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Topics: Digital cameras, and digital topics in general Gary is BLUE and I'm RED. I've tried to group into topic threads: Holding the camera | Continuous Focus | ISO Speed | Depth of field - general | Image manipulation | Camera or scanner? | Canon or CoolPix? | Polarising filter |Accessory lenses | LCD Viewfinder | Using flash | |
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From: "Gary
M. Berg" <Gary_Berg@xxxxxxx.com> [Gary] I've been reading your pages for a while, so I know that you work with digital cameras quite a bit. I've got a few questions for you. [Mike] Thanks for following my pages -- nice to know that *somebody* out there likes them <grin> [Gary] I'm currently using a Canon EOS II, with the 28-135 IS lens and the 75-300 IS also. I've used SLRs for years, but about 6-7 years ago I switched to a Samsung ECX-1. I used it for a while, but about 3 years ago I tried my SLR again and realized how frustrated I'd been with the Samsung. Yup, I found this with the Coolpix800. But I wanted to evaluate the results and see whether I could get what I wanted from digital before committing a lot of cash. That's exactly the problem I have. I'd like to spend $500 and get the "perfect" camera <G>. I've read many good things about the Coolpix 990, including your pages and also Moose Peterson's pages. Obviously it is more than good enough to get the job done. I think the thing which frustrates me about using a P&S is more issues related to seeing that the item I'm looking at is in focus, using filters (such as a polarizer), and having the viewfinder and lens agree on what is being imaged (close-ups, especially). Using the LCD panel would solve the focus and focused area issues, but result in a terrible manner of holding the camera. Holding the camera out in front of you between your hands is NOT conducive to getting sharp pictures. What I *do* like about the 990 is the swivelling body which, for instance, allows me to hold the camera at arms length by my knees somewhere, and swivel the back until I can see the image comfortably. BTW, the 990 on playback will permit zooming the image x6, and the rocker dial navigates around it. I do use this a lot to check focus. Yep,
that split body is a feature I've always felt was really handy. It was
a strong influence in why I decided to buy the CoolPix 950 here for work.
One of the Field Service guys had worked with a QA engineer who used one
and really liked the ability to look "under" things. Now some
of the units like the Canon G1 have a swivelable LCD, even though the
body isn't split. I've played with taking a few close-up shots with the
950 and found using the LCD to focus is a bit of a pain (awkward) but
much easier than lying on my belly in the dirt/grass to be able to see
the eyepiece. I hardly ever use the viewfinder. One of the advantages is that people don't realise that you are taking a pic of them. When I see people holding the digital camera out in front of them, I keep remembering all the stuff I read about holding the camera firmly, arms against your side, to cut down on vibrations. Wouldn't this affect taking a digital photo? Or do you hold the camera firmly against your chest, LCD turned towards you, and look down? I would think the digital cameras would be just as sensitive to vibration as a 35mm... Someone once said to me "What about the heart pulsations when you clamp your arms to your side?" Of course I use a tripod all the time but I lie about that..... So are you lying now <G>? Yes, I know I should use a tripod pretty much all the time. But I hate to haul it along when I'm not making money on taking pictures anyway. Maybe it's because my camera bag is already too heavy, and adding several more pounds to my load just causes me to drop everything is disgust. I've even got a monopod, which is a good compromise between weight and stability. I think this is part of the reason I went off and bought the Canon IS lenses; they help to compensate for camera shake, which is what I do in comparison to a tripod. That is part of what made me interested in the Canon Pro90 IS compared to the CoolPix; with image stabilization I figured I could have a better shot at hand-holding successfully. I take a Cullman Magic tripod along; it's in a carry bag with sling and is about as light as I would go while maintaining stability. That being said, I use a heavy Velbon for client work. The 990 feature of 'best shot' is something I should experiment with more. I have tried it, but not under controlled conditions. Oh, I know that stuff would probably be "crisper" with the tripod. I need to poke around and come up with a light tripod that works better than the old Bogen I have. That one doesn't even have a removable head, and I think I'd be happier with a ball head than the tilt and swing head that it has. I was experimenting with the BSS stuff last night when I took the work CoolPix 950 out to snag a few shots. Ball & socket head is way easier than tilt'n'pan. There is a cool clamp-lock ball head that someone makes, that is very fast to use -- I must see if I can find one. I agree from everything I've read about a ball & socket head. I've read lots of good things about the Arca B1 (except that it locks up sometimes). And I've read about some head (Manfrotto?) which you basically pull a lever, point it, and let go. It sounds very nice. That
must be the one I remembered. a) One concern I have with going with something like the Canon G1 or the Nikon 99x is that same problem, of not being happy with what operates a lot like a P&S camera. If I had money to burn, I'd buy the Canon D30, but I shoot just for pleasure, not to make money. There are some features of the 990 that are still p&s, but in general it had the things I needed ability to connect an external flash and remote release were two of them. But I wanted a camera that was still reasonably compact for travelling. I have to accept that outboard lens extenders are not as good as prime lenses -- but they *are* Nikon and pretty damn good. In regard to quality, I achieved A3 prints using the 2.1Mpix image printed with an Epson 1520, which have done well in competition -- the judges did not even realise that they were totally digital. b) The concern over the "P&S syndrome" (above experience with the Samsung) makes me wonder about the Canon Pro 90/IS, which uses an electronic viewfinder and has IS. What's your opinion on this unit? Have you encountered one? Sorry, no. c) One thing which took me aback when reading a review of the Pro 90/IS was a mention which sounded as if this camera operates in continuous AF mode instead of "single-shot" mode. I almost always focus and re-compose. Have you encountered this with any digital cameras? The 990 does have a manual focus mode which is handy for product shots, but it's fiddly to use (or maybe I haven't used it enough yet <g>. Also you can set the autofocus zone in the same manner as the Canon SLRs, but I haven't used that either. I tend to use a half-push to lock the focus, then recompose. That is a feature which I use heavily too. Pretty much every single shot. But I know that on my Elan II I can set to continuous focus, and then there's no such thing as focus lock. It focuses continuously. The design is to make it simpler to take action shots, I suppose. What I thought I read about the Pro 90 was that it only supported the continuous focus mode, not the single-shot focus mode where it focuses and then locks. The 990 is normally on a continuous refocus when on auto, unless you interrupt it with the half-pressure. OK, now I know what you mean. The 950 is the same. If this was what the article I read meant, then it's no problem. It's different than how an SLR works (which doesn't focus until you press the button) but since it still locks once you push the release half way down it'll work fine. On my Elan II I finally decided to disable all of the focusing points except the center one, as having the other two focus points active often caused the camera to work in "unexpected ways" d)
My other concern has to do with the effective ISO speed of the CCD. I
usually shoot 400 speed film, this being more than good enough for up
to 8x10. Most digital cameras seem to run 100 ISO, and I lose even more
as I'm used to working with image stabilized lenses. If you crank the
speed of the CCD up to 400 ISO, how much worse are the results? Do you
encounter this If you crank up to 400, there is a tendency for individual pixels to turn on, making "stars" (someone calls them angels) which show up in dark areas. I have used 400 where necessary, and Photoshopped these out. So what you say is that cranking up the sensitivity is noticeable. Sigh. It's not an issue in bright light, certainly, but on dimmer days it is a problem. I suppose that having the IS lens would certainly help if I go the route of buying the Pro 90 IS. I should say that I only had to deal with about two angels on the pic - clone tool zapped them. So the noise in the picture is present, but not horrible. I was reading the review of the Canon Pro 90 IS last night on DPReview.com last night. The pictures where they compare the performance at the different ISO ratings make the faster ISOs look absolutely horrible. But, I think they are showing a very large magnification of a small portion of the actual picture. The printing result would probably look much better than it appears in that review; my reaction to the pictures in the review was that ISO 400 was unusable, and that's not likely the real case. If you have a look on my 'family' page at the two pix of Rebeccah in the ballet I took those with the CP800 plus 2x extender at 400. These are clipped from a larger shot. e) The impression I have from what I know of depth of field is that digital cameras should have much greater depth of field at a given F-stop. Is this indeed true? I haven't thought about this. DOF is an artifact of the light rays which don't come exactly to a point at the image plane. They are cones which render as a disc of varying size depending on the distance from prime focus. That being so, I wouldn't think that it makes any difference as to what is recording the image; a CCD is dead flat and a film is ever-so-slightly bowed -- so is less predictable as to DOF results. Does that make sense? Hmm,
let me think about this more. There are "circles of confusion",
which is basically a measure of how unfocused something can be and still
look smart. Obviously, with digital, there are never smaller than a pixel.
Let's see, I'm loading up the FCalc program to play with this: Well, I didn't get into the math here. The CCD is *very* small in comparison to a 35mm frame -- even the big ones are about the size of a thumbnail. That being so, the necessity of getting those cones of light to be as small as possible must be a formidable exercise in optics. Yes, the CCD is quite small, which is why the actual focal length of the digital lens is about 20% of the focal length of an equivalent 35mm lens. I'm wondering if the whole DOF issue can be dealt with by analogy of how DOF works when you are using a large format camera. Doesn't the "normal" lens on a large format camera (which of course is a longer FL than the equivalent in 35mm) have a shallower DOF than in 35mm? And that's part of why LF cameras had all of the tilt and shift capability? So when you go to an even shorter lens in digital to get a "normal" focal length, the DOF grows relative to what it is with 35mm? No - as I understand it, the 'normal' lens of any format has approx. the same angle of view and DOF as the others. A large-format pic normally doesn't get *enlarged* as much as a smaller one, so the circles of confusion remain as points. Also the apparent increase in sharpness going Tele ->normal -> WA is illusory. One of the classic exercises is to take the same subject with all three lenses and enlarge target to the same size there is no difference in DOF visible. Tilts and shifts enable you to overcome some of the difficulties of rendering a 3-dimensional object on a flat plane -- you can get a lot more of the image acceptably sharp. But the laws of optics are unchanged there is only one place of maximum sharpness -- where the lens is focussed. After all, the relevance of 'Circles of Confusion' is only important when you enlarge the image to the extent that the 'small acceptable disc' becomes a 'larger unacceptable disc'. It might very well be that this effect is is then overcome by the pixelation which sets in at high degrees of enlargement and can thus be disregarded. >>
No - as I understand it, the 'normal' lens of any format has approx. the
same angle of view and DOF as the others. <<
You could be right ... maybe I'm getting confused with perspective too. But all the same, DOF is subjective and depends on the degree of enlargement and the amount of blur which you consider acceptable. And a good big neg beats a smaller one every time. I can't argue with that! The whole concept of DOF assumes that you don't notice a small amount of blur. And then, of course, we start 'sharpening' the image by reducing the transition dark -> light. I know it's only an apparent sharpness gain -- but it sure works (up to the point of excess!). The 990 has a feature I've not explored yet, which permits using an in-camera sharpening of the image in varying degrees. The Nikon algorithm may be better than Photoshop. I must set up some tests in my <spare> time. <hahahaha> Sharpening, used within reason, certainly makes an amazing change. I'd think the sharpening algorithm in Photoshop would be better than the Nikon algorithm, unless the Nikon has extra information to work from which isn't available to Photoshop. Yes -- thinking about this: the 990 is working on the *raw image* which is about 10 meg and must contain more information than after compressing to 1.2 MB and re-expanding to 9 MB in PS. But I suspect the eye couldn't detect any difference... Yep, the camera has more information to work on inside itself. If nothing else, the sharpening must occur in the camera before the JPEG translation introduces small artifacts in the image which PS would have to deal with. As regards blurring the background this is no problem if you can mask the subject -- you just invert and apply a blur. A little difficult if you've taken a flower with lots of fine petals, but the various lassoes in PS are getting frighteningly sophisticated at differentiating subject and background. I hadn't even thought of this possibility. I suppose some people would claim that most people manipulate images too much in Photoshop as it is, but there are certainly places where it makes sense. When people take elements from several pictures and combine them into one, in my mind it's no longer a "picture", it's a composition or something similar to a painting. Blurring the background of an image can give you effects that can't be obtained optically (large DOF on the subject with shallow DOF on the background) but it sure can be useful. In general, as a photographer of the old school, I confine my manipulation to correcting deficiencies either my own cockups in framing etc, or exposure, colour balance, etc --- just about what I used to do in the darkroom. That being said, I *do* remove excrescences like the street light fitting that was bolted on the wall top of a wonderful old church on Santorini, and also errant power lines across the middle of an otherwise excellent landscape. I have no liking for collages, either. As one of the panel of assessors for the Photographic Society of NZ (we try not to use the word "judge" any more), I occasionally get to assess competition work from camera clubs around the country. Every now and then I get a print which has obviously been produced by someone who has got carried away with assembling several images into one. I have to bite my tongue sometimes, and assess the image as it stands. But I do have one rule: if I have to ask what it is, you've blown it. If the image can't communicate on its own, why does it need an explanation? Btw the PSNZ competition rules now state that the image/s entered must have been optically produced by the author and manipulated/processed either by himself, or under his personal direction by someone else. That is the way I feel, too. I want a good photograph, not something obviously created by the photographer from several images. Mind you, the creating of the second type of image is still art, and may be very good art, but it's not what I think I would enjoy creating. I know that while I was on vacation a week ago with my 35mm there were several pictures I took which cried out to me to remove wires from them. And they still do, as they lay in my photo album. And the print scanner appears to have just died, so they are going to lay there for a while. It
looks like from my POV I've got myself down to about three possible directions:
Yes... but you are interposing two more optical systems between your Canon and the digital file -- assuming you scan a print. Bearing in mind that *any* optical system is a mess of compromises, the fewer processes between the image and the file seems to me to be desirable. Oh,
if I was going to get into doing any serious digital photography I wouldn't
use a flat-bed scanner; I'd buy a film scanner. I just had figured to
see how well it scanned a few of my negatives to noodle around with posting
a "travelogue" of our vacation to the web for our friends and
family to see. In fact, that's one of the biggest arguments I have with
myself; do I shoot 35mm film and use a good film scanner or buy a digital
camera? The cost would probably be close, everything considered (depends
on how good a film scanner I buy). Unfortunately, I still need to replace
the flatbed scanner as my wife uses it, and Windows NT4 doesn't support
USB scanners... Well, I can't tell the difference, anyway. I have a Nikon LS1000 which is about 3 years old and is about 4 models behind -- but it does a good job (in fact I've got about 60 trannies to scan for a client this morning). But I make the point again with a digital camera you've only got one optical system, and the quality of the shots on my commercial shoots has really stunned clients. One client has been in the habit of using a local pro photographer who charges heaps but *does* deliver high-quality work. I did the last shoot, and the client was most happy with results from the 990. It doesn't seem "logical" that a 3MP camera can deliver results equivalent to scanning a 35mm slide/negative with a high resolution scanner; the slide scanner is going to give higher resolution. But I see it mentioned time after time by people who are "practical" shooters, not perfectionists. I had to chuckle when I was reading Moose Peterson's comments (about using his Nikon D1); he said something along the lines of "Well, I sold a dozen magazine covers and about 400 other shots all done with the D1." As I said before my theory is the better results come from just one optical system onto a plane surface and straight to digital. So you think better results might come from using the digital than scanning the negatives? I have to admit there are a lot more variables in using the negative/slide scanner; another optical pass, dirt/dust, how good the color profile of the scanner driver matches the film. So it is possible that digital can do better. Certainly it can do "good enough" for 99% of the cases. We are convinced the digital can do better. And the guys paying the money agree too. I don't know if a digital camera can do better than unlimited manipulation of a negative, possibly with having to resort to scanning and Photoshop. But certainly starting with a digital original is much quicker (and time is money, too). This is certainly a huge advantage for our work. I sometimes take my laptop with me and slot the CF into a PCMCIA adaptor. Then I do a quick slide show with IrfanView, and that really knocks the clients sideways <grin>. Being able to do a complete mock-up of a brochure with pictures and such is very good. I know we do this at work, usually they shoot around large PDF files between us and the service bureau. I think that with digital manipulation you've got more ability to deal with underexposure (and probably over-) too. And some of that is so easy to do. We had a guy at work use the flash on the 950 where he was way out of range. His pictures were very dark, almost outlines with red-eye gleams <G>. It was amazing how quickly those could be lightened, the red-eye dealt with, etc. Just a few clicks and all. The results were hardly "art", but they were good enough to toss on our intranet server to document a retirement party. Yes,
results are just like pushing a really thin colour neg you get a useable
picture, but no shadow-to-mid tone detail, and rather grainy. 2)
Buy the Canon Pro 90 IS. I'm rejecting the G1 because it has a typical
P&S flash instead of a popup. But the lens is a stop faster than the
Pro 90 or the CoolPix 995. People ask me constantly about "getting into digital" and one thing I say is -- if you have to worry about the cost, don't start. Just keep throwing money at the problems, and eventually good results happen. And it's getting easier every month with the new gear around. But it hasn't got cheaper. I remember paying $NZ4.50 per 10x8 sheet of Cibachrome plus the chemical cost -- and blowing sheet after sheet. Hmm, good point. I can save bunches of money by waiting even 6 months, or at least get more for the same money. I'm surprised how little advance there's been in the Nikon line over the last year; the 995 is only a minor improvement over the 990 everything considered. Good improvements, but minor compared to going to 4-5MP or something. I'm assuming that's partly because 3MP is "good enough" for all but the most critical work. I know we've seen improvements in the very high end (Canon D30, Nikon D1X, Olympus E-10), but the "consumer digital" cameras seem to be settling down. I am inclined to think that we probably won't see anything radical in design or innovation until Nikon feels the need to compete with some of the other glitzy-looking camera coming out. I looked hard at the Fuji with the 6x zoom -- but it was *so* plasticky. The 990 is solid and I have a lifetime of using solid cameras. But roll on the 4 MP; I might be induced to tradeup again... Glad to hear that the 990 feels so solid. I certainly have no complaints about the 950 we have here at work. It mostly gets used by our Field Service people to take snaps of stuff sent in by customers. The guy using it has gotten pretty good at using the split halves of the camera to take shots - I watched him a couple of days ago taking pictures of a piece of trash that originally was nice equipment when shipped out of here. And everything I've read says the 990 is better and more solid than the 950. So
I'm thinking about what I like: It will also do spot metering in manual mode; I don't know what the spot angle is, but it looks to be pretty small. Yeah, CF cards don't come cheap. the Lexar 128 MB cost me heaps. Sure thing, on the other hand the cost is getting close to $1/Mb, and I remember when that seemed fantastic for hard disk drives, let alone memory. Here in the US quality RAM is getting close to $0.25/Mb, but given the complexity a CF card presents it ought to cost a bit more. Have you experimented with any of the IBM Microdrives? The small size with a rotating disk in it scares me.... No - that 128 MB cost me about $US490. I don't see the need for extra capacity at this stage, as I also have a 96 MB CF and that gives me plenty of capacity for any likely photoshoot. What would be nice is a drastic drop in the price of the Digital Wallet which has a laptop hard drive. But aren't we getting into the situation that one just keeps shooting because we have heaps of capacity, and not *thinking* about each shot?? I always think of the 10x8 view camera man who lugs camera and heavy tripod into inaccessible places with a few darkslides, so HAS to get the right shot the first time Well, CF card prices have gotten a lot better than what you paid for yours - at least here in the US. I was just looking at prices yesterday, and the Kingston cards run right about $1/Mb. The digital wallets are an extremely handy idea, at least they eliminate the requirement of hauling along a laptop. And even having a couple of Mb would be good enough for almost any sort of shooting situation - such as your long vacation trip in Greece. Although I'd be sorely tempted to take enough CF cards to hold what I thought I'd shoot and use the digital wallet as a backup. What you did, having somebody burn a CD for you, would certainly not have given me the greatest confidence in the world. Although I'd expect that pretty much anybody with a Fuji Frontier machine, for example, ought to have enough hardware to do such a transfer. The guy in Athens produced the CDRom, took me over to a computer and slotted it in, then went through a selection of images to make sure I was satisfied. That's cool, so you were pretty confident that the CD was good. Pack it away carefully, and you're all set. Now if it was just easy to find people to do that. It certainly would have been worth $10-$20 US to get that done - especially since it saved you having to buy another high-capacity CF card. >>
But aren't we getting into the situation that one just keeps shooting
because we have heaps of capacity, and not *thinking* about each shot??
<<
And digital certainly makes the first one cheap (electricity costs a penny or two, I guess) and easy. That's why I shot 16 rolls on a 10 day trip; and even then, I really didn't shoot enough, everything considered. On my vacation there was a time or two when I made good use of my 75-300mm lens at the long end (pictures of the tidal bore coming into Truro in the Bay of Fundy) but that was probably the only time it really made a difference. Other than that almost everything was shot with my 28-135 IS lens. So telephoto range isn't a big deal. I find that I haven't used the extenders THAT much. The built-in zoom seems to do about 90% of what I usually take; but the WA was used a lot in Greece. That's how I'd expect to do things too. The 995 has plenty of range for me (the 4X zoom has a definite advantage over a 3X in this area). But it doesn't go wide enough for probably 5-10% of the cases. I suspect that I will want to purchase both the WA extender and the 2X telephoto. Or would the 3X be a better deal overall (any holes in range, for example)? One point with the extenders on, you have to use them at the top end of the zoom to avoid vignetting the image -- so you don't have a continuous zoom range like you would with the Canon. Does somebody may tiny polarizing filters to use on the 99x? I tracked down a z-ring adapter and polariser while in Singapore, and made good use of them in the Aegean. Btw, it seems that you don't need to get the more expensive circular polariser; my information was that digital cameras use a different exposure metering regime. I'm wondering if the saved image is electronically corrected after it comes off the CCD. In any case, the shots I made using the plain one were fine. But I haven't yet found a lens hood. I was checking the B&H Photo web site and they actually do sell 28mm circular polarizers. Even a Heliopan one was only $40 or so, so I would think this would be the best way to go. It seems better than getting a step up ring to fit the 72mm filter I have <GRIN>. I ended up with about 400 pics on my vacation (Nova Scotia). One problem with taking pictures while on vacation (I would think even worse on a tour as you took) is that the weather is what the weather is when you get to the spot you want to take pictures of. If it's cloudy, it's cloudy, and nothing you do is going to help that. I've got a sequence of shots of a rocky beach we were at for an hour, where the first shots are pretty ugly as the clouds were solid but by the end they had broken up and the pictures look much better. Weather
is the curse of the tourist. You look at the gorgeous shots on the postcards,
then realise that the guy probably sat on the beach for months and took
a ton of film to get them. Confession: nearly all my shots get left on the auto+matrix setting. The exception was when on the tour bus I set up the manual for shutter priority and 1/1000. I ran into a small problem there's no over/under exposure warning; so when the cloud thickened and the light dropped, I was still on 1/1000 but about two stops underexposed. The only way I could get a visual check was to occasionally thumb the shutter speed down until the f-stop changed. But of course one forgets... Me too with my Elan II.But I do use the shiftable program sometimes when I'm standing there with the wide angle and the camera says 1/500 at f8 - I go for a little more depth of focus then. Sometimes, if I remember. I also like what Canon calls "Depth" mode; focus on the closest thing you want in focus, then the furthest. On the third press, it picks an f/stop and distance to get the whole range in focus. Sometimes it decides it needs f/32 at 1/15 second, but lots of times I get pretty reasonable results. Of course, not even the Canon digitals seem to have this feature, but it was on the EOS 650 I bought in 1987 as well as my Elan II from a couple of years ago. Yes, a nice feature to have. But is it my impression that camera manufacturers are aiming digital cameras at the low end of the users? At least the 990 is able to go manual for most things. How well do the accessory wide-angle and telephoto lenses work on the 990? For what they cost, they ought to be pretty good quality! I guess since the CCD is so small building a wide angle is pretty hard, but I wish they did go below 35mm focal length or so. Well, they *have* to be an optical compromise as compared to an SLR interchangeable; the prime lens must be optimised as a stand-alone, and an outboard optical add-on must introduce some aberration or other. that being said in practice, I find them excellent. That's what I hoped to hear. That was the impression I got from some of the online forums I'd read. OTOH, some of those guys are experimenting with stacking about 3 of those lenses, or attaching 11X spotting copes to the 990's. Crazy! You should see what one of those units looks like in place. One thing about the 995 is that it has a lock you can flip to keep it from swinging past 90 degrees. I'd assume that just like a tele-extender in 35mm, the 2X is probably better quality than the 3X? Without extensive checking on lens targets, I couldn't tell from my results so far. Both seem to work adequately; my only bitch is the difficulty of getting the extender in place in a hurry -- I do miss the quick-change lens. The 3X is a heavy beasty -- I don't recommend trying to screw it on in a hurry as it takes care to get the thread started, and I am scared of dropping it. Also the front-heavy weight makes it awkward to hold the camera. I have roughly measured the acceptance angle of the 0.66 WA attachment, and it seems to be about 90 degrees, which would put it somewhere less than a 24mm on 35, say 26-8. There is a fair amount of barrelling with it, which is more pronounced than the 24mm on my venerable 801. But a lot of that can be removed in PS. There is another one with an even wider span. I think Nikon advertises the WA adapter as going down to 24mm equivalent, so that is consistent with your observation. I took the 950 from work out last night to play with it a bit. One thing I'd forgotten; it may drive me to getting bifocals! The LCD is small enough that it's hard to see without taking off my glasses. I need to take my glasses off once things get closer than about 12 inches, and I tend to want the LCD that close. It gets me mostly when I'm playing with all the menus, or looking at playback mode. I assume you're well into middle age... I've got progressive glasses, and it's a real pain sometimes to get the right part of the lens in the right place to see the LCD. There's a guy who advertises in our local photo paper who sells an attachment which has a shroud and viewing lens for the LCD -- must follow up on that one. Hmm,
I was hoping that bifocals of some sort would help with reading the LCD.
It sounds like you're telling me they don't actually help all that much,
everything considered. That's disappointing. I was hoping that a camera
with an electronic viewfinder would help me out by letting me be able
to read at least exposure information in the viewfinder easily. Yeah, bifocals are fine. I just got the progressives because I found there was intermediate things I wanted to get sharp, and bifocals fell between the two stools. That being said, you have to tilt the head up and down to find the sweet spot. Using it also reminded me how slow ISO 100 is - sigh. I'm so used to using 400 speed film, and I find it good for up to at least an 8x10 shot, which is the largest I'm likely to go. I'm out at dusk, and it wants to use 1/30 at f/2.6. My Canon with 400 film was about 1/45 at f/5.6. I didn't really hold them side by side to test it, which I need to do eventually. I'm sure that this sensitivity thing is going to be remedied in due course look at the light-gathering powers of the latest video cameras. OK, they're not as definition-critical as stills, but there must be a lot of technology at work. Have you tried the 950 at 400? I can't say I have problems. Yep, Wednesday evening I did some playing around with the 950, pushing the ISO up higher. There is some difference, but it's not nearly as much as the web site reviews led me to believe. So that is less of an issue than I thought. So now I just have to find someplace here in town with the cameras I want in stock. I definitely want to handle them before I decide. I managed to find one place with a 995, and I think I can find a Canon G1, but nobody seems to carry the Canon Pro 90 IS. One outfit did mention the Olympus unit which has about the same lens and IS as the Pro 90, but it's only a 2.1MP unit. I hate to compromise on that, although it ought to give me some idea of what that type of camera is like. Definitely you should go for no less than 3+ MP. Saturday I had a chance to get out to the one local shop which had a CoolPix 995 in stock. Very nice unit, I must admit. And, as one guy said to be, if you've used the 950 you've "used" the 995. The 995 menus are a bit different, and it has better navigation for some things in the menus. Definitely an evolutionary upgrade, I'd say, from the 990 and most likely even from the 950. The consensus is 995 is better then 990, but not a compelling reason to upgrade. Yes, I'd have likes the 4x zoom. A question on the 990; doesn't that have the "major sharpening" effect to indicate what's in focus? How well does that work? I didn't notice it on the 995 when I played with it, but it might well have been turned off. I did get a chance to see the "blown out" areas on the LCD histogram flashing, which seemed to work quite nicely. Ummm .. checking the manual: "Focus confirmation -- Objects that are in focus will be sharply outlined in LCD monitor in all focus modes." -- this setting defaults to ON, but is configurable to OFF and MANUAL. I've just had a look to see what the hell they're talking about -- the image just looks sharp where I'd expect it, that's all. That being said, I tend to watch the focus confirm light as well... Given that I don't do much flash work, mostly I use flash for fill or "snapshots", what flash makes sense to get with the 995? I read about a relatively new Nikon flash, I want to so with "50" as part of the model number. I know I have to get the bracket and shoe combination, but I'm curious as to what you think the best flash to get would be. I've got all Canon gear, and I don't see myself buying a Nikon film body in the future. I just suspect that sometimes I may want to take a few indoor pictures, and wonder if I need a better flash than what comes with the 995. Oh, one other question; if I push the ISO on the camera up to 200, say, does that extend the range of the flash or does using the flash always push you back to 100 ISO? The built-in flash is good for shadow fill-in, and adequate in P&S mode up to about 12 feet. For serious work, I have a venerable SB22 that I use with the Nikon 801. The flash bracket is basic but adequate -- just a bent bit of strap iron with good solid knob-ended screws, but it has a special cable to mate with the 990. I don't use the flash on the bracket -- I put an extender cable into the bracket shoe and fire the flash through a diffuser for product shots. I've
been playing with the 950 from work, and what I find is that it's a lousy
camera to take pictures of people indoors. The lights dim enough that
I get slow shutter speeds, so even if I hold the camera still enough my
friends tend to move enough to blur. The flash is a real wimp, and usually
I end up with quite dim pictures. We won't even talk about how much the
950's flash tends to cause red-eye, the biggest problem is that it doesn't
have a range over 8 feet or so. Does this jive with your experiences,
or am I doing something odd? With a 35mm camera I'd use 400 speed film
which would double the range of the flash. I use an SB22 on the bracket to avoid this. You're right-the onboard flash is OK for close stuff only. But that would apply to pretty much all of the on-board flashes. I suppose you are right, but it sure is depressing. When I commented to my wife, who's casually looked just a little at digital cameras, her reaction was that it would kill using a digital camera for her. Probably 50% of the pictures she takes when we aren't on vacation are flash pictures of people, and often she's not standing right on top of them. A typical P&S camera with 400 speed film has a 20 foot range; a digital camera has pathetic range in comparison. I guess I've read the flash ranges, and checked the numbers, but never fully realized just how poor the range of the built-in flash is. Worse yet is how so many digital cameras make it so hard to add an external flash, what with having to connect up brackets and such. At least the Canon Pro90 IS has a hot shoe right on top for the flash. But Nikon and Olympus both require you to hook up a bracket and cable before you can even think about hooking up the flash. My testing also showed a good comparison between using 100 and 400 speed and how it compares. I think it's not bad outside, but when the light is getting dim there is a lot more "gunk" in the 400 ISO picture I took with the 950. Just as a good indication, the size of the JPG file went from 800Kb to 1Mb! Same item, very similar framing, just a boosted ISO. Noise all over the place! Visible noise too, not just something you can't see. Yes, it does seem to be limited in that use. I normally don't use the digital for party type snapshots, and if I do, I would hook up the SB22. One of the reasons is that I routinely hold the flash high above my head (I have a Nikon cord extender). This is an old 'candid' trick I learned in my youth when shooting wedding pix. People are often against a wall, and this throws their flash shadow behind and down and is not noticeable. And, of course, it completely stops redeye. My testing also showed a good comparison between using 100 and 400 speed and how it compares. I think it's not bad outside, but when the light is getting dim there is a lot more "gunk" in the 400 ISO picture I took with the 950. Just as a good indication, the size of the JPG file went from 800Kb to 1Mb! Same item, very similar framing, just a boosted ISO. Noise all over the place! Visible noise too, not just something you can't see. I wonder whether the 990/5 has better firmware than the 950 -- I suspect so, and that the next model will be even better, and so on. We will certainly get better light sensitivity in the CCD as advances are made. Thanks a lot for whatever thoughts you might have to pass on... Thanks for asking! I'll post this -- always delighted to have new material. Anyone else like to hop in?? Be my guest... Cheers ... /Mike |
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