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Author Topic: D-SLR chat Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-08-2009 08:58 PM                     So the Canons are boasting more pixels...on would think they are sharper images, no? What is the story on that? I see nothing high praise on the D700 and that also comes from professionals...the ones that should have the critical eye. Steve  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-08-2009 10:08 PM                     I thought the D700 was generally a well reviewed, well recommended camera. DP review gave it a "highly recommended" rating (they also gave Canon's latest bodies such as the EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 50D a similar "highly recommended" rating). The D700 costs a good bit less than a D3, but has many of the same features. The only obvious complaint I can see about the D700 is its relatively low pixel count compared to something like the Nikon D3x (which has a 24.5 million pixel full frame sensor). The Canon line of bodies does boast more pixels, but you have to weigh the pros and cons of cramming more pixels into a cropped APS-C sensor. When the pixels get too small, they may not be getting enough light on them and image quality can take a hit. The EOS 50D has 4.7µm sized pixels. The new EOS 7D has even smaller 4.3µm pixels. The pixels on my old Digital Rebel XTi were 5.7µm, but even though its pixels were larger its ISO performance wasn't any good above ISO 400. Also when the pixels on a camera sensor get too small, they can amplify the effects of diffraction when a lens is stopped down to smaller apertures. The Canon EOS 5D Mark II has a sensor very similar to that of Canon's top of the line EOS 1Ds Mark III camera -a full frame 21 megapixel sensor with 6.4µm sized pixels in a gap free design. Except the sensor in the EOS 5D Mark II has better ISO performance than the 1Ds Mark III (and shoots 1080p HD video). The 1Ds Mark III has a faster frame rate, many more auto focus points, two memory card slots and some other features Canon seems to reserve only for its 1-series bodies. Compared side to side the EOS 5D Mark II beats Canon's new 7D in terms of image quality. I think a big reason for that is the EOS 5D Mark II has pixels 148% larger than the 7D and it is using the full view of EF series lenses rather than cropping out the center.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-08-2009 10:16 PM                     Folks, Lots of pixels do not guarantee good photos. Only a good photographer makes good photos. Give him a box camera and he's go all he needs to generate award winning pictures.... Mark  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-08-2009 11:15 PM                     The same can be said for any tool that demands skill and/or creative ability. I can't expect to play golf anywhere near as well as Tiger Woods if I buy the same brand of clubs he uses. I just wish people weren't so stupid about that point when it comes to computer graphics programs. Merely owning a copy of Photoshop, even legally purchased, does not make anyone an artist. Still, it's pretty nice having a camera boasting a high native resolution. That comes in very handy for large format and giant format printing projects such as vehicle wraps and billboards. Steve, I forgot to mention the Nikon D300. That may actually be the body you want to get. It costs around $1800. I still like the merits of a full frame sensor like what the D700 has. The D300 has a crop body sensor, but has lot of other really nice features, such as a 51 point auto focus system. I'm not sure what to think about Sony's DSLR system. Canon and Nikon have both been around for a long time and seem like safer bets than a new DSLR equipment line.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-09-2009 06:57 AM                     Bobby...there should be a "not" in my earlier post...the D700 seems to have ONLY high praises...hence my interest. Hasn't the D300 been out a while? It would seem like the D700 has been out long enough to establish itself but is new enough to be very current. I'm thinking I'm going to have to go and play with them a bit to see what is worth it to me. Steve  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-09-2009 08:27 AM                     I think the D300 was released late in 2008, while the D700 was released late summer 2008.  |  IP: Logged Galen Murphy-Fahlgren Master Film Handler Posts: 405 From: Canton, MI, USA Registered: Oct 2007 posted 10-09-2009 02:11 PM                     The D300 and the D3 came out at the same time, which, if I recall correctly, was early 2008, after that February trade show. Of course, you couldn't get your hands on one for several months, but that is always the way of these things. I don't remember exactly when the D700 came out, because I stopped following cameras obsessively, but my guess would be August '08, with a subsequent demand-induced delay in availability. According to Nikon's website, there is an S version of the D300, which is something to look at. I, however, preferred the original D70 over the D70S, so an S is not a guarantee of a better camera. Given that they made an S version of the D300, it won't be replaced by a D400 anytime in the near future, so you might as well get one now if it meets your needs. The D700 is a hell of a camera, but it and the D300 are not similar cameras, so the D300S is a perfectly current camera in its class. That there are newer cameras at other price points doesn't diminish the validity of other models.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-17-2009 01:09 PM                     Just to come full circle...I bought the D90, as noted in another thread. So far...really nice pictures...now I'm trying to learn the camera before the vacation. And what to do with all of the pictures when they are shot. I plan to shoot "RAW" pictures and then convert to JPEG only when necessary (distribution to friends/family/web...whatever). Some have said to just keep buying SD cards and leave them there. Some have said to do that and also buy HDs to just store pictures...if the HD fails (or when the HD fails) use the SD cards as the back up...or I suppose I could burn CDs/DVDs but I haven't investigated how many pictures fit on those media. Each picture seems to be in the 10-12MB range, thus far. Probably DVD media would be better than CD which would store what? <60 pictures? CD/DVDs also are not "forever" I suppose I could have them outputted to film...that will last Steve  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 10-17-2009 02:02 PM                     I ended up buying "Nikon D80 Digital Field Guide" by David D. Busch after I purchased my camera a couple of years ago. It contains a lot of photography basics for the beginner, but it also had some information specific to my camera that wasn't even in the stupid owner's manual. The publisher has a "field guide" series book for the D90, and Busch has a guide for the D90 as well, both available on Amazon.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 10-17-2009 02:12 PM                        I wouldn't keep them in the RAW format. There isn't even a standard for it (it actually varies camera by camera) and your RAW decoding software may eventually become obsolete. Store them in the TIFF format or similar. It will take a whole bunch of space, but I don't think TIFF will be obsolete for at least 10 or 15 more years. Delete the shitty shots to conserve space. Also, now matter how you store them, you will have to keep moving them around as that format will eventually be obsolete. You think SD cards and their readers will be around forever? Guess again. No matter what you do, you're fucked.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-17-2009 02:35 PM                     I shoot everything in RAW format, then convert all photos to "lossess" JPEG (ummm, yeah) for quick viewing. Until such time that I see Photoshop stops being able to decode the RAW formats, I'm not too worried. I keep them stored on a RAID5 NAS system, which automatically backs up to another RAID5 NAS system once a week. The primary NAS also backs up to an external USB hard drive every so often and I also burn DVD media, both of which I keep in a safety deposit box. Why so paranoid? The photos can never be obtained again. Its not like a ripped copy of some music CD. I can always go buy another CD to re-obtain the content. Any photos I shoot with my camera are one-of-a-kind and have to be treated as such.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-17-2009 03:01 PM                     I tend to store art files and digital camera photos on two external hard discs. In case one of them fails, the other drive is there as a backup. Optical discs can be good for backup purposes, but generally speaking the higher you go in disc storage capacity the more likely it is for the disc to have errors in writing. A CD-R stands up to scuffs and scratches better than a DVD-R. The differences are likely to become more extreme as 25GB and 50GB BD-R/RW media becomes more affordable and practical. Optical discs tend to accumulate and take up lots of space. quote: Joe Redifer I wouldn't keep them in the RAW format. There isn't even a standard for it (it actually varies camera by camera) and your RAW decoding software may eventually become obsolete. Store them in the TIFF format or similar. It will take a whole bunch of space, but I don't think TIFF will be obsolete for at least 10 or 15 more years. Anyone who owns a recent version of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom can look at Adobe's "Digital Negative" DNG format as an alternative to storing RAW files. The DNG format will preserve the usual features you get in a RAW file, such as color temperature, etc. The benefit is having the file stored in a more standardized format. RAW camera files are 100% proprietary. The DNG files will open in Adobe Camera RAW, just like a regular RAW file. Additionally, you can embed the original RAW camera data in the file too, but at the cost of a bigger file. The Adobe DNG format appears to be a little more efficient in terms of file sizes. Perhaps the flavor of LZW compression being used is better than what most cameras use. Adobe has a free DNG Converter utility that will read camera RAW data from many of the latest DSLR cameras. This is especially useful if you own an older copy of Photoshop. The utility will let you save the converted DNG files to be read by whatever version of Adobe Camera RAW you have, rather than requiring you to have the latest version that only comes with the latest version of Photoshop or Lightroom. Regarding TIFF, the format has been around for a long time, but I don't see it vanishing anytime soon. The only flavor of TIFF I could see threatened at all is the layered variety since it is centric to Adobe applications. I just use Photoshop PSD or PSB instead.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 10-17-2009 10:00 PM                     I've used SLRs since the '60s but now that we have electronic cameras with electronic displays, what is the sense to the mirror and all the related optics when a small display just inside the viewfinder would accomplish the same result without the expensive, noisy and troublesome mechanical junk? I believe most people find the clack reassuring more than anything else since even cheap point and shoot cameras have fake mechanical noise available and it seems most use opt for it. Same for mechanical shutters, yeah I know why they still exist. But when technology makes it practical they should go too. What's wrong with a camera that can't be heard half a block away? Except for the imaging systems these things are anachronisms straight out of 1938.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 10-17-2009 10:27 PM                        I'm pretty sure my DSLR "clacks" for a reason. It clacks when I turn on or off the Live View or whatever it is called (which REALLY helps dialing in precise focus compared to a wimpy viewfinder). Something is physically moving inside the camera. Whether that is there to impress onlookers by my photographic 1337-ness or if it has a real intended purpose is unknown to me, but I assume the latter. However I am always amused by cell phone cameras that use a digitized clack sound for their shutters. My old Canon camera was pretty quiet and you could only hear a small click of a shutter (no motor) and it still took fantastic pictures. I would like the noisy motor explained to me, tough (sounds almost like a fast zipper).  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-18-2009 12:05 AM                     Some of the newest DSLR bodies have "silent" live view modes to minimize the "clack" of reflex mirrors flipping up and down and shutters opening and closing. But it gets the camera only so quiet. quote: Bill Enos I've used SLRs since the '60s but now that we have electronic cameras with electronic displays, what is the sense to the mirror and all the related optics when a small display just inside the viewfinder would accomplish the same result without the expensive, noisy and troublesome mechanical junk? Because the electronic displays are still mostly crap compared to what you can see through a mirror-reflex viewfinder. Even the very best DSLR camera bodies won't give you a full view of what's happening in the lens, at least not all that easily. Some of the LCD panels crop the view of what the camera is actually seeing. Many don't have the necessary level of resolution to let you know if you really have sharp focus. The LCD panel on my Canon EOS 5D Mark II has a whopping 920,000 pixels in a 3" display, but I don't trust it. In bright daylight the display is too dim and then in low light the display shows the images brighter than they will look when photographed. In a way that's probably good, because it forces me to just look at the histogram instead and expose the image as far to the right as possible without blowing out the highlights. Depth of field preview works better when you're looking at it for real through the viewfinder. You won't be able to easily tell the difference between f/2.8, f/4.0 or f/7.1 when looking at it on a LCD panel on the back of the camera body. Regardless, some companies are trying. Epson put out some press release stuff regarding new high temperature poly-silicon panels that will offer "the resolution fidelity" required to replace optical viewfinders on DSLR bodies. The problem is these panels have only a 800x600 native resolution. Yep. I think it's crap. We're gonna stick with the optical viewfinder instead. Oh yeah, sure the reflex mirror thing can be a PITA sometimes. But that's why you use the mirror lock-up function and "live view" after you have set your focus, aperture, white balance, etc.  |  IP: Logged

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