Nikon today released 4 firmware updates for its upper and top level camera bodies.
64GB compact flash cards are now supported and each update brings bug fixes and new features (the D3 seeing the most updates).
Here are the links:
PC:
Nikon D3 v2.02
Nikon D3X v1.01
Nikon D700 v1.02
Nikon D300S v1.01
Mac:
Nikon D3 v2.02
Nikon D3X v1.01
Nikon D700 v1.02
Nikon D300S v1.01
I went out today to try to shoot some outdoor infrared photographs. To be completely honest, I haven’t had much of a chance to shoot much IR with the D3. I don’t recall any IR photographs from the D3 as being spectacular. When I offloaded my card and worked on an image or two, I was rather unhappy with the results. Here is one selection:
Nikon D3 Infrared Photograph
This got me to thinking about the actual nature of digital IR photography and how and why it works. DSLRs try very hard to keep infrared light out of your camera’s sensor with a filter that stands directly in front of the sensor itself. It only makes sense that the more expensive the camera, the more successful it will be at keeping IR out. Does that prove true? In this case… YES.
After I got home, I decided to make a very quick and impromptu comparison between the Nikon D3 and an older Nikon D60. Each image was shot in RAW, and processed in Lightroom for white balance only. Click each for a larger version.
Nikon D60 Infrared Test
Nikon D3 Infrared Test
With equal processing on both images, you can instantly see some pretty clear differences. First, the red cast from the Hoya R72 filter is much less apparent in the D60 than the D3. The D60 provides a much more manageable color environment to work in. This is not to say that the D3 image could not be massaged into the same image that the D60 produced almost out of the camera, but it would take some significant work. This is relevant if you want to use the natural color of the IR, but if you convert to grayscale, I found that you get almost an indentical image:
IR grayscale Comparison of Nikon D60 and D3. Click to enlarge.
The only real difference, without close inspection is that the D60 produced a slightly more contrasty image. Now, what about actual image quality and detail? Below you will find two 100% crops from the images above.
Comparing sharpness between the D60 and D3
Now the differences are more subtle. Both images lack true sharpness but if one or the other has to be crowned the winner, I would say that hands down it is the D60. The D3 just does not seem to be able to hold edge detail near areas of contrasting tones. Instead, it just makes things a blurry mess. This could be partly due to the fact that there is so much more red in the D3 and therefore less information available when translating to grayscale (depending on how you do it).
So I know that I probably could provide more examples to back my findings up, but I’m a little strapped for time at this exact moment. I will try to get some additional samples up ASAP. My conslusion is that while the D3 is a capable infrared photography device, it’s IR filter is too efficient at blocking out those much needed invisible light waves and yields a less than spectacular result. My recommendation, if you want to get truly great IR shots, go find an older cheaper body like a D70 or D50.
After my disaster with my Inovatronix ExplorerXT I decided to go with the AlienBees Vagabond II. All I can say is that it performed FLAWLESSLY! I have nothing bad to say about it. The recycle times were impressive (less than 1 second with 3 AlienBees B800 units at about 1/8 power). It’s nice to be back in action in the mobile power department.
Rena did great and she is a long-time friend. We sneaked into and shot in the old sub-level of Old Sacramento. It was a fun shoot and I really enjoyed working with her!
People here in the valley were treated to an awesome electrical storm that spanned from the Sierra Nevadas to the Bay Area and lasted several hours. Of course, I was out in the middle of it getting some shots. This is something we won’t see again for quite some time and just wanted to share.
I saw a program on The Discovery Channel recently about photographing water droplets using high speed video cameras. I thought I’d give it a shot using a traditional digital SLR. This setup is incredibly basic and went something like this:
Setup:
Baking pan for water
C-Stand with grip arm to hold zip-lock bag filled with water over baking pan
Tripod
Camera (In this case, a Nikon D3 with a Micro Nikkor 60mm AF lens)
PW’d AlienBees B800 with 10 degree honeycomb grid
Sample book of Roscolux gels. (The free book of small gells that you can get from lighting stores, has about 500 free gels in them)
Reflective material behind the baking pan to reflect light down onto the water. I used anything from a water color painting made by a friend of mine to a white piece of poster board.
I shot in manual, about 1/250th sec @ f 16 with the strobe at full power pointing at the background material. I had to shoot A LOT of frame (about 300) to get these few keepers. Its a very inexact science. Mostly trial and error. In a perfect world, I would have liked to have shot at a faster shutter speed, but my D3 syncs at 1/250, so I was somewhat limited. A fix for this would have been to use a SB-800 or SB-900 with high speed sync enabled, but I just didn’t get around to it. Stopping down a little more would have also helped with some focus issues I was clearly experiencing.
Enjoy!
Here are some sample shots I made with a pair of AlienBees monolights. Overall, I feel like they performed very well. In fact, I had no problem what-so-ever. I can not say enough good things about my Innovatronix Explorer XT portable power unit. The lights functioned just as if they were plugged into a regular wall outlet with identical recycle times and performance. Obviously, you can’t use the modeling lights with a portable power pack, but I liberally used them for a couple seconds at a time and saw no impact on the charge of the unit.
The setup on these shots is fairly straight forward. The key light is a PW’d AlienBees B1600 at about 1/4 power with a 47″ octobox setup on a C-Stand with grip arm. The octobox is about 3 feet above and to the side of the subject pointing down at her.
The second light is another PW’d AlienBees B800 with a 10 degree honeycomb grid firing at about 3/4 power toward the subjects feet to light up the ground a little. On some shots, I moved the B800 directly behind the subject to act as a hair/rim light. Same settings.
All images taken on a Nikon D3, with a Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 @ ISO 200 and roughly 1 – 1/2 second @ f6.
Not much going on lately… I found this guy in my front yard after some heavy rain.
Equipment: Nikon D3, Nikkor 60mm Micro, Nikon SB-600 (controlled by SU-800), Generic Shoot-thru Umbrella
I just thought I would post some test images that I shot the other night at a junior BMX race course. All images are ISO 6400 shot on a D3 with a Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 G AF-S VR lens. I am fairly happy with the noise performance. All images were run through Lightroom 2.0 and given minimal luminance and color noise reduction.
I just purchased a new lens today and after spending a few hours with it, I was rather disappointed with the performance. It seemed softer than a $1000+ lens ought to be. (My sub $500 18-35mm “just for fun lens” was giving sharper results. Now frantic, I set out on the web (as I usually do when panicked) to look for answers.
After doing some googl’ing, I ran across accounts from people with my exact lens, that were experiencing softness and I was pleased to learn that there was an easy fix. Now, there is one caveat, this fix is only possible on Nikon’s upper-tier consumer and pro bodies (D300, D700, D3, D3x, D90 maybe?) so if you have anything else, I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of answers for you right now.
Onwards..
I’ve often noticed an option buried in the setup (wrench) menu of my D3 called “AF fine tune”. I never really paid much attention or really cared to take a look. I figured that the AF should work just fine. Why would I need to fine tune something that I just paid 5 golden bars for? After doing a little research, that question now has an answer. Apparently, due to inherent variabilities in lens and camera body manufacturing, some lenses and some bodies and some combinations of some lenses and bodies (ya dig?) need to be adjusted using this menu option to correct for slight front or back focusing. Makes sense I guess, I mean do you ever stop to think about how a camera lens is made? How much precision is required to resolve a sharp image on a plane using transparent discs made from melted sand and then ground to perfection with rocks? (That’s obviously an oversimplification, but I think you get the idea). OK, so Nikon isn’t perfect. I can’t really comment with certainty on the others, as I have not shot anything else. But at least they gave some of us this fabulous fix, although it is a little disturbing that Nikon has downplayed this feature (and need of this feature) in the instruction manual.
After running my own tests, I found that 2 of my main 3 lenses needed major adjustment. The process was simple and I invite anyone else with a better method to chime in, because this was pretty straight forward. Just grab your tripod and setup a a relatively flat object with fine detail (or a focus chart if you have one) and have it as close to perpendicular to your camera as possible, so you are not battling depth of field. Then format your memory card so you can keep track of your images more easily. Set your camera for JPEG and turn your Picture Control (under shooting options in the main menu) to “Standard”. I did this so there was no unnecessary sharpening going on that could mask the results. I would suggest shooting in M so you have the exact same exposure every time. If you are using a speedlight, set it to M as well. Lastly, set your camera to Single-Servo auto focus with the single AF point dial selected. It’s always a good idea when running tests like this to eliminate as many variables as possible yes?
Now, go into the Setup (wrench) menu on your camera, and find “AF fine tune”. First, turn it on (obvious I hope), then go into “Saved Value”. You will notice that the camera detects and displays the focal length of the lens you have attached at that moment. Any changes you make here will be associated with that lens and will be set automatically every time you attach it to your camera. Now let’s start tweaking things…
Set your fine tune value to -20 and shoot. Then go back into your menu and select -15 and shoot, then -10… Wash, rinse, repeat until you get up to +20. Be sure your tripod is staying in the same place and that your camera is not moving around because we’re dealing with some super fine adjustments, and your camera moving during this process will negate your results (well, not really, since we are using AF, but you will feel more confident about yourself and your results if things aren’t sliding around). I chose to move up the slider in increments of 5, but if you have the time or curiosity, you can adjust in whatever increments you want, but I think 5 is a good starting point.
When you’re done with that tedium, bring all of your test images into Photoshop or whatever you use for study. You will need to be able to get the images fairly close to each other for a side by side comparison in order to make a good judgment of focus. Also, remember to view your images at 100% magnification.
I have provided my results so you can see how I basically setup the test after I shot the images. I just shot a piece of mail sitting on my desk. These are also low resolution, so unfortunately, these can’t be as closely inspected as the original files.
My results and required adjustments were as follows: Remember that “0″ is the default, non-correct focus tuning.
Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AF D - Fine Tune Adjustment = +20
Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AF D Results
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR – Fine Tune Adjustment = 0
Nikkor 70-200 mm F2.8 VR Results
Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 AF-S – Fine Tune Adjustment = -15
Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 AF-S Results
This is basically just a long-winded way of saying adjust the fine tune setting until you get the sharpest results.
So…………….. the results are pretty frightening! I was/am shocked especially at the 50mm. The difference between what I have been shooting at (0) and the correct adjustment (+20) is substantial, equally with the 28-70mm. Interestingly, the 70-200mm is spot on.
After reading posts made by people running similar tests, I found my findings to be fairly consistent with theirs. Ken Rockwell (ughhh..) needed -15 on his D3 with a 28-70mm, and my results mirrored his findings. I also read results from other people needing +20 on their 50mm f1.8 on a D3.. exactly the same as mine. So it would appear, at least on the surface, that the adjustments are fairly universal. It should be kept in mind that this is not necessarily the case and you should test for yourself because every camera and every lens, although supposedly identical, are not. Plus this is a good exercise in training your eye to identify true sharpness in an image. Keep in mind also that the adjustments are more than likely unique to each lens/body combination so, if you are shooting a 50mm f1.8 on a D300, don’t expect your adjustment to be the same as a 50mm f1.8 on a D3 or any other body.
It’s a little painful to think about how long I’ve been shooting without doing this. I thought the 50mm f1.8 was razor sharp before, now that I have done this, I have had to redefine my definition (or at least perception) of what sharp is.
If I get time, I’ll try to post some before and after real world images, just for kicks. Check back or subscribe.
Just thought I’d share this. My girlfriend and I were out doing a quick shoot for our Christmas cards and I thought I’d try out some of the lighting that is frequently featured on the popular Strobist website. Please disregard the less than engaging pose, we were just playing around and I didn’t expect to actually post this.
The setup was like this:
Equipment:
Nikon D3
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 AF VR
SB-800 CLS Master and Fill
3x SB-600 with cheap DIY cardboard snoots set on TTL
This really isn’t a very complicated shot so I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ll throw out some super preschool-ish diagrams for you.
As you can see, speedlight A is lighting Michelle’s face and torso, light B is lighting the ground, and light C is providing a rim light for some separation from the background. Man I am a terrible artist!
The exposure was pretty straight forward. I metered in M (manual) and got the standard exposure that I probably would have gotten in P or A, and then i stopped the aperture down about 1 stop to underexpose the ambient light. Then I jacked up the TTL on the SB-600s (each one was a little different) until I got a look that I liked and voila!
Happy shooting!
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