With the announcement of the long-rumored Nikon D3 almost imminent (redundant?), here’s my take on what should be in Nikon’s next DSLR:

• WIDER dynamic range.  Manufacturers keep increasing MPs, when the real issue nowadays is dynamic range that is no better (sometimes worse) than your typical slide film.  I would love to see the day when I would not fumble with expensive ND filters.
• More cross-type AF points on the D200 replacement.  Having so many focus points is, um, pointless if only the middle one is cross-type!
• LCD display that you can view on broad daylight.  Come on, now.
• Automatic Depth of Field calculation (found in some Canon DSLRs).  I tell the DSLR the nearest and farthest subjects i want in focus, the shutter speed and ISO, it automatically sets the most optimum aperture.  That can’t be difficult.

Do I care if the next one is full-frame?  No, not really.  If I want a bigger frame, I would have gone with Large Format cameras. 

Popularity: 12% [?]

Here are a few rants about what worked and what didn’t during my week-and-a-half trip to Europe:

• I only brought three lenses: The 10.5, 17-55 and the 70-200.  The 17-55 was my most used lens; it’s probably on 90% of the time. 
• For camera support, I chickened out by bringing along my crappy Gitzo G1157 + Kirk BH-3 instead of the more manly 3530s + Arca-Swiss Z1.  I regretted that decision.
• I could not help but express extreme disappointment on the 70-200VR.  This is my first heavy outdoor use of this lens.  It flares so easily even with the hood on.  It also inconsistently cause at least one stop overexposure on the D200.  I could not nail down the cause and it is very, very annoying…so annoying it ended up on the camera bag most of the time because of this.  It’s so ironic for a $1500 lens.  I never had these problems with the old-school 70-210/4 lens.   I will do further testing within the next few days and will decide if it needs to be sent in for repair.
• The Nexto device was great.  I only had one failed transfer…but this was mainly due to my stupidity (removing card during transfer). 
• I probably overused my 10.5 fisheye lens. 
• My Hi-Tech ND Grad filter is my new best friend.  When we were at Matterhorn, the sky was so clear and lighting was so contrasty. It would have been impossible for me to capture the images with the D200 sensor’s VERY limited dynamic range without the ND (2-stop soft-edge) filter.  The filter flares easily, though.  I wonder if the more expensive Singh-Ray is better at flare control?
• The Cokin P holder vignettes at around 20mm or wider on the 17-55.  I am still not sure, though, if it’s worthwhile to invest on a more expensive filter holder.
• I need a wider lens.  I guess the 12-24 is next on my list of purchase.
• I need one of those LCD hoods.  It’s almost impossible to see the LCD outdoors on a clear day.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 10% [?]

Thom Hogan just wrote a lengthy, thought-provoking rant on how a compact camera should be designed…which will cater both the casual user and the pretentious Galen Rowell wannabe.

I commend Thom for having the balls of steel of writing the article and even offered a huge sum of money for the first company to be able to produce this elusive camera (No, the Sigma DP-1 does not count).

I agree for the most part (do not want the built-in Arca-Swiss plate…yikes!  that would make the camera thicker than the M8!), but I think the write-up could have been much shorter.  And it goes something like this:

1. Take the current Ricoh GR-D…with its near-flawless user interface.
2. Slap a Bayer-pattern-designed 10MP APS-C sensor
3. Improve the horrid RAW processing…make it at least 3fps in RAW mode.
4. Keep everything else.  (Yeah, even the idiot mode)

Seriously, Ricoh is so damn close it’s not even funny.  Come on, Ricoh, I’m hoping you get this done for GR-D Mark II.

And I’m willing to pay…uh $699 for it.  No more than that.  Come on, Even the D40x sells for that price with the kit lens.

Popularity: 11% [?]

You’re looking at the results from two of the best RAW converters for Nikon NEFs.  At the left is from Nikon’s own Capture NX, and at the right is RawMagick Teams’ Raw Magick Lite. 

These aren’t really straight conversions, of course.  There is little post-processing (a little curves and levels processing to bring up the midtones and colorspace converted to sRGB for consistent color across browsers).

(Click on the image for the larger version) 

Few observations:

• Nikon’s conversion needs less tweaking
• Nikon’s conversion favors contrast in lieu of a less smooth gradation from shadows to highlights.
• RML recovers details (especially in the highlights) better.  Not a lot, but noticeable.
• Nikon’s colors tend to be magenta-biased.

Until I tried RML, I thought NX does a brilliant job of NEF conversion, and I thought nothing comes close (though I thought NX does a HORRIBLE job of noise reduction). 

So what do I use?  Both.  For critical work, I use RML…but for a quick conversion, I use NX.

Popularity: 9% [?]

I usually use WHCC for all my digital photo printing needs (great company, BTW), but having prints for my recent snapshots made it impractical to use them since they charge about 5 times than your usual online photo printing services.  The last time I checked I’m not made of money so I started looking for alternatives. 

SnapFish turned out to be one of the better ones that the internets led me to believe (the free 20 prints for your first order didn’t hurt, either).  I’ve read a number of bad reviews but they’re pretty old (from two years ago)…probably before the time they were acquired by HP.  Costco happens to be using their services, too, for online photo services.  I figured not a lot to lose, since they’re not very expensive.

They have this Active-X based control for uploading photo, while easy enough to use, I can’t help but raise my left eyebrow: I have about 100 images to upload; I started around 9:30PM uploading and the estimator says it would take 18 minutes to upload them…it’s now 11:45PM and it’s still uploading (80% complete).

We’ll see what happens here.

-

The “‘can’t-get-that-tune-out-of-my-head” song of the hour: “Put your Records On” by Corinne Bailey Rae.

-

Update 04.25.2007: I got my prints and I think for the price they quality of the print is pretty good.  However, the prints weren’t packaged properly so some of them have creases.  I filed a complaint yesterday through their website and got a response today stating that they will re-send the same order.  I must say I’m…mildly impressed.  We’ll see if the re-sent prints are better (without the creases, that is).

-

Update 04.30.2007: I got the new prints.  I must say I am very impressed with the service: I wasn’t charge for the new set of prints AND they shipped it via FedEx.  I am definitely a repeat customer.

Popularity: 10% [?]

[ Disclaimer: Use the information mentioned here at your own risk.  I cannot replace your D200 if you damage it by following the instructions here; I’m still paying for mine ]

A little over a year later, my dust bunnies collection on my D200 sensor has become cumbersome…a nuisance, even.  A lot of my stock photos have been rejected due to sensor dusts.  So what’s a photographer to do?  While buying a new camera is an enticing option, the echoes of my empty wallet will keep me awake for at least the next 10 years as soon as I hit the “Submit Order” button at B&H’s website.

The only other (practical) option is to clean it.  After much googling, I bought a set of Sensor Swabs (Type 2) and a bottle of Eclipse from Micro-Tools (awesome store, BTW), and while I was on my buying spree, I threw in a cheap Giottos Hand blower pump thing. 

So when I received the items this afternoon, I started looking for information on how to actually clean the sensor.  Every freakin’ website points to a page by Thom Hogan regarding cleaning the sensor.  The web page (overrated, IMO) could have been just a little more useful if it showed…um…how to set your Nikon camera in sensor cleaning mode.  Holy crap, so much disclaimer in there when there is a glaring information missing.  Man, people really suck.

Anyway, after setting the mirror lock-up (on the Menu…NOT the MLU on the frames-per-second dial next to the self-timer!) and exposing the sensor, I used the Giottos blower and it turns out that it’s the only thing I need.  Dust is gone.  I rule.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I have in my possession my very own Nexto Ultra portable image storage, um, thingy.  I ordered mine from the good folks at EastGear.com.  They gave the cheapest price and they included the 17-in-one card CF adapter and an extra external battery.

I’m going through the paces of fondling testing the gadget as I write this.  I was a tad disappointed with the build of the device; it seems much sturdier on the product images.  Everything is controlled by one button (!) depending on the context; you have short (”S”) and long (”L”) press to sort through the menus.

Copying is wicked fast with the 50x Kingston Elite Pro.  The display (with almost non-existent backlighting) shows you how long it took to copy all the files from the CF to the HDD.

All in all, I’m happy so far.  We’ll see how it performs in the field.

While you wait for my thorough review (which may not be written soon), read this excellent review from another photographer with much higher credibility than me.  Note that I did not go through the same import inquiry hassle that he did; he was probably one of the first owners from the US of the product.

Popularity: 9% [?]

For the past couple of days I’ve doing a little research on what I need to create a decent panorama via image stitching.  

I started with the hardware and so far the only relatively-cheap (under $200) panorama heads I can find with decent reviews are: Panosaurus, KingPano, and Nodal Ninja.  The problem with these inexpensive heads is the lack of Arca-Swiss compatibility and weight restrictions (average capacity is around 4 lbs).  These reasons pretty much swayed me away from these products–although if Arca-Swiss compatibility is not an issue, I would have gone with the least expensive Panosaurus.

I would love to have the complete Really Right Stuff complete pano kit or even the not-so-complete kit, but I’m not really planning to do a lot of panorama shots…yet.  My Tripod already has a bubble level (for level horizontal panning), so I am opting to buy the Kirk Long Rail Plate.  I will buy this instead of the equivalent RRS product because it’s cheaper and the Kirk one can be pivoted.  The RRS MPR-CLII, however, has a ruler built in.  It’s debatable at this point.

As for the software, at first I looked at PTAssembler+PanoTools (PTAssembler is a GUI front end for PanoTools).  While it’s really cheap ($35), I found it very unintuitive and the UI is not quite polished.  It also doesn’t support 16-bit outputs.  Automatic panorama creation can be done with AutoPano and EnBlend, but in the end this frankenstein of a software isn’t really as good as I thought–not to mention it’s dog-slow, too. 

The only other software I looked at was PTGui, which is also a front-end GUI for PanoTools.  At around $80, I can hear my wallet whimpering, but judging on the output (it can support 16-bit) and ease of use (not to mention a lot faster than PTAssembler), this will probably end up in my library of software.

I know there are other software out there, but I can’t imagine any other software that can best PTGui.  There’s RealViz Stitcher, but at around $400, I wouldn’t care if it’s 10 times better…although reviews show that even this mega-expensive software is trumped by PTGui in automatic panorama creation.

I will keep this updated when I purchase the hardware.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The only product that has caught my attention so far was the Sigma DP1.  Finally, a company has recognized the market for such a camera!  True, that market is not exactly mainstream, but it’s not small enough to be ignored; this is the reason why the Ricoh GR-D has been mildly successful despite its high price and limited availability (Ricoh has long ceased marketing cameras in the US). 

The most interesting feature of this camera is–unlike the Ricoh GR-D–is having a imaging sensor of a DSLR.  It’s essentially the SD14 in a smaller package.  It has RAW mode, a hot shoe, manual exposure operation…although I’m a little disappointed that they forgot to put a built-in optical viewfinder in it, instead they went the Ricoh route and decided to attempt to rape the consumer by making the optical viewfinder optional.

The real test (besides the IQ, of course) is how it stacks up to the GR-D when it comes to ease of use and responsiveness.   I certainly hope that Sigma is reading this blog (most likely not) so I can try one myself.

Update: The only other product announced that interests me is Elinchrom’s EL-Skyport.  It’s supposed to eat some marketshare away from that overpriced remote trigger–otherwise known as PocketWizards.  This has been available for quite a while now over the other side of the Atlantic.  And looking at the online stores where available, the pricing seems competitive enough.  The only thing that bothers me is that most of the accessories are too tightly integrated with Elinchrom’s top-of-the-line strobes (RX-series) and I can’t help the fact that the design looks a little flimsy to me. 

–

On a related note, I find it funny that a lot of Nikon users on digital photography forums have been bitching on Nikon for not announcing the replacement for the D2 series.  They instead announced an updated D40 (dubbed D40x).  So what?  To steal the thunder from the 1D Mark III announcement?  The announcement of the 1D Mark III hasn’t actually stripped away the appeal of the D2X or the D2H (at least to me).  In fact, I found the 1DIII’s feature underwhelming…but that’s the Nikon fanboy in me talking.

And, of course, the other age-old disappointment was the lack of announcement of a DSLR with a 35mm-sized sensor.  Me?  I could not care any less.  the DX-sensor has been perfectly fine for most photographers needs.  Why fix something that’s not broken?

I don’t get it, really.  Having a 35mm-sized sensor right now would still be too expensive anyway.   Look at the Canon 5D.  That’s why it cannot be priced compatitively against the D200. 

I would not even try to bring up the issues of a sudden drop of IQ towards the corners of images from the 5D (and the 1Ds) regardless of whether you used really good glass with it.

Don’t get me wrong, a bigger sensor would always be a welcome feature, but only if it’s going to be a little bit more expensive than a DX-sized one.

Popularity: 9% [?]