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D300 Availability

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Edward Bussa

Member
Yes, a D300 update from a Pentax shooter ... however, I DID shoot with a Nikon (still own it) during my film days... I'll just say there is a special place in my heart for the Nikon system...

I talked to an employee at a Ritz camera shop in Chicago and he mentioned he doesn't expect any D300's in the store to check out until March...

I was hoping, being in the big city, that I'd get to hold one... :( They didn't even have a D200, so I played with the D80 instead - not the same.
 
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nyschulte

New member
I don't know for general availabilty in Europe / Luxembourg, but i got a call from a small local dealer who order 3 D300 in august and they arrived wednesday. I got mine the same day in the evening :)

Nicolas
 
E

Edward Bussa

Member
August orders just arriving! ;)

I think the idea the clerk was trying to express is that the demand for the camera is such that there won't be display models available ( for the most part or at least for them ) until March.

I am not planning on ordering one. However, if I could hold one, then who knows! :)
 
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nyschulte

New member
Availability in Luxembourg

Hi,

A local dealer who ordered in August, just got 3 of them on Wednesday.
My D200 is in need for maintenance, so i got the D300 as they were not reserved.

Had no time to play around with high iso settings, did only 2 sessions in studio on LO1( iso 100 equivalent).

Ergonomics are good, battery life VERY good, usage with 70-200 AF-S VR fine even without vertical grip.
Rear LCD is gorgeous. O

Some examples can be seen here:
olya meets D300

I can not yet give any impressions about AF and metering.

Nicolas
 
V

Val Patel

New member
Hi,

Your D300 pictures are beautiful. Looks like you are very successfuly using digital backgrounds for your studio pictures. I'm interested to know how you handle flying hairs of people when extracting the image from one background and placing on the other.

Thanks and regards,

Val Patel
 
N

nyschulte

New member
Hello Val

I am actually using 2 different backgrounds in the 3 pictures i posted:

Grey and green background are both the same grey seamless paper. For the green i use a studio strobe with a green gel, the grey one is only the paper not lit at all, except for the spill from my main light.

Olya is lit by 3 studio strobes: on camera left a strip light, on camera right an Octa in front of the model and a hairlight behind the model and angeled down.

The third picture show the back wall of my studio. As is a small room in order to avoid spill light, i had the back and right wall painted in black, as well as the ceiling. Here again 3 studio strobes: same hairlight and strip light on the left, only angle and distance of strip light changed. On the right was another strip light in front of Olya and 90deg to camera.

There is of course post processing, but only on the model and not on the background.

Regards,

Nicolas

PS: Sorry Edward for hijacking your thread.
 
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E

Edward Bussa

Member
Don't sweat the hijacking - I do it all the time ;)

Seriously - thats one of the fun parts of conversation - never knowing where it'll end up!

Thanks for a little more info on your setup...
 
V

Val Patel

New member
Hello Nicolas,

I really appreciate your quick answer. I take it that you are not using chromakey background to replace it with digital backgrounds. I use green chromakey background and then try to replace it in photoshop with the digital backgrounds I purchased. I am finding it very difficult to get rid of the green from around the subjects and particulary the flyiing hairs are the toughest to deal with. If you or someone know how to deal with this issue, I can use the help.

Thanks and Regards,

Val
 
B

Bart_van_der_Wolf

pro member
Val Patel said:
I use green chromakey background and then try to replace it in photoshop with the digital backgrounds I purchased. I am finding it very difficult to get rid of the green from around the subjects and particulary the flyiing hairs are the toughest to deal with. If you or someone know how to deal with this issue, I can use the help.
Click to expand...

Val,

It will be almost impossible to remove the (semi-)specular colored reflection from the background on the subject edges, without a lot of desaturation. What I would try is to use a backlight/hairlight to overpower the background reflections (don't overdo it, just for separation from the background).

Bart
 
V

Val Patel

New member
Ron,

Thanks for the link. I read the description of Primatte 3.0 and look like it is a good tool. However my use of the chromakey background in my studio is only for occasional family shots. So, I can't really justify the $299 price tag.

Regards,

Val
 
V

Val Patel

New member
Hi Bart,

I like your suggestion of overexposing the background refection. I don't have a backlight or a hair light, but I have a nikon flash mounted on the ceiling behind the subject that goes on at the same time my two strobes in the front of the subject (one on left side and the other on the right side, each reflecting via umbrella).

The nikon flash is boucing off the light from the ceiling to the back of the subject. Looks like it is sending the light in the wrong direction. Should I be turning it 180 degree to bounce the light to the background to overexpose it?

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Val
 
B

Bart_van_der_Wolf

pro member
Val Patel said:
The nikon flash is boucing off the light from the ceiling to the back of the subject.
Click to expand...

This is essentially what I was suggesting. You'd want the specular reflection from the flash, not the colored ones from the background, reaching the camera. Maybe you need to boost that flash more, if possible, or put it closer to the optical axis (just outside the field-of-view or even behind the subject).

This isn't about overexposing the background, but making sure that the light that grazes the contours of the subject has a neutral color.

Bart
 
R

ron_hiner

New member
Bart -- where where you a year a go when I was messing about with Chromakey?

The secret to making good masks easily is having the background evenly and brightly lit. As Bart has noted, this will cause the background itself to become a light source and put a color cast on the edges of your subject. Its not bright, but its there.

The solution I came up with is to increase the distance between model and background -- it works, but it requires more real estate than I've got. It also means your chromakey panel has to be bigger.

Bart's solution is brilliant -- just add enough backlight/hairlight to the model to overcome the light from the background.

Ron

p.s. just found out my d3 ships tomorrow! wahoo! I promise not to post any pictures of the UPS driver, the unboxing process, or my neighbors' cats.
 
E

Edward Bussa

Member
So, Ron,

To address the most interesting part of your post ;)

What made you decide to Buy a Nikon D3 (as opposed to say one of the latest pro, full-frame Canon models)?
 
R

ron_hiner

New member
Edward Bussa said:
What made you decide to Buy a Nikon D3 (as opposed to say one of the latest pro, full-frame Canon models)?
Click to expand...

The short answer is that the latest, pro full-frame Canon models have a fatal flaw: None of my lenses and flash system components will work to their highest potential with the Canon's.

The camera body is only one part of the system. A million years ago, I went with the Nikon system. It works for me. Never had a reason to look to others.

This is my second digital pro body. I've been lucky so far in never having my D2x fail on me on a professional shoot. But one day I'll need that backup -- both primary and backup bodies should be similar in ergonomics and be able to share the same lens collection and other bits.

In the next month or so, the reviews will start to be published comparing the D3 with Canon's best. I'm going to ignore them all... both companies make great products... I'd be proud to own either. But not both.

Ron
 
E

Edward Bussa

Member
I've lost track of the Nikon digital product line... Is there a D3x to be expected in the near future?

This will purportedly have increased resolution with most likely increased high-iso noise?

Do you have any insight or am I just totally in left field?

PS: I just looked up D3x and discovered that was the pre-production moniker for the D3?
 
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ron_hiner

New member
Nikon has not announced any cameras since the D300 and the D3 announcements in August. You can be sure, however, that their engineers are working on the next generation. Whether it will be called a D3x -- and how it will different that the current lineup -- it top secret at Nikon. Anyone that knows for sure isn't talking.

Having said that, there are a lot of rumors floating about that the next logical camera is a high-pixel density version of the D3. Full frame/FX format, with 18-24 mpx resolution.

Rumors were flying about the D3 for the better part of a year before it was announced... and when it was announced, it surprised everyone! Most of the rumors were just dead wrong. The ones that were right were probably a result of lucky guesses.

Ron
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Anyone know the flash synch speeds of the Nikon DSLR's. The D40 is supposed to be pretty high but is this reflected in the D300 and the D3?

Also to what extent does this make any difference to you?

Asher
 
E

Edward Bussa

Member
I know the D3/00 is 1/250th. Does the D40 use a gated sensor as the shutter?

I think the D70 used a gated shutter and suffered some image quality issues when pointed towards the sun?

At least this is what I recall from my reading somewhere a long time ago...
 
J

John Sheehy

New member
Asher Kelman said:
Anyone know the flash synch speeds of the Nikon DSLR's. The D40 is supposed to be pretty high but is this reflected in the D300 and the D3?

Also to what extent does this make any difference to you?
Click to expand...

Not a Nikon user, but my Canons sync at 1/200 and 1/250, and I consider that a big problem. Using the special high-speed sync mode of my flashes is an option, but one with serious compromises. Guide numbers go down the toilet, and consequently batteries drain super fast, and the high-speed synch doesn't freeze motion as well, and the moving subject may actually be sheared. I really need 1/400 to 1/500 normal sync for shooting birds with a slow long tele and TC combo.
 
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