This Can't Be a Fossil Already, Can It?

The "fossil" cutoff here at Digital Fossils is ten years old and, while it feels like the Nikon Df is still a fairly new camera, it was actually released in time for Christmas of 2013, so it's a dozen years old.

I wanted one but they were $2,750 for just the body when they came out. By early 2020 used ones had dropped down to a grand or so, but between inflation and the fact that they started getting desirable, the price kinda hovered right around that spot. In fact, nicer ones are back up in the $1100-1200 range last I checked.

Finally one with a low shutter count (under 12,000 actuations) and enough cosmetic wear to make the price bearable came out on the shelf at Used Photo Pro downtown, so... happy early birthday to me!

It's an interesting combination of parts bin stuff from the cheaper consumer full-frame Nikons, the 16MP FX sensor from the pro D4, and those retro controls. Thom Hogan's review I think does it justice.

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Mirrorless Pics: Local shots with a Nikon 1 V3

The Nikon 1 V3 was the ultimate iteration of the high-end V-series of the Nikon 1 compact mirrorless cameras. Released in 2014, it was a big improvement in image quality and video capabilities over the V2 and introduced a tilting rear screen to the Nikon 1 series, but had some quirks. 

Unlike the V1 and V2, it did not have a built-in EVF. You could get a detachable EVF that mounted to the hot shoe, but that precluded the use of a flash. Further, it had only a notional grip unless you purchased and attached the separate GR-N1010 grip.

With the EVF and grip attached, it was a bigger camera than the Nikon 1 V2 it replaced. Without them attached, it looks a little silly with the big 1 Nikkor 10-100mm f/4-5.6 VR PD-Zoom lens attached.

Digicam Pics: A VW Beetle with the Nikon Coolpix A

A 35mm equivalent focal length isn't normally my choice for shooting vehicle photos, but when you're driving along on a fine summer day in Indianapolis and spot a pristine vintage VW Beetle and all you have with you is the Nikon Coolpix A, well... needs must when the devil drives, as they say.

DSLR Pics: Cars with the Nikon D2H

In the early days of DSLRs, manufacturers faced a dilemma with their pro bodies. Fairly high-resolution sensors were available early on... they had crossed the 5MP threshold at the dawn of the new millennium ...but that level of resolution created an image processing bottleneck that hampered sports and wildlife photographers who tend to shoot bursts at a high frame rate in hopes of capturing the money shot.

So both Canon and Nikon had dual tracks of pro bodies in the early '00s, one that emphasized maximum resolution and the other which accepted lower resolution in exchange for a higher frame rate and bigger image buffer.

For 2003, Nikon released their second generation of high speed sports-oriented pro body, the 4MP D2H, which was capable of shooting at eight frames a second until the buffer was filled. It was joined the following year by the 12MP D2X which only managed five frames per second at full resolution.

This D2H got snagged from Roberts Camera in Indianapolis for just a c-note, along with the battery, charger, a memory card, and a 50mm f/1.8 AF lens.

The pics below were snapped with the excellent Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 DX zoom lens.

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.

Singin' in the Rain

After the LCD display on the top panel, the next two pro camera features I mentioned in my list were a rugged, usually metal body, and weather sealing.

When normal folks would buy that boxed Nikon D3000 or Canon Rebel kit from Walmart or Best Buy, it represented a chunk of change. Especially back in the late '00s, when their only other experience with digital cameras had been a $150-$250 point-'n'-shoot, that $500 to $1000 DSLR kit that they purchased to document their big trip to Europe or their kid's first season of Little League was a luxury item and tended to be treated as such.

On the other hand, working photogs... especially photojournalists, wildlife and sports photographers, et cetera ...treated their cameras like the working tools they were. The body needed to be rugged enough to take a beating, and the weather sealing had to be up to shrugging off the elements.

I stumbled on a leaf-covered sidewalk and faceplanted right on top of this Canon EOS-1D Mark IV

If a camera will stand up to the sidelines of an NFL game or deal with a NatGeo expedition into the Amazon, I figure it's more than up to wandering around my Broad Ripple neighborhood.

I'll note that this is all for naught if not paired with a comparable lens. The Olympus E-5 and the Zuiko Digital 14-35mm f/2 Pro lens are both known for being quite weather-resistant.

DSLR Photos: First pics from the new D300

KEH had a Nikon D300 in EXC condition for $79 and, rather than let my D300S substitute for one in my "Class of 2008 Prosumer Shootout", went ahead and sprang for it. It arrived the other day and I charged the battery, put a card in it, popped the excellent 17-55mm f/2.8G DX zoom lens on it, and took it out for a spin.

The 17-55/2.8 is a monster lens but really delivers great results. The 26-83mm equivalent focal length is good for most around-the-neighborhood shooting situations and the f/2.8 maximum aperture all the way out to the long end means it's a pretty fair short portrait lens in a pinch.

As Zed noted in an online discussion, at the time the D300 was definitely the big dog in this class of cameras, easily outselling its crop-sensor competition from Canon, Pentax, Olympus, and Sony.

For a camera that was released towards the end of 2007, it still holds up quite well. You could still do work with this thing, no problem.

Dual slot? Maybe not!

The second on my list of "pro features" after dual control wheels was dual card slots, although in the year 2008, that was still generally found only on the top models of most lineups.

The 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark III each had one Compact Flash and one SD card slot, but the contemporary 5D Mark II only had the CF slot. Similarly, Nikon's pro D3 had a brace of CF slots, but the D700 only had the one.

Stepping down from full frame to crop sensor, the Canon EOS 40D and Nikon D300 only had one CF slot. Likewise, the Pentax K20D, which was the top digital Pentax of the time, had a lone SD card slot for storage.

Only the Sony a700 and Olympus E-3 had a pair of card slots among the cameras in this tier, but that's for a specific reason. See, both Sony and Olympus had their own in-house memory card formats, so their DSLRs had one slot for Compact Flash and one for Sony Memory Stick (on the a700) or xD (on the E-3).

The card slots on an Olympus E-3

Unlike the dual slots on the pro Nikon and Canon cameras, you couldn't record to both of these cards at the same time, it was strictly one or the other.

It wouldn't be until later, in cameras like the Nikon D300S and D7000 that Nikon let dual card slots trickle down, and Canon users had to wait for the 5D Mark III and 7D Mark II.

Getting an old fave some exercise.

One problem with being an inveterate hoarder of old cameras is sometimes they fall out of use for a bit.

Love those Peak Design Slide straps.

Yesterday I realized hadn’t had the D7100 out to play for some time.

I could tell this was so because when I turned it on to check the battery, it was quite low. Swapped it out for a fresh EN-EL15 and, sure enough, the most recent pics on the card were of Halloween decorations in the neighborhood.

I have three cameras that use EN-EL15 batteries (this one, plus the Nikon 1 V1 and the D800) and four batteries, so every now and again a little battery rotation dance happens.

Anyway, I got it charged up and headed out to lunch.

I was glad I brought it!

A 24MP APS-C DSLR still feels pretty modern to me. It's hard to believe these things came out a dozen years ago now.

The Sweet Spot DSLRs...

Back in the 2000s, when full-frame sensors and all the various tech that was packed into full-house pro bodies from Canon and Nikon made them eye-wateringly expensive, both manufacturers produced a line of cameras that used rugged and weather-sealed bodies combined with APS-C crop sensors and a slightly less-than cutting edge feature set.

They wound up getting called "prosumer" bodies, but cameras like the Nikon D200 or the Canon EOS 40D were as often as not used by professional photogs and serious amateurs who did photography as side gig and couldn't justify a $4,000-$5,000 pro body.

A Nikon D200 with battery grip mounted.

As sensor prices dropped and the full-frame craze spread, these cameras kind of lost their niche.

Starting with the EOS 60D, Canon's two-digit crop sensor cameras lost their metal body shells and weather sealing, with the pro-grade crop sensor torch getting passed to the then-new 7D, whose single-digit moniker made no bones about its target market.

Nikon let the D300S linger unchanged for years and actually abandoned the category for a while until the D500 debuted in 2016. 

I really like these on the used market because they're great values and built like tanks.

DSLR Pics: Indiana State Fair with the Nikon D3

These photos are from the 2021 Indiana State Fair Pioneer Village, using a Nikon D3 and the 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens, which is an excellent and versatile all-purpose walking-around lens.

Dating from 2007, the D3 is quite long in the tooth, but it was Nikon's top-of-the-line pro body until it was supplanted by the D3S in late 2009.

It's got all the features you'd expect from a pro DSLR: tank-like build quality, full weather sealing, dual CF card slots, and 9 frames per second burst mode.

You can click on all these photos to see them in their full 12MP glory.

DSLR Pics: Tractors at the State Fair with the Nikon D700

These are from the 2019 Indiana State Fair, using a Nikon D700 and a basic, inexpensive 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 VR zoom lens.

Despite dating to 2008 and having "only" a 12MP full-frame (FX, in Nikon-ese) sensor, the D700 is still an extremely viable camera. They're built like tanks and there are examples running around out there with seven-digit shutter counts.

Lenses I Live By: The Short Portrait

Portrait lenses tend to be longer than standard primes, since this allows taking photos without having to be all up in the subject’s grille, as well as exaggerating the effects of focal length compression to not cause the subject’s features to look distorted.

The “short” portrait focal length range, in my own personal lexicon, runs from about 75mm to 105mm, in full-frame terms. (I use “full-frame terms” because the 35mm format spent something like fifty years establishing itself as the lingua franca of normie photography jargon.) 

Most of the camera systems I use have a lens that falls into this category. For instance, the Nikon 1 system, with its little 1" CX-format sensor, has the 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2, which has the equivalent focal length of 87mm.

Nikon 1 V2 & 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2

Moving up to Micro Four Thirds, there are some pretty slick choices. Panasonic goes with 42.5mm focal lengths, which is an 85mm equivalent, in an inexpensive f/1.7 version and a bucks-up Leica Nocticron-branded f/1.2. Olympus, on the other hand, favors the 90mm equivalent 45mm focal length. They, too, offer a spendy f/1.2 PRO lens, but the M. Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 is so compact, light, and inexpensive that it's the one I choose.

Things are similar with the Fujifilm X-mount ecosystem. There's a honking big 56mm f/1.2 portrait lens, but again, the bargain is the XF 50mm R WR "Fujicron", for its compact size and value pricing.

Fujifilm X-T2 & XF 50mm f/2 R WR

For my full-frame Canon DSLRs, I count on the EF 85mm f/1.8 for this task.

Canon EOS 5DS & EF 85mm f/1.8

Lenses I Live By: The Superzoom

They're generally called "superzooms", sometimes "all-in-one" or "vacation" lenses. I call them "zoo lenses" because they cover a wide enough spread of focal lengths to cover any shooting situation at the zoo, whether the critter is big and right in front of you, or small and way off in the back of its enclosure.

They typically have a 7X to 10X focal length range... wait, let me explain something.

Most people see the number followed by an "X" and assume it refers to view magnification, since that's what it signifies with telescopes and microscopes and the like. With cameras, however, it refers to the range of focal lengths.

A 35-70mm zoom lens would be a 2X zoom, going from a wide-ish viewing angle to the very shortest edge of telephoto. A 70-210mm would be a 3X, while a 24-240mm would be a 10X, et cetera.

The 12-200mm on the Olympus E-M1X in the photo above, the equivalent of a 24-400mm lens on a full-frame camera, is at the extreme end of superzoom ranges. It's able to shoot from comfortably wide angles to a very credible long telephoto length suitable for urban wildlife.

One of the first really good superzooms was Nikon's 28-200mm AF-D, which was replaced by the even more compact 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G in 2003. Now discontinued, those lenses have gotten a little cult-y due to their small size and can fetch a premium on the used market.

Nikon D700, 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G

The superzoom I get the most use out of is for DX Nikons, though: the 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II. I've used it on all my crop sensor Nikon DSLR bodies and the only one on which I don't like it is the D7100, as the 24MP sensor reveals its limitations. It's plenty sharp on the older D300S, though.

Nikon D300S, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II

Basically, any time you're going someplace where you don't want to carry several lenses and have no idea what you're going to be shooting, the Superzoom is your Swiss Army knife lens. Vacation, the zoo, just walking around the neighborhood, it's your one-lens solution.

Quality ones tend to be moderately spendy, because there's a lot of optical jiggery-pokery happening in there to keep image quality reasonably decent, and they're not so hot for indoors or low light because of their fairly slow aperture range, but they're my go-to solution for a sunny day stroll around Broad Ripple if the squirrels are out and about.

DSLR Pics: Squirrels with the Nikon D2X

One of the best deals in a high-quality long telephoto zoom for DSLRs is the AF Nikkor Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR. You can find them used at BezosMart for under $400, which is really pretty sweet when you consider that they stickered for close to two grand when they debuted back at the turn of the Millennium.

Why are they so inexpensive? Well, they are an older style autofocus Nikon lens, utilizing a focus motor in the camera body to turn a drive screw in the lens body. This means they won't work as an autofocus lens on any of the inexpensive D3xxx or D5xxx Nikon bodies, or with an FTZ adaptor on a newer Nikon mirrorless. This reduces their demand on the used market.

Plus, it's not a very fast-focusing lens, especially on a prosumer type Nikon body. The big single-digit pro bodies, though, have torquey enough focusing motors to spin this lens reasonably quickly.

This is where the Nikon D2X comes in. The D2 series was Nikon's last pro body to use an APS-C size sensor, what Nikon calls "DX format", with the D2X having a 12MP Sony-manufactured CMOS unit, rather than the proprietary Nikon LBCAST sensor used in the D2H. 

Because they're so old, you can find good deals on them used online. I spotted mine for a couple hundred bucks in the showcase at Roberts.

Because of the 1.5X crop factor of the DX sensor, the 80-200mm lens has an effective focal length bump to the equivalent of 120-600mm, letting you get right up in the grille of Mr. Squirrel.

The effective VR system comes in handy with a lens this big and heavy, allowing you to shoot hand-held at much slower shutter speeds than you'd be able to with a non-stabilized lens. (This is one of those lenses that's big and heavy enough to rate a tripod foot.)

Here's the 80-200 mounted on my old Nikon D1X.

This is a great combo for urban wildlife, if a bit slow for birds-in-flight or sports.