Monthly Archives: March 2012

 

This has been a great week!  The surprise performance of the brand spanking new D800 certainly has enhanced those feelings, but honestly the fellowship with some great friends trumps even that!!  Above from left to right; some guy that wandered into our picture (o.k. the pilgrim), my boss and friend Bill Pekala, General Manager, David Lee, Senior Executive Vice President of Nikon Inc., my freind, Scott Kelby, founder and President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals and Kelby Media, and Kelby Training, and probably a bunch of other stuff!!  José  “Fuji” Ramos, aviation photographer extraordinaire!  Scott Diussa, my boss and wonderful friend and our great repair tech and friend Francis Yeh.

 

It is a rare gift to spend your life working with such great people.  I’ve known Bill Pekala for, probably, 30 years and it has been a honor to work for him at Nikon.  Bill is a truly wonderful photographer, who has little time to practice, but when he get time to get back up to speed he shoots killer stuff, as he did this week!  David is obviously one of Nikon’s top executives in the U.S., but a really down to earth, nice guy and loads of fun to hang out and shoot with!  I couldn’t say enough about Scott Kelby, talented beyond belief, and a joy to spend time with! In recent years Scott has become an extraordinary shooter!  Personally, Scott has a great deal for me and I really appreciate him!  I first met José a few years ago and really like this young man, he is an exceptional aviation shooter and we have worked a lot of Nikon events together and he’s always a pleasure to work with!  Scott Diussa is my direct boss at Nikon and over the last several years we’ve developed a great friendship, Scott is fine young man, with many talents including, photography, video, and he’s a great guitar player as well.  Scott and I share a number of common interests and he’s been a great person to answer to at Nikon.  Francis Yeh is one of our top Repair Techs in Melville, our corporate headquarters.  Francis is a very pleasant guy and always takes great care of our customers!  I always enoy working and event with him, and we’ve done a number, including the Kentucky Derby and the Breeder’s Cup horse races.

 

So why did I go into such detail about all the occupants of the photograph above?   I truly believe that  one of God’s greatest blessings are friends and associates who make our lives far better than they would have been without them!  These guys and many others that I get to spend my work life with certainly have contributed greatly to my life.  Even though we have a lot of fun, we work hard too, but getting to be with these guys makes the work a lot more fun!  I really miss my family when I have to travel, but then, God has given me a whole new family to appreciate when I’m not with my family, at home…..

 

Thank you Father for your countless blessings!

 

the pilgrim

 

A few last shots from my glorious week with the D800!  Today I concentrated on patterns and color!

 

 

 

 

 

 

One final funny story.  The other day David Lee wanted to go to the Pilot’s Mall and didn’t know where it was, so I drove him over in the golf cart.  David just got his pilot’s license so he was like a kid in a candy store.  He stopped by the watch counter (they have great pilot’s watches and you guys know how much I love watches…).  So he selected a watch he wanted to see and I looked over his shoulder and saw that it was a  Torgoen Chronograph, a very highly respected watch.  I looked again to see the watch was on sale for $189. it normally sells for $425.  I had just seen it online the other night for the $425 price!  To make a long story short, David bought one, I bought one and then Bill Pekala saw ours and rushed over and bought one, finally Scott Diussa fell victim as well, so there we were all wearing the same watch, had to take a picture!!  Below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am starting to feel like and idiot, for days now I’ve been running tests that have not turned out how I expected them to turn out!  I was not sure that 36 mega pixels was going to be as impressive as it has turned out to be!  I was sure sure that packing 36 million pixels on a 35mm size FX sensor was not going to work so well in the noise department.  I selected an airplane hanging from the ceiling in our work area in the Nikon sponsored Sun n’ Fun Media Center, and carefully shot identical shots of the plane at ISO’s 100 – 200 – 400 – 800 – 1600 – 3200 – 6400 and 128,000.  The image above is at ISO 1oo directly below are examples of a cropped section of the original files at each ISO.  You may notice that I jump from ISO 100 the first shot, to ISO 800!  What happened to ISO 200 & 400?  No need to show them, they are identical in every way to the ISO 100 shot, yes no noise change of any consequence until 800 and even then I think the noise is only very slightly greater!

 

ISO 100 Crop

ISO 800 Crop

 

ISO 1600 Crop

 

ISO 3200 Crop

 

ISO 6400 Crop

 

The D800 goes to High 1 which is 128,000, but it was noisy enough to not bother showing it, however I think the D800 is spectacular out to 3200, and very usable at 6400.  My personal stsandard for noise is any ISO that will not require noise reduction later is usable for me.  Any ISO that does require noise reductions software, in the past, meant some significant sharpness would be lost in the process of processing the noise.  Not true with the D800!   The D800 files are so incredibly sharp to start with, a small loss of sharpness is almost not noticeable!  So I have to run over to the restaurant for another slice of humble pie!

 

I shot some more examples this morning and the ability to blow up these files is nothing short of amazing!  Enjoy!

 

 

 

And now another tight crop this time image one is full frame, image two is a 100% view!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Well it’s day two and the thrill has not worn off!  If anything, it’s intensifying!  My intention was to further test the High ISO noise, but that will have to wait for tonight.  This morning, Scott Diussa, Bill Pekala, Francis Yeh, and I went back out to the warbirds area to shoot some more, I continued to try and learn “the” camera.  I attempted this morning to compare the D4 and D800 and work further on learning how the gradation works with this camera.  Above is a full frame jpeg fine image of a Mustang’s tail.  Notice below how smooth gradations are  (smooth transition of tones), in the severe crop directly form the image above.  Also, keep in mind you’re viewing 72 dpi images of full 300 dpi full files!!!!

 

 

Another set of image and cropped area:  Notice the smoothness of the metal tones in the crop!  Nothing short of amazing….

 

 

 

 

Another great thing about this much resolution is the ability to crop if needed.  I am a big believer in filling the frame in the camera, but some subjects simply can’t be captured without extremely long lenses, below are a couple of shots one straight out of the cameral the second cropped to show just how much detail holds, these images were made hand held by Scott Diussa, D800 with the 70-300 AFS-VR. This example  is simply amazing, I can say that since I didn’t shoot it!  So can you get sharp images hand holding the D800,  1/250th of  a second at f 13, zoom setting at 240 mm.

 

Wow, Holy Cow, Holy  Moly, I’m loving this camera….

 

Today the Lord blessed me mightily when Carl Turner came over to shoot some and hang out, what a great brother!!  If that were not enough I met a young man at the Media Center which Nikon is sponsoring, name Brian Kissinger, his mission after two bouts with brain cancer is raising money for research nd spreading his great love for our Lord, a great young man and a real blessing in my day!!   You can check out his ministry at   http://www.brainsflight.com/

 

Be blessed and expect more!

 

the pilgrim

 

 

Well, I’m ready to eat a big slice of humble pie, maybe a whole pie!  After one morning out shooting the D800 my reservations are washed away!  The camera simply makes files that are superior to anything I’ve ever seen in 43 years of photography, period.  Is it perfect?  We will see, because much more testing needs to be done, but I can tell you from one mornings shoot, I am going to own this camera, actually I already do, Nikon will never see this one again, I expect to be writing a check!  So let’s get down to business on this bad boy, and I do mean “bad” boy…..

 

So far I have determined that 36 mega-pixels “does” make a huge difference.  The biggest gain is, of course, resolution, but even more important the gradation (smoothness of tones across the scale)!  The images below show the full image, (all are jpeg fine, at ISO 100 shot from a tripod with a cable release ), followed by tight crops of the original image, prepare to be impressed!

 

 

 

So is there any penalty?  Not really.  The files are big (duh!) and they move through the computer slower than you’re used to, but not as slow as I had feared, I feel like it took about 2.5 times longer to crunch a 5 stop HDR, but when the image is finished, it’s worth the wait.  I will do some testing on how the noise looks at high ISO, but my partner in crime from Nikon, Scott Diussa, shot some stuff at 2,500 this morning and they were surprisingly clean, very little noise!  Last night I shot a hand held image in the room at ISO 1600 and was shocked, I had feared that with all that resolution hand holding would be iffy, not so, the image shot at 1/8oth of second was sharp!

 

 

So, tomorrow it’s more testing, or maybe just having a lot more fun, again!!!!!!  Tomorrow more low light, High ISO tests, and more.  Needless to say, I’m more than very impressed!

 

the pilgrim

 

Update:  After a full day of editing and processing D800 images, I have a few suggestions;

 

1.  If you buy a D800 go ahead and get some larger cards, 64 and 128 might work great, at least 32 & 64 gigs.

 

2.  Upping the Ram in your computer will also speed things along, I’m guessing 8 gigs will be enough, but then you never have “enough”  RAM!

 

3.  If you have not gotten a solid tripod, head, and cable release, it’s time!

 

For now that about covers it, more info to come!