now severely curtailed with four kids in the house - not that I'm complaining (being an only child, I'm compensating ;^) Your other point of cinema use for film is also a good point and one that we o |
December 7, 2007 - $450 for a freakin' 16 GB ipod? What the @#$%! 
This week also saw delivery of what I had hoped to be the heart of my future computer based sound system, a Headroom Portable Micro Amp. Unfortunately, the amp that you see in these pictures is not the one I had actually ordered, which is suppose to include a built-in DAC. The one I actually received is just the regular Portable Micro amp, so once I receive the correct amp, this one will be sent back. Kudos to Headroom for owning up to the mistake very quickly and resolving to send me an amp from the next build batch as soon as possible. It was also nice of Headroom to let me use the first one until I receive the replacement.
As a portable amp, the Micro has a built-in recharegeable battery that unfortunately is not user accessible, so eventually, when the battery cannot be charged anymore, a trip back to Headroom is required to replace it. I'd much prefer user replaceable rechargeable batteries, but I don't envision using the Micro as a true portable amp much; it will reside in the office system for the vast majority of time, running off mains AC.
