Category Archives: Photography

In praise of Black Dog

Photography

Keeping the grey cells working.

Churchill called it his Black Dog, referring to his recurring depressions occurring, as often as not, during his long period out of power in the Thirties. A wanton Europe, choosing to disregard his warnings as the blatherings of a warmonger, was the catalyst.

And while the man most certainly is my hero, it’s nothing to do with politics, a subject which leaves me cold. Rather it’s because I greatly admire his liberal spirit which, despite a grounding in seemingly extraordinary privilege, was ever his guiding principle, suitably governed by a doting and caring spouse. Throw in a work ethic one can only dream of emulating and you have a man for all time.

I write of this because I, too, am a victim of Black Dog, but not for one moment do I ask for sympathy. In fact, I consider that rabid canine one of the great drivers in life. I owe a great deal to that foul hound. You see, the only way I know to avoid his ravenous appetite is to work. Work hard. Keep busy. Do whatever your limited talents permit, but always work. Hard. And I don’t mean any of that nonsense where you run around in circles in footer bags trying to kick a ball. I mean exercising that worthless mass between your ears, bestowed upon you by your parents.

I was reflecting on this when contemplating my new-found enthusiasm for full frame, this time realized by in the clutches of the Nikon D700. ‘Been there, done that’ with the fabulous Canon 5D, of course. Hate the weight, mass, ugliness, noise, gaucheness. But there’s no denying the effortless quality. So I didn’t exactly go crazy with the pocketbook/wallet, but have in short order accumulated the following:

  • Nikon D700 body, used
  • 16-24mm Alphabet-Soup Nikon lens, also makes tea and World Peace, new
  • 50mm f/2 Nikkor-H pre-AI MF (my ‘David Hemmings‘ lens), used
  • 85mm f/1.8D Nikkor Auto everything, used
  • 200mm f/4 Nikkor pre-AI MF, used, the cost of a few Big Macs
  • 300mm f/4.5 ED IF AIS MF, well used

And the need to justify the existence of that little lot is what drives me and keeps Black Dog at bay. Most victims pay for shrinks. I buy some new gear and bang away. And when it gets old I dump it, starting again.

It’s a heck of a lot more fun and cheaper than paying a guy who asks you what you really feel.

Daffs. No more Black Dog. D700, 300mm f/4.5 Nikkor wide open.

And to avoid infecting you with BD, I promise to publish no more flower pictures.

D700 in use

Nikon bodies

Competent.

Let me get the grumbling out of the way first. I dislike SUVs. And the D700, with my newly arrived 16-35mm f/4 zoom is an SUV among cameras. It’s large, noisy, crass, threatening, bulky, heavy and few need it. Like an SUV, its owner is likely a poseur. One extols off-road capabilities when he will never leave asphalt. The other boasts of professional gear quality when he would get better results with a point-and-shoot. For most, the D700 fulfills ‘wants’ not ‘needs’. And while the SUV is a pain in the neck when you cannot see past one in traffic, the D700 with a ‘pro’ zoom is quite literally a pain in the neck after you have schlepped it around for a few hours, as I did yesterday.

The newly arrived 16-35mm VR lens is expensive and bulky, though far lighter than you would expect for its volume. Once you remind yourself that it replaces the 16-18mm, 21mm, 24mm, 28mm and 35mm lenses in your kitbag, the 1.5 lb. weight becomes bearable, especially when you throw in the (arguably unnecessary) Vibration Reduction and prime lens quality at all focal lengths and apertures. Construction quality, fit and finish match the optics. Tight, well made, no toy. The lens does not change length when zoomed or focused, which is just as well as it sticks out 6.5″ with the hood attached. Strangely, this confers a certain stealthiness, as observers think you are using a telephoto, not an ultrawide zoom. I detailed my reasoning behind the 16-35mm + 85mm outfit decision earlier, and the 85mm, bought used, has already shown itself to be a sterling performer. For general purpose use, other than sports or wildlife, this is a powerful outfit which keeps bulk and weight down, in as much as that is possible with FF DSLRs.

As a street snapshotter where you want to get really close to people, the D700 is a joke compared to the stealth and agility of my Panasonic G3. The latter focuses faster (yes, faster), is far quieter and its diminutive size makes it extremely stealthy. Keep it dangling from your neck and it’s rarely noticed. Keep the D700 with the zoom around your neck and you will look like the archetypal American tourist so aptly portrayed by Michael Palin in that sketch where the camera protrudes inches from his chest while he debates obscure philosophers in a restaurant.

What you get with full frame, as I am reminded from my days with the Canon 5D, is a tool where technology largely obsoletes technical knowhow, yet still permits huge prints to be made. Anyone can take a good picture with an FF DSLR, pretty much regardless of whether you use Program mode or Manual. There are so many aids, from a monster sensor, great low light capability, infinite choice of ISOs and lenses, VR, auto everything, that even the most inept can take properly exposed snaps capable of high enlargement ratios for prints. And unless you make big prints, you are wasting your money. LCDs and TVs do not need the FF camera’s capabilities to display your pictures. The FF DSLR will not help you make good pictures any more than a Brownie will, but yours will be sharper and finer grained and better-everything in most other respects.

I do miss the EVF of the Panny in the D700. Fit an f/4 lens after an f/1.8 and the finder dims. Go into the dark and the finder image is hard to see. By contrast, when you use an EVF, the finder is always the same brightness regardless of the ambient light level. But I do like the ease with which a button and dial on the D700 can change ISO and the simplicity of locking exposure on your area of choice. All those exposure options – area, matrix, spot, and focus choices ad infinitum, are mostly set-and-forget once you find the ones you like. A waste of knobs and dials. The Panny, by contrast, cannot afford too many knobs and dials as there’s only so much space on the small body. Another much appreciated feature of the D700, at the cost of weight and bulk, is the high battery life. That on the G3 is really not good and I find I always carry a spare. The D700 can bang away all day, and there’s still a lot of juice left. And the truly masochistic can increase framing rates and capacity with an add-on hand grip which will even accommodate AA cells.

The claim of the D700’s sensor is outstanding low noise in low light and with high ISO settings. Comparing my snaps with those from the 5D I would say there is little in it. Maybe one stop better in the worst conditions – not enough to sway you to the Nikon brand. Nikon’s Auto White Balance is noticeably better than Canon’s, but this is such a simple fix in LR2/3 or Photoshop that it’s hard to see it as a decisive issue. The D700 delivers accurate auto exposure, though I often use AE Lock on selected areas of the image to get things just so. I mostly use 21-area matrix metering.

I purchased the D700 for a special project where large prints will be required, even though I was aware that the D800 would obsolete the D700 with a larger sensor. Prints many feet in dimension can be made from a 5D or D700 file. What is intriguing is whether the D700 will now crash in value the way the 5D did after the 5D/II was announced. My 5D, $3,000 when new, sold for $975 five years later and was still in great shape. Today you can buy that 5D, arguably the only classic DSLR yet made, for $800, mint. The argument in favor of the D700 maintaining value – largely made by its owners one imagines – is that the gargantuan file sizes of the D800 will help the D700 retain its appeal. You know, it’s faster, better in low light, quicker to load files for software manipulation and so on. Maybe this is true in the short term, but the person who buys a D800 is, I suspect, just as likely to have the latest Mac or PC with a Core-i7 CPU, fast RAM and lots of storage. It’s not that big a deal if the file is 12, 22 or 36mp. A year or two hence I expect the D700 to be selling for what the 5D commands today. Indeed, were I determined to own a top quality FF DSLR at lowest cost, the 5D would be my first choice every time. I chose Nikon this time just for a change. I have no brand loyalty – a senseless concept.

Why it pays to buy USA imports. Warranty is against manufacturing defects, not user inflicted damage.

In the snaps which follow, I have concentrated on static subjects and experimented with a variety of focal lengths on the 16-35 Nikkor and ISOs from 400 to 1600. Except for noticeable barrel distortion at 16mm, easily corrected with the profile Adobe provides with Lightroom 3, I found that focal length and aperture have no effect on image quality. There is no fuzziness or chromatic aberration to be seen. It’s a top notch optic with extremely low flare even directly into the sun. You pay a premium price for this lens – I bought the last one Amazon had in stock! – and you get premium performance. For something so costly, avoid grey market imports, even from B&H, with their one year warranty. Buy USA imports and get the 5 year Nikon USA factory warranty. The modest premium makes that worthwhile.

16mm, f/5.6, ISO 800.

35mm, f/4, ISO 800.

30mm, f/8, ISO 800.

35mm, f/8, ISO 800.

28mm, f/7.1, ISO 800.

32mm, f/5, ISO 400.

35mm, f/4, ISO 1600, 1/10th second, VR.

16mm, f/4, ISO 800.

35mm, f/7.1, ISO 800, sun in frame.

Legacy Nikon lenses

Nikon lenses

Jewels for pennies.

When photographers of the caliber of David Douglas Duncan of LIFE first started traveling to Japan in the 1950s they quickly learned that Canon made superb Leica screw mount lenses. These were easily adapted to Leica M bayonet bodies and provided rangefinder coupling as often as not. They spread the word and Canon, in that regard, may have done more to boost the Japanese camera industry than any maker since. Later, of course, Pentax came out with their wonderful SLRs with instant return mirror and Nikon trumped all with the Nikon F SLR. Rangefinders were abandoned, though not before Canon with the 7/7S and Nikon with the S1/S3/SP created two of the great classics of the rangefinder era. These, especially the SP, command collector prices today. The Nikons introduced the titanium curtain focal plane shutter which had a lot to do with the legendary toughness of their successor, maybe the greatest SLR ever made, the Nikon F. The camera that documented Viet Nam.

Nikon SP.

Working as a kid at the Dixons sales counter in London, I had the opportunity to handle many of these as the used market was flooded with owners upgrading to the Nikon F. The feel and sound was similar to the F, meaning robust and solid. But when Nikon went to SLRs, like Canon they realized that the small lens throat of their rangefinder bodies would make design of lenses difficult, especially of the short focal lengths which had to adopt a retrofocus design if the SLR’s flapping mirror was to clear the rear element. So both makers went to larger diameter bayonet mounts, Nikon abandoning the Contax bayonet on the SP and Canon moving on from the Leica 39mm thread mount. Since then, Canon has adopted no fewer than three bayonet mounts for its SLRs. The early Canonflex style, the FD of the ’70s era and then the EF in use today. Nikon, by contrast, has stuck with the original F mount, albeit with adaptations for indexing the maximum aperture on later lenses – the AI and AIS models.

The differences in design philosophy are non-trivial. Forget early Canonflex lenses – too few choices are available and good luck adapting these to anything. Further, for the modern Canon user, FD lenses are mostly a lost cause. The trouble is twofold. First the flange to film/sensor plane distance for the EF mount is 2mm less than for the FD mount. That means that unless your FD-to-EF adapter includes a negative lens element in its design, you will be unable to obtain infinity focus using an adapted FD lens on an EF mount body. Second, as Canon went to an electronic aperture setting mechanism with the EF mount, you will lose automated aperture stop down with FD lenses on an EF body. You focus at maximum aperture then stop down what is now a manual lens to working aperture, the finder screen going dark in the process. Further, even if your adapter has a crappy negative lens to destroy the great definition of your FD lens while reclaiming infinity focus, there is no electronic focus confirmation. You go by what you see on the screen. This is a great shame as it means that, to all practical intents, the magnificent range of FD lenses is not usable on modern Canon bodies.

The contrast with Nikon’s approach could not be greater. With very few exceptions, every Nikkor lens can be used on a current Nikon body, with pre-AI models requiring a $25 machining adaptation to fit and work. The sole exception is mostly early fisheyes which required a mirror lock-up and external finder. No mirror lock-up exists on the modern DSLR Nikons (save for sensor cleaning) so these lenses are not usable. Nikon retains a mechanical control for aperture stop down to this day, so even early Nikon F lenses will retain aperture automation. Auto exposure measurement at full aperture is retained and bodies like the D700/D3 and others provide an electronic rangefinder confirmation of optimum focus, denoted by a green diode in the finder. Out of focus results in one of two arrows pointing in the direction the lens mount has to be rotated.

Why would anyone care? Well, because unless you must have autofocus, these manual focus Nikon lenses are some of the best ever made. In the early days there was only one range – no bargain basement models where design corners had been cut. The mounts were massive, the construction fabulous and the optics outstanding. One of the nicest things about working as a sales clerk at Dixons in the late ’60s was that I was allowed to borrow gear for the weekend (anything except the Leicas!) and I often found myself with a Nikkormat FTN, with the 24mm, 50mm, 105mm and 200mm Nikkors. All these optics were superb in every way. A 16″ x 20″ print was expected, not exceptional. The Nikkormat replaced the bulletproof shutter in the Nikon F with a somewhat fragile shutter (later improved) but came with compact TTL metering on most models and was a sweetheart to use.

Here’s what some of those great lenses sell for today – I have illustrated the scalloped metal focus ring versions which are my absolute favorites for look and feel:

Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 – $150 used.

Nikkor 50mm f/2 – a true competitor to Leica’s Summicron. $50 in mint condition.

Nikkor 105mm f/2.5. $75.

Nikkor 200mm f/4. $40.

So for $315 you get a complete outfit which will do you proud anywhere in the world, provided you don’t mind the absence of autofocus. In the case of these lenses, you can use Aperture priority or Manual exposure measurement. Add $25 per lens if it’s non-AI, to convert it for your DSLR. These lenses have no electronics, but if you want all the bells and whistles offered by matrix metering, want to add Shutter priority and automated EXIF data posting to the picture file, this is done by adding a CPU to the lens and typically runs $80 per lens. A detailed illustration of Nikon lens mounts appears here.

There are some wonderful bargains out there for Nikon users, even if they have bodies which were not even thought possible when these great optics were made.

D700 – in the studio

Nikon bodies, Nikon lenses

Winston at ten!

The D700 and 85mm lens arrived just in time for our son’s tenth birthday and the obligatory annual studio portrait, so it was out with the Novatron gear. I decided to shoot tethered to the MacBook Air, connecting the D700’s mini-USB socket with a USB cable. This gives large screen previews of exposure etc. Lightroom 3 makes this easy, yet my first attempt returned an error message saying “No camera detected”. I rummaged in the garage cardboard box where the mess of cables makes its home, and found several with the requisite connectors. The second one worked fine and continued to do so when extended with a further cable. No need for ‘factory authorized’ this or ‘premium priced Nikon’ that.

First I snapped a couple of test shots to see what the D700’s sensor, with its modest pixel count, can deliver. On paper, it should yield prints three times the size of those I get from the 16mp MFT sensor in the Panny G3, which allows for grain-free prints sized 24″ x 16″. That sensor is one quarter the area of the D700’s, so ‘stretch’ those pixels over 4 times the area and you get 4mp effective density. The D700 is some 12mp, or three times the enlargement for the same pixel density, meaning 72″ x 48″.

I tested that on my Dell 2209WA displays and, indeed, the definition held up fine even at 90″ x 60″ effective size. large enough for me, making me wonder who on earth needs the 36mp of the just announced D800? Not to mention a monster file size which takes three times as long to download. Whatever.

A little more tweaking to establish the optimum settings for import sharpening with the 85mm f/1.8D Nikkor yielded the following, required to counter the Anti-Aliasing filter in front of the sensor, there to prevent ‘jaggies’. Using RAW, with 1:1 previews in Lightroom 3, I settled on the following:

D700 LR3 file import sharpening settings.

That’s a bit more aggressive than the Canon 5D needed and may, of course, vary between lenses, but it’s just right, and at the cusp of where sharpening artifacts just start to appear. This is not prescriptive – each to his own. Color rendition seems neutral with default body settings, so no changes there. These were determined using LR3 using the 2010 Process. LR4 introduces yet another Process (will Adobe ever stop this nonsense?) and the Beta version is buggy. As a fellow photographer (and many on the web) report, try converting 2010 process files to 2012 and LR4 crashes, in both Windows and OS X. So I’m sticking with LR3 for now, especially as the changes in LR4 are aimed more at Adobe’s P&L than photographers’ needs.

One unexpected benefit of tethered capture is that the subject can see the results withing a couple of seconds on the laptop’s display. 10 year old boys aren’t exactly renowned for having great attention spans when their pictures are being taken, but this mechanism both kept Winston interested and helped him with posing. Neat.

We took about four dozen snaps and maybe six or so were ‘keepers’. This one stood out.

Winston Howard Hofler, aged ten.
D700, 85mm f/1.8 at f/5.6, ISO100.

The highlights in the hair are from a boom mounted top light, in the style of the great Hollywood photographer of the stars, George Hurrell. In addition to the boom, two other strobe heads, in umbrellas, were used. A related benefit of strobes is that you don’t get the huge retinas that strong incandescent lights cause.

D700 – first impressions

Nikon bodies

Finally here.

Taking no more than 20 minutes to walk that man about town, Bertram the Border Terrier, it figured that UPS called as the pup was out raising the leg, and the depressing little note stuck to the door said they would try delivering the D700 next Monday, signature required. The same for a delayed gift for our boy’s birthday. A call to UPS established that a visit to their warehouse between 9:00 and 9:15pm in South SF would get the packages in my hot little hands and though I turned up a few minutes early, I was quite unprepared for what followed.

First, the UPS facility is simply enormous, rows of warehouses full of trucks and boxes. Second, there was a long line of idling cars on a rainy night, all apparently waiting for the gate to open for late night pick-ups. Straight out of film noir. I got in pretty much at the back of the line and, boy, what is wrong with people? Here I am on Cloud Nine, delighted to be getting our boy’s gift and my toy, and I’m at the back of a line of the most miserable cross section of humanity on earth. I try to make conversation but it’s useless. Except for me no one wants to be here. Well, at least the charming ladies at the counter are pleasant and I leave assuring them that America is indeed a great nation.

UPS line at 9:15pm, South SF.

I get home, tuck the boy in bed, place the pup on the bed, and pop the box. Seconds later I have the 85mm f/1.8D on the body, one of the two batteries has a solid charge and I’m in there changing the defaults and Copyright data. The first impression is one of solidity, it’s not light, the fit in the hand is good, the rear LCD bright and the finder a pleasure to use. The 0.72x magnification (same as on a Leica M2) is just right. The previous owner has left the shutter on high speed sequential and I startle myself when first releasing the shutter with the machine gun result. My misionary work with the manual the last two days pays off and it’s not too hard to figure most things out. Best of all, the two batteries provided both show ‘new’ status, attesting to the light use the body enjoyed with it’s first owner. And yes, it’s a USA import, as the box testifies.

I contemplate installing the Upstrap but it’s late, the strap will fit a dozen ways with only one of those right, so I call it a day. This Nikon D700 computer can wait another day.

More anon.

Modeling fee? Outrageous.