The Professional's Choice: The Nikon D300

Released at almost the same time as the Canon EOS 40D, the initial MSRP of the Nikon D300 was five hundred bucks higher, a more than 35% jump. The difference was that Nikon had already sliced the DSLR marked more finely than Canon had. Where Nikon had three tiers of cameras (“entry”, “upper entry”, and “enthusiast”) beneath its D300, the EOS 40D had to satisfy everyone too cool to buy a Rebel but not well-heeled enough for a full-frame 5D.

The D300 was launched at the same time as the D3 pro camera and, while it didn’t have the full-frame sensor or built-in vertical grip, it used Nikon’s pro control layout and rugged, weather-resistant construction. It also replaced the 10MP CCD sensor of its D200 predecessor with a new 12MP CMOS sensor, backed with Nikon’s new EXPEED image processor.

When I say that it uses Nikon's "pro control layout", the photo above is what I'm referring to. The pro cameras from Nikon (and Canon and Olympus) don't have a mode dial, like on consumer/hobbyist-oriented cameras, where the PASM modes often share space with Portrait, Landscape, Sports, et cetera. Instead you select among Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual by holding a mode button and spinning a dial. Similarly, controls like ISO and White Balance tend to be located where they're easy to access on the fly without having to dive into a menu on the screen.

The top panel's LCD screen has all the data you'd need about the camera's settings viewable at a glance when you power it up.

The power switch is the same one Nikon's been using across their DSLR and MILC lines pretty much universally for yoinks now, unlike Canon, who seem to want to experiment with a new location for the switch every so often. Right next to it, easily reached by the shooter's index finger, are the Mode and Exposure Compensation buttons.

The pentaprism viewfinder is bright, contains all the shooting info you need, and has true 100% coverage, as opposed to its predecessor's 95% coverage finder. Where the D200 had a 2.5" screen on the back, the D300 has a 3" LCD with more than 3X the pixel count. The controls are laid out in typical Nikon fashion. The little rotating latch with the Pac-Man pictogram at lower right is the remote release for the memory card door. The D300 records to a single CF card slot.

It has an in-body focus motor, allowing it to make use of older Nikon autofocus glass as well as newer lenses. The only new F-mount glass is can't handle are the lenses with electromagnetically-controlled apertures.

The D300 was expensive, but it was pretty much the state of the art in APS-C cameras circa 2008. Unless you need to shoot video or simply must have live view, there's no reason you couldn't put it to work today.

DSLR Pics: Cars with the Pentax K7

I was having some early issues with the Pentax K7 and the picture not being composed the way I thought I saw it in the viewfinder. Getting a few frames ruined by thinking I was filling the frame, only to look at the RAW file and find one of the bumpers lopped off by the edge of the shot.

I know that, unlike its predecessor, the K20D, which had a viewfinder that only covered 95% of the image area, the K7 has a viewfinder with 100% coverage. I don't think that's the problem, though, as I use cameras with 100% finders fairly often and try and keep a reasonable border around cars to allow cropping and leveling if necessary.

Anyway, it bears investigating...

Mirrorless Pics: Vintage BSA with the Canon EOS M6

I really liked the EOS M6, but the system was snakebit from the start with its unique mount and inability to be adapted to full-frame mirrorless, which was obviously the wave of the future once Sony's marketing machine got cranked up.

The panda-colored M6 had good looks, but no EVF and, despite having normal camera-type controls (unlike the original M), it was tough to figure out what kind of camera it was trying to be.

Learning to Let Go

It seems a weird post topic for a blog devoted to keeping old stuff up and running long past its best-by date, but one of the most important things I’ve learned recently is learning to let go of old stuff.

Not the cameras, mind you, but some of their files.

There was a time, back in my early digital photography days, when I’d archive everything in my picture folders. From back around 2008, when I was still shooting with the Nikon Coolpix 990, to well into my “serious camera” days, I’d get home from a day’s (or weekend’s) shooting and dump all the JPEGs…because I didn’t shoot RAW back then…into a folder like “2010-05-19 zoo trip with bobbi” or “2012-10-05 colorado trip”. It didn’t matter if the photos themselves were good, or bad, or an out of focus shot of the back of somebody’s head at the zoo, or an accidental snap of the high plains dirt in Colorado because I pressed the shutter release at the wrong time. If it was an image from that day, it got filed.

When a card got filled, I’d Sharpie the date and the camera it had been in on it and file it away.

Over time I learned to shoot RAW and would carefully comb through my images, pull out the good ones, and process them before filing the keepers in “2019-08-02 indiana state fair” or “2020-01-24 shot show”.

It wasn’t until recently, when I needed to get a very large capacity card ready for one of my high-res cameras that I hit upon a harsh truth.

The card that I needed to reformat (because I couldn’t afford to replace it and didn’t have time to do so, anyway) had pictures from an event over a year ago on it. The event itself doesn’t matter, what matters is that I’d already dredged through these RAW files a half dozen times and pulled out all the possible keepers, and even revisited it once or twice over ensuing months looking for unappreciated gems.

If I’d not come back to these RAW images again for more than a year…it was time to let them go and make room for the next batch of potential winners. The keepers had already been plucked out and double archived; it was time to let the rest go.

Why was this jpeg taking up hard drive space?

Soulless?

I’m not really a huge fan of any one camera brand, nor am I really a hater of any. I’ve used and enjoyed all kinds of cameras, made by numerous manufacturers.

I will say that the only one that I’ve felt any antipathy toward is Sony. Don’t get me wrong, they make fine photographic appliances, but so many of them feel like just that: an electronic appliance for making photos. The only Sonys I’ve really bonded with in any way so far are the a700 DSLR, which hardly counts since Minolta did most of the heavy lifting on that one and Sony basically showed up in time to slap their name on it, and the wonderful little RX100 pocket camera.

Other than that, I’ve used Mavicas and CyberShots, NEX mirrorless bodies, as well as using an a7 and an a7 II as my work cameras for most of a year, and just never really warmed to any of them. Their menus and interfaces always feel like they were designed by someone who transferred over from the clock radio or stereo division last week.

I mean, Canons and Panasonics are pretty soulless, too, but not in that way.

You know who knows how to really nail that camera vibe? Fujifilm. They’re probably the best at it these days. Olympus and Pentax, too. They’ve got the whole camera vibe thing figured out. When you’re using one of their camera, you know that there were serious camera nerds involved in the design of the thing.

Of the big two classic Japanese camera makers, Nikon does it way better than Canon, but their attempts at retro ring hollow when compared to Fuji’s.

Big Little Camera: The Olympus E-3

Olympus was unique among the big camera makers in that they had not pursued autofocus technology in their interchangeable lens single lens reflex cameras, and therefore when they designed their first digital SLR they were essentially starting from a clean sheet of paper.

Since they didn't have to accommodate an existing lens mount and its associated library of glass, they were free to use a physically smaller sensor, working with Eastman Kodak to create the Four Thirds System.

This allowed for small cameras and small lenses and this was hyped for their early consumer and enthusiast DSLRs, but which probably came back to bite them in the butt when the E-3 was launched in late 2007 because the E-3 is not a small camera.

The thing is, the E-3 wasn't intended to be small and light. It was intended to be a professional camera and the cues are everywhere, in features that you'd normally only find on its Nikon D3 or Canon EOS-1D Mark III contemporaries.

The body was magnesium alloy, rugged and weather sealed. Rather than a mode dial, you cycle through your PASM by holding a button and spinning a control wheel. The battery and memory card doors are secured by positive latches. There's a built-in mechanical shutter to cut off light from the eyepiece for long exposure low-light photography. About the only distinctively "pro" feature it lacked was the built-in vertical grip. Also, thanks to the smaller 10MP Live MOS Four Thirds sensor, it lacked the $4-5,000 price tag of its APS-H and Full Frame competitors, boasting an MSRP of only $1,699 at launch.

It had an articulated 2.5" LCD screen, unlike the competition because, also unlike the competition it could shoot in live view. It sported Olympus's IS in-body image stabilization, a maximum shutter speed of 1/8000th, and could shoot in burst mode at 5 frames per second.

Alas, despite the fact that equivalent lenses were much smaller than its larger-sensored competition, the idea of a pro Four Thirds DSLR just never really caught on.

A shame, because Zuiko glass is great and this thing takes nice pictures...

DSLR Pics: Puppers with the Olympus E-3

The Zuiko Digital ED 12–60mm 1:2.8–4 SWD was the kit lens originally packaged with the Olympus E-3 when it was new. With its 24-120mm equivalent focal length range and fast aperture, it's a good piece of glass and compact compared to equivalent APS-C and full-frame lenses.

Digicam Pics: Neighborhood photos with the Samsung TL500

The Schneider-Kreuznach glass in the little Samsung TL500 has a maximum aperture of f/1.8, which is pretty dang fast for a little pocket camera with a 3x (24-70mm equivalent) zoom lens.

DSLR Pics: Fair Folk with the Sony a700

My seventh day at the Indiana State Fair I brought the Sony a700. Of the three lenses I have available I decided to take the Sony 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T*, which is a nice high-quality general purpose zoom. 

It's not an ideal choice for me at the fair, as the 120mm equivalent maximum focal length is a little shorter than I prefer for those environs, but the 18-200 superzoom I have is too slow to focus and has too slow a maximum aperture at longer focal lengths for me to be entirely happy with it on the old Sony sensor. I was too afraid that I'd have to crank the ISO up past 1000 to get any good shots from the blacksmithing shed or in the Pioneer Village mercantile building.

I was pretty happy with the results. This lens focuses reasonably quickly and quietly and delivers pleasing images.

Maxxum Overdrive: The Sony a700

When Sony acquired Konica Minolta's camera business in 2006, the successor for the Maxxum 7D was already on the drawing board. It wound up being the second Sony-branded DSLR, since the Maxxum 5D successor had already been ready to launch and was simply re-badged as a Sony.

Whereas Konica Minolta had marketed their high-tech autofocus SLRs as "Maxxum" in the USA, "Dynax" in Europe, and "𝛼" (Alpha) in the home market, Sony went with the 𝛼 nomenclature everywhere. The Maxxum 5D replacement became the 𝛼100, while the new high-end camera was marketed as the 𝛼700. (Because I am too lazy to set up a macro, I'm just going to use a lower-case Latin "a" rather than the Greek "𝛼" from here on out.)

Unlike the earlier a100, which used an APS-C sized 10MP CCD sensor, the a700 sported an all-new 12MP Sony Exmor CMOS sensor backed by the latest version of Sony's Bionz image processor. 

Sony had a lot of experience in cameras already, both via their own popular Mavica and Cyber-shot lines of digital point-and-shoots, as well as being a major supplier of sensor chips to other makers. Additionally, they acquired a raft of tech from Konica Minolta.

The sensor featured Minolta's Anti-Shake in-body image stabilization, renamed "Super Steady-Shot" by Sony. It also inherited Minolta's Eye Start, which put a couple sensors under the eyepiece that would wake the camera and start focusing (depending on the setting) when raised to the photographer's eye. The a700 added a sensor in the front of the grip to ensure that the Eye Start sensors wouldn't mistake a tee shirt for a face when the camera was hanging on a strap.

The mode dial had the usual full-auto green rectangle, typical PASM settings, the user-configurable MR (for "Memory Recall"), and then the easy-mode Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, etc. for novices.

Said novices would need to be fairly well-heeled, as the a700 sported an MSRP of $1400 (almost $2200 in current dollars), but gave you a bright pentaprism viewfinder and magnesium front and top body panels for your money.

Oddly, for such a gizmo-laden camera in this price range, there was no LCD status display up top. Instead, when powering up, the 3.0" rear LCD screen would display all the camera's current settings.

The rear panel was high-impact plastic and featured a 3" TFT display, as well as a joystick for moving sensor points and navigating menus and a sliding switch for enabling or defeating the Super Steady Shot picture.

Currently used bodies are running as low as under a c-note and the lenses can be had for a song, as the Alpha mount is essentially orphaned with Sony having discontinued their DSLR offerings.

It gives splendid results for a digital body nearing two decades old.

Down the K-hole: Pentax K20D

The K20D was Pentax's second generation of semi-pro DSLR, replacing the K10D in January of 2008.

While its $1,300 MSRP put it head to head with Canon's EOS 40D, the price leader in the category, its Samsung-sourced 14.6 megapixel CMOS sensor offered almost half again the resolution, making it the highest-resolution APS-C camera on the market at the time (tied, of course, with its Samsung-badged clone, the GX-20.)

It was Pentax's top-of-the-line DSLR, but the line in question only consisted of the K20D and the cheaper, lower-resolution K200D.

The mode dial has the usual full-auto (green rectangle) and PASM modes, along with a couple unique-to-Pentax settings. The "TAv" position is "Shutter and Aperture Priority", where the user operates the front and rear dials to manually select the shutter speed and aperture size and the camera automatically adjusts the ISO to try and get the best exposure. "Sv" is "Sensitivity Priority" and functions like Program mode except the rear dial is used to set ISO on the fly, which is useful when operating in an environment where lighting conditions might vary wildly.

It's a physically small camera in the category; noticeably smaller than the Canon, Nikon, and Olympus entries and even slightly svelter than the Sony a700.

It's missing some typical buttons, such as ISO, instead using a combination of the "Fn" button and on-screen menus to select these settings.

The battery and memory card doors are securely latched and the whole camera feels quite rugged. With its 14.6MP sensor and an ISO range from 100 to 3200 (expandable to 6400), the K20D still holds up quite well today and nice used ones can be found for well under two hundo.

This is the first Pentax DSLR I've spent any real time with, and I can see why Pentax fans are so loyal. It's a solid, easy to use camera that's nice and compact.