My First DSLR Camera

In January 2006, after two years of (mostly, or at least often) suffering with my Nikon Coolpix 5700, I decided it was time to take up "real" photography again. Needless to say: I decided to stay with Nikon, but this the going for a "real" camera, i.e., a digital SLR (DSLR). I don't recall all considerations that led to the final brand and model selection, but one thought must have been that I still had my Nikon F3 with all the lenses (all manual, though), so I was hoping to be able to continue using some of these valuable optics with Nikon F-mount — especially the 24 mm f/2, the 35 mm f/1.4 and the 50 mm f/1.4 —

I looked through Nikon's range of cameras, and the Nikon D200 appeared like a good choice: sturdy / rugged (not made from plastic as some low cost models), almost like a professional camera, but not as bulky as the latter, and with the necessary / desired operational flexibility, i.e.: 10.2 MP sensor — twice the number of pixels compared to the Coolpix 5700, yet lower noise due to a much larger DX size sensor, a good autofocus, a good size 230,000 pixel LCD display, an ISO range up to 1600, a shutter speed up to 1/8000 s. I paid CHF 2400 for the body which had just been introduced a few months earlier (November 2005). I added a 4 GB CF memory card for CHF 720; as the delivery time was rather long — about 2 months, if I remember correctly  (the demand was apparently larger than expected), so I added a second 4 GB card to the order while still waiting for the delivery, and that second, identical CF card was then billed for CHF 400: I still have the invoice showing

• 4 GB CF Extreme III memory card, CHF 719
• 4 GB CF Extreme III memory card, CHF 399

I don't think there was an option to cancel the first order ...

Of course, I wanted to add a lens with autofocus, and — just coming from the Coolpix 5700 with it's focal length range equivalent of 35 - 280 mm, that I actually found handy and enjoyable — I opted for the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm; the minimum lens aperture was f/3.5 - f/5.6; given that the vibration reduction option allows a 4-fold increase in exposure times, I expected that the moderate minimum aperture would not be a problem - and I was not disappointed in that respect! The focal length corresponds to a range 24 - 300 mm (on a full frame camera), i.e., this lens gave me a little more at the far end, and substantially more range at the wide angle end, in fact covering all my manual F3 lenses, even beating my old 80 - 200 mm (full frame, of course) by a factor of 1.5 at the far end. This lens is not exactly cheap (CHF 1200) — such a wide (11x) zoom range requires a complex lens construction (and still a lot of compromises, as I learned later, see below). The big advantage with this lens was (for me) that I could keep it on the camera body all the time: no need to carry extra gear (i.e., additional lenses), minimal danger of getting a dust on the camera sensor (I may return to this topic later).

I also added a Nikon SB-800 flash light; this certainly was a good choice then — and I still use that flash light today (I'll return to the topic of flash lights in a future blog entry).

Unfortunately, my D200 experience started with a major mishap! I waited a couple months until I really started using my new toy (probably not out of respect, but merely because I was too busy at work), but in summer 2006 I started using the camera. I had taken some 360 pictures — at a time when my computer was behaving strangely, at times: it was typically usable and OK, but at times programs would just crash, or music imported from CD would be corrupted in strange ways (occasional, sudden burst of hissing noise), and I also experienced cases of image data corruption (e.g., JPEG images where major portions were either missing or severely color-distorted). These problems had already affected some pictures from my Coolpix 5700 — I discarded some shots, with others I invested lots of effort and Photoshop time into attempts to restore / reconstruct the original data. I was concerned, but the problem was sporadic (it tended to be more prominent in summer, when the office temperature was high) and mysterious: I looked for disk problems — disk diagnostics worked OK, even though clearly I had corrupted data, and I definitely also experienced problems with copying files between disks, duplicating disk contents on a second drive, reading and writing DVDs ... this all sounds painful, but as stated, the problems were somewhat sporadic, and so I continued using my system despite these issues. Worse than that (OK, in the aftermath one always knows better!), I continued importing photos (into iPhoto at that time) and deleting them from the CF cards once they were on disk. Of course I would do backups from the iPhoto library — but as it turned out, the iPhoto files, and with these also the backups, still included some degree of corruption.

Anyway: life goes on, and so I started using the camera more frequently. To get used to the new tool I took pictures from our garden, at family events, etc. (the usual pictures, as you would expect), and I used the camera to create pictures for on-line auctions, i.,e., for selling rather than collecting or discarding stuff that is no longer in use (which actually is great fun, too!). Taking "sales pictures" of "things" is anything but trivial and taught me a lot about how to use a flash light! Then, as I got acquainted with the camera, I started using it for a couple bigger "projects" — here are some highlights (the number of pictures given only reflects shots that I kept in my computer) —

On 2007-02-18 I took the camera along for a 4-hour winter walk around the Greifensee near Zurich (no snow at that time!). I kept just 28 shots — pictures that I actually quite like (all taken with Nikon D200, AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm). Here are a couple examples:

South boat harbor in Niederuster / Greifensee, ZH/Switzerland
ISO 400, f/18, 1/1250, 18mm (27mm equiv.)

View from Niederuster ZH to the little town & castle of Greifensee
ISO 400, f/13, 1/640, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Storks near the south end of the Greifensee (near Zurich/Switzerland)
ISO 400, f/10, 1/400, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

The "Greif", the only steam boat in Switzerland still powered by coal, in its winter dress
ISO 400, f/10, 1/400, 56mm (84mm equiv.)

Greifensee: view from Maur, ZH onto Uster ZH, with castle and church
ISO 400, f/14, 1/750, 50mm (75mm equiv.)

Greifensee, harbor of Maur ZH: tourist & ferry traffic on the lake (provided the lake isn't frozen in winter!)
ISO 400, f(14, 1/750, 60mm (90mm equiv.)

I love these autumn scenes around the lakes in our region! But clearly, I was experimenting here. the first shot was a fairly demanding one — the picture shown is the result of major brightness and contrast adjustments (causing substantial color noise in the dark / shadowy areas) — the original looks as follows:

South boat harbor in Niederuster / Greifensee, ZH/Switzerland
ISO 400, f/18, 1/1250, 18mm (27mm equiv.), unaltered

Apart from the color noise, the result isn't all that bad, I think, given that the sun is almost in the picture (hence the lens flare).

In general, such autumn shots are rather tricky to handle when trying to enhance the result. These autumn moods feature a lot of subtle mid-tones, are often low in contrast, especially in hazy conditions. I think & hope that the above results aren't too far from reality. Here's the unprocessed version of the second picture:

View from Niederuster ZH to the little town & castle of Greifensee
ISO 400, f/13, 1/640, 200mm (300mm equiv.), unaltered

The next major event was the Military Tattoo in Basel, on 2007-07-20, where I took 185 pictures during a daytime performance (we had to get back home after the event), unfortunately under covered skies and even occasional, slight rain:

Basel, Military Tattoo 2007
ISO 640, f/7.1, 1/320, 26mm (39mm equiv.)

Despite the weather, the photos I took at this event are OK, I think — about as good as it gets, given the weather circumstances and the seats that we managed to get.

Finally (yes, finally already, see my next blog entry!), Lea & I spent a marvelous week of vacation in the Engadin (staying in a hotel in Samedan), featuring

• a trip down to Martina — Tschlin — Strada
• a hike up to  Muottas Muragl and to the Lej Muragl
• a trip across the Bernina to Poschiavo, walking around the Lago di Poschiavo (very nice with its turquoise / blue / green color variations!)
• a trip via Maloja to Promontogno — Soglio — Castasegna, from there to Maloja again, walking along the south side of the Silsersee, to Sils-Maria (the current background pictures are from the latter part of this excursion)
• a trip to the Pass dal Fuorn (Ofenpass), then hiking all the way down to Müstair

Overall, I don't think I can complain about the results from my D200 and the 18 - 200 zoom lens: contrast, colors, even resolution/sharpness were OK (given the limitations of the lens). Here are two sample shots from our hike from Promontogno up to Soglio:

Valle di Bregaglia, Ascent to Soglio / GR, Switzerland
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 135mm (202mm equiv.)

Valle di Bregaglia, Ascent to Soglio / GR, Switzerland: View onto Promontogno
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Pictures that showed the limitations of the D200 camera sensor were shots like these:

Maloja / GR, Switzerland, view towards the pass
ISO 100, f/9, 1/320, 24mm (36mm equiv.)

On the south border of the Silsersee, GR / Switzerland
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 18mm (27mm equiv.)

While superficially these shots may look OK, it turned out to be try difficult to process the pictures above such that the shadows weren't just black without either losing detail in the bright clouds or causing the picture to look flat (i.e., to lack contrast). Clearly, I was running into limitations with the 12-bit dynamic range of the D200. This, and the fact that the successor model was improved in just about all aspects, I decided to switch / upgrade at a time when I could still sell the D200 body for a reasonable price. In January 2008, I bought a Nikon D300 (for the amount that I had paid for the D200 body), the D200 body was sold at an on-line auction (including one 4 GB CF card), for around CHF 1200 — a write-off of CHF 1900.

Was I happy with this camera? Overall: definitely! Over two years, I have taken 1500 shots with it, of which I still keep around 1000 (after losing 360 pictures), which I think is a good yield, given that it was my entry into DSLR photography. OK, the costs per image in the end were CHF 1.90, not considering labor / time / computing resources — but what counts in the end is the satisfaction one gets out of the pictures that remain.