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Ditching nikon?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Well, those who ditched Nikon to go for Canon, did you regret and return now that Nikon has such advanced cameras and new telephoto lenses?

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
I was beginning to wonder if I hadn't dropped into the wrong forum here. All this stuff about brands and cameras! Very suburban indeed.
So we need a small, light camera that does everything, costs nothing and runs forever.
I think that's called memory.
Next to that you put up with what you buy. None of this makes a gret deal of difference if you are **** photographer, which you are certainly NOT Fahim.
I too am concerned about weight as I grow old. But the challenge is still there and the pride of carting 20 kg of gear to some remote place keeps me going.
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
I was beginning to wonder if I hadn't dropped into the wrong forum here. .....

Me too Tom, me too! It is always a welcome surprise when old friends drop in.
As to Nikon, I shall keep it. It is an old and reliable friend without left af problems. And its demands on
hw is much less than 36 mp.

Take care Tom, and glad you looked in.

Best regards.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
Me too Tom, me too! It is always a welcome surprise when old friends drop in.
As to Nikon, I shall keep it. It is an old and reliable friend without left af problems. And its demands on
hw is much less than 36 mp.

Take care Tom, and glad you looked in.

Best regards.

I'm always here, Fahim. Not always seen or heard, as my mother would have suggested.
I, too have been a Nikon owner for 40 years now along with a few other reliables and not so reliables. One often stays with what they are used to as I did. It's been a good relationship although 'love' doesn't come to mind. More like understanding. I now own nothing but Nikon and that's probably more from convenience rather than preference.
I was about to buy a 6x6 or 6x4.5 digital and decided against it for 2 reasons. They are the price of a small house and I have run out of children to sell; they are too heavy for these weiry bones to lug around the places I still want to go. So I bought the D800 and I'm quite impressed. Physically, it suits me perfectly, it's dynamic range is better than any dslr I've used so far, it's very functional and even lighter than the D700. That's about as much technical advantage as my type of photography needs. I'm too sloppy with technique and craftsmanship to worry too much about perfection. I'm the sort of bloke who uses his iPhone at a wedding and his D3 to hold the door closed on a windy day. True.
Your photos here are those I most look forward to seeing. You do tend to get a bit deep with the philosophy from time to time but, hey, I can live with that if you can.
Whatever you buy will be well centered in you hands, my friend.
Cheers
Tom.
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
For what it is worth, I find that the weight difference between the D700 and the D800 makes the D800 surprisingly easier to carry. More so than the figures on paper would make one believe. Maybe the redesigned grip contributes to the feeling as well.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
I can agree, Jerome. Even my non photographer wife, Christine, said the 'new toy' as she affectionately calls it, looks sleeker and feels lighter. I asked her when she had picked it up. She said she needed something to hold her papers down in her art studio and it was the closest thing. I love her contempt For what I do. It's so .... Personal!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I can agree, Jerome. Even my non photographer wife, Christine,

That implies more than one! Has she figured that out, LOL? BTW, do you feel a need to tell her you're buying a new lens or body or they just arrive?

I'd love your report on the nikon D800 as it has moved into the realm of MF cameras. Are you seeing any downsides to those small pixels. Put another way, is this camera any less capable than the like of the Pentax MF 40MP digital camera or you haven't bothered to do comparisons , except of course for price.

Asher
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
...
So I bought the D800 and I'm quite impressed. Physically, it suits me perfectly, it's dynamic range is better than any dslr I've used so far, it's very functional and even lighter than the D700. That's about as much technical advantage as my type of photography needs. I'm too sloppy with technique and craftsmanship to worry too much about perfection. I'm the sort of bloke who uses his iPhone at a wedding and his D3 to hold the door closed on a windy day. True.
...
Cheers
Tom.

Congratulations Tom. Enjoy it in good health.
I am the sort of person who skips weddings altogether ( except for one! ).

Best regards.
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
For what it is worth, I find that the weight difference between the D700 and the D800 makes the D800 surprisingly easier to carry. More so than the figures on paper would make one believe. Maybe the redesigned grip contributes to the feeling as well.

Jerome, I hear rumors of the D600..I shall wait for Photokina. Who knows what else might be announced.

Kind regards.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
That implies more than one! Has she figured that out, LOL? BTW, do you feel a need to tell her you're buying a new lens or body or they just arrive?

I'd love your report on the nikon D800 as it has moved into the realm of MF cameras. Are you seeing any downsides to those small pixels. Put another way, is this camera any less capable than the like of the Pentax MF 40MP digital camera or you haven't bothered to do comparisons , except of course for price.

Asher

Only one, Asher. That is sufficient for any man.
Christine openly encourages me to buy what I want. And, no, I don't lend her out.
My mate has a Pentax 6x4.5 and wanted to sell it to me. As tempting as it might have been its just too bloody big for my arthritic hands. I'm at the stage of my life where physical considerations are mor important than any technical benefits. For the same reason I only put things on the top shelves of the fridge and if I drop something on the floor it stays there (which is not hard since I am a bloke and that action is genetically embedded).
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
I'd love your report on the nikon D800 as it has moved into the realm of MF cameras. Are you seeing any downsides to those small pixels. Put another way, is this camera any less capable than the like of the Pentax MF 40MP digital camera or you haven't bothered to do comparisons , except of course for price.

I have not done a direct comparison between the D800 and the Pentax, but I have compared the D800 and the Sony A900. The D800 has slightly higher noise levels at the pixel level at iso 400 and the gain in resolution can only be achieved when using a tripod or relatively high shutter speeds. I would say that, for practical photography, a plateau has been reached.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
I have not done a direct comparison between the D800 and the Pentax, but I have compared the D800 and the Sony A900. The D800 has slightly higher noise levels at the pixel level at iso 400 and the gain in resolution can only be achieved when using a tripod or relatively high shutter speeds. I would say that, for practical photography, a plateau has been reached.

And for impractical photography there is no plateau, Jerome, except the one you set yourself. The mate who has the Pentax also has the Sony 900 and curses the day he bought it. Thats because he's a tech head and bought the camera for all the wrong reasons. he thought it would give him better photos and impress people. he failed on both accounts. I told him he would have been better buying a new suit and getting a haircut.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
And for impractical photography there is no plateau, Jerome, except the one you set yourself.

Too true! I surprised myself tonight in having selected a picture of my wife she needed immediately for some publication honoring her. So I had to search for something that was formal and really superb. All the most recent pics have grandkids all over her, rubber duckies in the pool or birthday cakes! Finally I found the perfect image. It was from 2004, LOL! Good thing I had used the 5D II, the 5D or perhaps the 1D Mark II I thought to myself.

Instead, to my amazement, it as from the Canon S70 digicam. All of 7.1 MP, 1/18 CCD, 2.3 micron pixel pitch, quite humble by today's standards for any serious compact. It does suffer from a less forgiving signal to noise ratio, but noise can be cleaned up to give a professional level picture. So the camera didn't limit my ability to make a good picture, only how one points it! 10 minutes later that picture went off for the publication and I was the man!!! No other picture could have made my wife happier!

The mate who has the Pentax also has the Sony 900 and curses the day he bought it.
Really, he could mail it to me and I'll pay the postage!

I think there might be a good justification for the MF camera for pictures that are destined to be printed larger than 20x24" and viewed up close in a gallery. I am trying to make such wall-sized prints!

I'd love to have a Pentax 645D at ~$10,500 with a lens, one lens would be fine! However, I should be able to do the same with sheet film. So that's what I'm about to try. First get the images right with my 5DII and then use my poor mans 100MP camera, sheet film! Of course, I can't shoot more than 20 images in a session instead of 200, but I might be able to use the digital camera to get things right. Even if I have the film processed at the lab, 20 shots would be $200 plus film $200 and if one does that 10 times a year, that's $4,000 tops. If one has good craft, this should easily match or exceed work with a $50,000 Phase One system.

With the "cat's whiskers"-Digital MF back, one can gradually approach what one wants and make all the mistakes that happen with no punishment. Using film, however, means either one has wasted one's time or else aced it. For me, it's the most tempting dilemma to have.

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
And for impractical photography there is no plateau, Jerome, except the one you set yourself.

Probably I should have explained myself better. What I meant is that if you want to shoot handheld, that will set a practical limit at the resolution one can expect from a picture and that limit is between 20 and 30 mpix. Interestingly, the hand-held pictures from the A900 often show a little more detail than the ones from the D800, because the A900 is stabilized.

Of course, in practice, that limit is high enough, because 20+ mpix is almost enough for A2 sized prints examined with a magnifier. I am discussing the limits of resolution because resolution is the main selling point of the D800, not because so much detail is needed.

Obviously, the "limit" can be broken. If one needs higher detail levels, just use a tripod. Or, in other words, if one needs medium or large format resolution, one should start to handle the camera as if it was a large format one with a more controlled setup and environment. There is nothing new here, there is a reason why the Hasselblad and the Mamiyas of last century were so often used on a tripod with a studio with strobes.

But there is also a reason why so many people used small format cameras handheld: without a tripod, one can quickly change the position of the camera, go to places where setting up a tripod is inconvenient or prohibited, be less conspicuous and generally does not end up with the same pictures.
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
If one needs the resolution ( or whatever ) of a MF then one should use a MF. Period. Sensor dimensions play a crucial role here. One cannot use a 35mm sensor/film size and expect results to that from the sensor/film size of the MF. It is expected that in each case the best techniques of capture have been used.

35mm might be good enough. But not equal to MF. Physics, unfortunately, does play its part. Whatever one might want otherwise.

One might be surprised at how big an excellent print size can be achieved even with 6 mp.

I generally do not carry magnifying glasses in exhibitions or when viewing prints. There is a distance from which one should view prints of different sizes. I am not playing Sherlock Holmes,
but rather enjoying someone's work ( and often mine ).
 

Grant Kernan

New member
Asher is correct,
The 14-24 is absolutely stellar. Some canon users are willing to sacrifice automation to use this lens with an adapter. The D700 is excellent and the D800 amazing. If you down sample noise is diminished.
The extra res asks a whole lot from your optics and your whole process. you can handhold using all the proper techniques. But instead of 1/focal length you must double or triple the focal length.
The crazy thing is how many cameras are in the world now. A great picture is still much more than gear.
A friend once said "Be careful of sharp images of fuzzy ideas"
 
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