Re-Shoots

I used the Amazon gift card Bobbi gave me for my birthday to order a used Kodak Easyshare V1073.

Now I have a copy of each digicam I used before getting my first DSLR:

• Sony Mavica FD88
• Nikon Coolpix 990
• Kodak Easyshare V1073
• Canon PowerShot SX500

Now to go back and see if I can reshoot some things I shot back in the day, using the same gear, but do it better! The arrows are the same, but the Indian's gotten a bit better over the years, or at least I'd like to think so.

Alas, I won't be able to re-do the Lucky Gunner Blogger Shoot, or Knob Creek, or classes with Louis Awerbuck and Todd Green, or...

Kodak Easyshare at Knob Creek in 2011

DSLR Pics: Monochrome shots with the Nikon D3

I was out and about in the neighborhood on a drizzly January day with the Nikon D3 wearing an old original late-'80s vintage push-pull AF Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 telephoto zoom lens.

It was a good day for monochrome in SoBro...

The fast f/2.8 maximum aperture will even let you do some indoor available light work if you're willing to push the ISO up to 1600 or 3200...

The drizzly weather made for some dramatic effects in the dim evening light...

The Devouring Device

I wrote earlier on this blog about the Sony MYLO, a clever little palmtop internet device that had the misfortune of getting launched about the same time as the iPhone.

The smartphone went on to kill whole categories of portable electronica. Standalone GPS devices? Mostly gone. Handheld games? A shadow of their former selves. Various little digital assistants, like the Palms and Handsprings? Vanished.

And of course, cameras.

An inexpensive little pocket camera like my Nikon Coolpix S6500 is a vanished breed now. Most people are happy with the photographs they can get with their phones.

Now, the S6500 has a true 12X optical zoom, the equivalent of a 300mm telephoto on a full-frame digicam. Walking to lunch the other day, I heard the unmistakeable noise of a squirrel gnawing away at a nut overhead. He was so far up in the tree that it took me a minute to locate him, but the Coolpix had enough reach to get a snapshot...

Thing is, most people don't feel the need to take pictures of squirrels up in trees, at least not enough to carry a separate device, so sic transit gloria digicam...

.

DSLR Pics: Local wildlife with the Canon EOS-1D Mark III

The 1.3x crop factor of the APS-H sensor in the 1D Mk III turns my EF 70-200mm f/4L IS lens into an effective 91-260mm telephoto zoom. It's not super-long, but it's reasonably effective for urban wildlife.

If the weather were only slightly more clement, I'd have put it on the 7D for an even bigger focal length bump. It was quite frigid out, though, despite the unusually sunny winter skies.

Icy Road Truckin'

The weather here in Broad Ripple was bitter cold yesterday. There was only a dusting of snow on the ground, but the air temperature was in the mid-teens and not looking to get any warmer when I snapped this photo on the way to lunch.

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS

Canon rates the EOS-1D Mark IV to function from 32°F to 113°F, but this is conservative and likely has a hefty bit of ass-covering safety margin built in.

The single-digit pro bodies from Canon and Nikon are expected to function in the harshest environments where photos must be taken. National Geographic photographers in the Himalayas and Sports Illustrated shooters on the sidelines of January NFL playoff games can't just go "Well, it's cold. Guess I won't take any pictures today."

Are there cameras I won't expose to this kind of weather? Sure. The lenses of the Nikon 1 series of mirrorless cameras, for example, have very fragile aperture diaphragms. Since they're essentially unrepairable at this point, I certainly don't expose them to sub-freezing temperatures, lest I brick them.

I'm wary of exposing older point & shoot cameras that I use for fun to extreme temps as well. I may not have a lot of money sunk in them, but why take chances?

I have several old vintage professional bodies: the Nikon D1X, D2X, and D3, the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, 1D Mark III, and 1D Mark IV, as well as the Olympus E3 and E5, all of which are the rugged, photojournalist-grade bodies from their respective manufacturers. I know it's silly to anthropomorphize gear, but I like to think that they relish getting out in awful weather because it reminds them of their working days.

.

A Fuji complaint…

I really love my Fujifilm X-E1, but I have a beef with it.

Frequently I’ll use it as a backup body when I’m shooting my X-T2, hanging on a strap with a fast prime while I shoot the XF 16-80mm f/4 WR zoom on the main body.

The position of the exposure compensation dial on the X-E1’s top place, such that it’s flush with the rear edge, combined with the lack of a locking button on said dial, means that I’m often a couple shots into a scene before noticing that its been jostled a couple stops in either direction. This is especially bad when I find out I’ve underexposed the bejeezus out of an indoors shot or three.

Feeling the Wantsies

Feeling the urge for a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR zoom for my Nikon 1 cameras. Thing is, I would only buy one from a seller with a known rep for testing their used gear and an unconditional return policy (for me this means KEH or Roberts/Used Photo Pro.)

They'll turn up at both those sellers in the $300-$500 range reasonably frequently, but sell fast, and so far I've failed to strike when the iron was hot.

Lenses for the Nikon 1 system tend to have fragile diaphragms and as a bonus, the super telephoto 70-300 has a ribbon cable that will eventually fail with enough extensions and retractions between the collapsed "storage/travel" position and the extended "in use" position (most folks who happily use them seem to just keep them extended all the time and turn the camera on and off with the body switch). Since the whole Nikon 1 series is long discontinued, when the ribbon cable fails, the lens is bricked.

But the allure of a sharp, bright 189-210mm equivalent zoom lens is powerful.

It seems that having compact super telephotos is one of the big appeals of small sensor photography, and I'm surprised Nikon didn't go after that harder early in the Nikon 1 system's lifespan.

. 

A Tale of Two Nikons, Part Two

History is replete with examples of super-powered dynamic duos: Batman and Robin, Ruth and Gehrig, Swift and Kelce, Pinky and The Brain.

If you're a Nikon fan you could add to that list the D3 and D700.

That pair was actually a successful reboot of an iconic power couple from the closing days of the film era. Nikon's F5 was a bombshell professional grade camera that arguably established the shape and size of future pro bodies from all the serious manufacturers. It was packed to the gills with the latest technology 1996 could conjure, and it had a built-in vertical grip that both made it easier to use in portrait mode and also held the eight AA batteries that, at eight frames per second, could suck up a 36 exposure roll of Velvia in about the time it takes you to say "Whoops! I totally forgot that film costs money!"

The F5 was an enormous, heavy, incredibly rugged camera, which you could use to bludgeon someone into unconsciousness and then take perfectly-exposed, crisply-focused pictures of the crime scene.

So in 1999 they gave it a little brother in the form of the F100. Still rugged, still weather-sealed, but it lost the bulbous vertical grip and its cavernous battery compartment. This shaved three and a half frames per second off the frame rate, but it also shaved a whole pound off its bulkier sibling's avoirdupois, from 2.75 pounds to 1.73, batteries included.

The F100 was popular with photogs who worried about weight or wanted something a little more discreetly-sized than the enormous full-on pro F5, as well as making an excellent second body for the traveling professional photographer.

Fast forward to 2007 and Nikon released the D3, its first DSLR to sport a full-frame sensor, which they dubbed "FX" format in Nikon marketing-speak. Nikon's first two generations of digital pro bodies, the D1 and D2, were like the F5 in size, shape, features, and ruggedness, but housed a smaller APS-C DX sensor. Since Canon had full-frame bodies in its lineup since 2002, Nikonians had been itching for a return salvo for five long years.

The D3 was an enormous pro camera, though, with a price tag to match. So the following year's announcement of the D700, which was lighter and smaller and less expensive without sacrificing important features or essential ruggedness or... most importantly ...that big 12MP CMOS sensor, was greeted with hosannas.

Of course, what good is a smaller, lighter camera without smaller, lighter lenses?

Hey, look at this mid-'90s Mercedes-Benz E320 wagon I snapped using the Nikon D700 and 28–200 mm f/3.5-5.6G zoom lens!

The 28-200mm G is tiny and light for its focal length range, much smaller and lighter than my rugged old 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6D "Street Sweeper".

It's not without its downsides. The lightness comes from its construction, with both the barrel and mount made of plastic. You wanna remember that plastic mount if you have it mounted on a D3; with a regular metal-mount lens you can pick up even a heavy Nikon pro body by the lens, but I wouldn't do that with a 28-200G.

The small size comes from the lack of a manual aperture ring, as well as the lack of a Vibration Reduction system or an internal focusing motor. Unless your camera has an in-body focusing motor, this is a manual focus only lens. And even with autofocus it can be slow to travel from one extreme of the focusing range to the other.

But it gives great results, all things considered, and did I mention it's crazy small and light? Jim Grey reviews it here, Ken Rockwell here, and there's a fascinating piece by the gentleman who designed the lens here. 

I snapped the same Mercedes wagon with the Nikon 1 J1.

It really gives you an idea for the effect of sensor size on depth of field. The little 1" sensor J1 was shooting at f/4.8, while the big full-frame D700 was shooting at f/7.1, yet there's enough background blur with the latter to really make the subject pop.

I like the Nikon 1 J1, but I love the D700.

. 

A Tale of Two Nikons, Part One

I was out walkabout yesterday with a pair of Nikons.

One was sleek and modern looking, even slightly futuristic. When it came out in 2011, it was the wave of the future; compact and mirrorless with an electronic shutter and live view. 

The other was big and clunky, a stylistic throwback to Nikon's pro bodies of the late Nineties. While it made a splash on its release in 2008 for being a full-frame Nikon with a number on its price tag lower than the ones usually associated with a decent used car, it was actually an atavistic throwback.  

In 2008 a camera with a flappy mechanical mirror was like a late Cretaceous dinosaur; a magnificently evolved beast with no idea that there was a mirrorless asteroid only a decade away from smashing into the market.

Yet the mirrorless Nikon 1 J1 is a footnote, a failed branch on the Nikon evolutionary tree, while the D700 is a photographic Tyrannosaurus rex: extinct, but a legend.

Inside the body of the J1 is a 10MP CCD sensor by Aptina. It was a 1" sensor, a common size for luxo enthusiast compacts, but Nikon has to make up names, so it's a "CX" format sensor, to match "DX" (which everyone else calls APS-C) and the full-frame FX.

The 1" size is the biggest of the small sensors, in much the same way that Four Thirds is the smallest of the big sensors. It's physically large enough that with a large enough aperture you can actually get some background blur, and you can shoot as high as ISO 400 without horrific amounts of noise.

Hey, look at this Camaro Z28 I photographed with the J1!

The J1 was the cheaper half of a two-camera Nikon 1 ecosystem when it came out, with a more poshly-appointed V1 model above it. They used the same lenses and sensor, though.  

I had the kit lens on the camera for my walk. This is a 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 VR affair that collapses to a reasonably compact size. With this lens the J1 is pocketable, provided we're talking about the sort of roomy pockets found on coats and jackets, not the trouser sort.

Poking a button on the side of the lens barrel and giving the rubber-coated zoom ring a twist will extend the lens and power up the camera. Now you have a 27-82mm equivalent zoom lens that will focus anywhere from eight inches out to infinity (or the end of the universe, whichever comes first.)

I should point out that when I say that the J1 was the cheaper of the Nikon 1 duo, that doesn't mean it was, you know, inexpensive. The body and lens combo I was holding came as a kit for $650 back in 2011, which is the equivalent of nine hundo today. Even back then you could get a beginner DSLR kit for about that price; Nikon's own D3100 went for $699 with a kit zoom.

I also snapped the Camaro with the D700, which had a 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-G zoom lens parked in front of its twelve megapickle full-frame CMOS sensor... but we'll talk about the D700 and that swoopy little superzoom in the next post.

The Pentax Q-S1: A Review

Pentax iterated its Q-series of tiny small-sensor mirrorless cameras extremely quickly. The original Pentax Q was announced in June of 2011, and a new replacement followed each subsequent year until August 2014's debut of the Q-S1, which wound up being the terminal Q.

Internally, the Q-S1 was functionally identical to the preceding year's Q7, right down to the 12MP 1/1.7" BSI CMOS sensor.

The external controls and software menus were unchanged since the original Q, so you can refer to my review of that camera for a rundown of the buttons.

What was different was the plastic external shell, which had a more "rangefinder-esque" shape, rather than the "mini DSLR" look of the Q10 and Q7.

Alas, this meant that the finger grip disappeared from the front of the body. Not a huge loss, since you can pinch the whole camera comfortably between thumb and forefinger and the body weighs a minuscule 7.16 ounces, but still...

That's my Q-S1 with a full kit of 01 Standard Prime, 02 Standard Zoom, 06 Telephoto Zoom, and the 03 Fisheye. The whole ensemble easily stows in the Think Tank Event Messenger 100, which will normally hold a regular DSLR wearing a travel zoom and maybe two smallish lenses. With the Q system, you could pack a light lunch in there along with the camera and all the lenses.

Indiana World War Memorial, 03 Fisheye lens at ISO 3200

It held the price line from the previous model with a $499 price tag, while still offering forty different color combinations.

The Q-S1 lingered in the Pentax catalog for years without a replacement being announced, so when it was discontinued in 2019, that was pretty much the end of the line for the Tiniest Interchangeable Lens Mirrorless.

.

Mirrorless Pics: Ruby the dog with the Nikon 1 V2

Visiting family in Missouri for New Year's Eve, I got my cousin's pupper Ruby to sit for a portrait session with the Nikon 1 V2 & the 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2 lens.

I dearly love that glass.

Disc Pics: The Sony Mavica MVC-CD300

At the dawn of the digital era there was still uncertainty as to which storage media would dominate. Compact Flash took an early head start, but the storage wars raged for a few years there.

Sony actually had a successful line of early digital cameras that recorded photos and video on 1.44MB 3.5" floppy discs. Thing is, those floppy discs that could hold a reasonable number of 640x480 shots started looking pretty insufficient as sensor resolutions raced past the megapixel mark around the turn of the millennium.

Sony briefly experimented with cameras that used 8cm CD-R discs, beginning with the Mavica MVC-CD1000 which they announced in the summer of 2000. The CD1000 sported a two megapixel sensor which meant you could get better than seventy JPEG images on a 156MB CD-R, as opposed to the three 1.3MP images my Mavica FD88 can squeeze onto a floppy.

At the time, the big advantage that Sony's floppy disc and CD-R Mavicas offered was the ability to transfer photos to nearly any computer via sneakernet. With other digital cameras of the era, you either had to have a card reader, which were far from ubiquitous, or you had to laboriously cable the camera to the computer via USB. On the other hand, almost every desktop and laptop of the time had a floppy drive, a CD-ROM, or both.

Above is the Mavica CD300, a 3MP camera from early 2001, representing the second generation of Sony's CD-R cameras. As you can see, within a single year, the resolution of cameras had jumped by 50%, from the 2MP CD1000 to the 3MP CD300.

The handwriting was on the wall for disc cams almost from their launch. The last generation of CD-R Mavicas came out in February of 2003, by which time the 5MP CD500 was down to fifty JPEGs per disc and, unlike the constantly growing capacities of Compact Flash and SD cards, CD-R capacity was fixed. The disc era only lasted six years, from 1997 to 2003.

.