A Light Leak in my D300?

In summer 2009,  some 18 months after switching to the Nikon D300 body, I noted a strange artifact on some of my photos. Here's a sample shot that highlights the problem:

18 - 200 mm super zoom @ ISO 200, 27 mm, f/11, 1/320"

Initially, I didn't even notice the defect which was most conspicuous when it fell onto a clear sky or other monotonous area. I just thought "strange!" — and patched it away in Aperture. My primary suspicion was that this may be a reflection caused by the skylight filter that I used to protect the front lens of my 18 - 200 mm VR super zoom lens: sun light (the artifact seemed to be linked to pictures taken in bright sunshine) can be reflected from the filter in front of the sensor, then reflected back on the backside of the UV or Skylight filter, producing an extra reflex / artifact — this is a known phenomenon. However, if this was the problem, why then would the artifact always appear in the same location??

My next thought was that it might be some object / dust particle towards the back end of the zoom lens, which might explain why the artifact looked like a diffraction pattern (with dust on the sensor I would expect well-defined, dark spots). So, I was hoping that better lenses would cure the problem. Wrong.

In spring 2010 I switched from the super zoom to professional (full frame) quality 70 - 200 mm f/2.8 and 16 - 35 mm f/4 lenses; I did not use an extra UV filter, just to make sure this does not cause extra headaches. The lenses produced very good, high quality, clear images — but sure enough, the problem was still there! Sometimes it took while to realize the issue was present, like here:

70 - 200 mm f/2.8 @ ISO 200, 105 mm, f/10, 1/400

But once I realized that it was at a given location in the raw image, it became hard to ignore it:

One some background it wasn't easy to make it disappear — sometimes I needed to use Photoshop, or at least very careful patching in Aperture. Here's a close-up look at the artifact in the above shot:

Now I was more worried about my camera body. But — if it wasn't the lens(es), could it still be some strange kind of dust particle on the sensor filter? I took a series of blank, defocused shots of a uniform surface, at various lighting conditions — nothing at all, not the tiniest sign of sensor dust anywhere, let alone such (not so) funny circles!

So, I continued investigating and noted that the artifact only showed up when I had direct sunlight on the camera body — and particularly when the sun was almost or directly in the picture. My hypothesis then was that only a tiny light leak at some distance from the sensor plane would explain the circle-like diffraction pattern on photos, and why it would only appear when direct sunlight fell onto the front part of the camera body. In October 2010, I sent the body to Nikon for repair, along with pictures highlighting the issue. The warranty had expired, but the repair was done at no cost; the repair sheet spelled out some warning about not letting dust enter the body — but I'm sure this was not the issue! I took some shots with the sun in the picture — and I'm glad to report that the problem is gone and has since not reappeared:

24 - 120 mm f/4 @ ISO 200, 36 mm, f/10, 1/400"

24 - 120 mm f/4 @ ISO 200, 36 mm, f/14, 1/800"

Airshow Photo Attempts

On June 25th, 2011, the Swiss army air defense troops celebrated their 75th anniversary, and on this occasion they organized an air show in Dübendorf, just about 6 km from the place where we live. The setting was an old, venerable military airport (formerly also Zurich's civilian airport) that is in the process of being dissolved: it is located within the agglomeration of Zurich, in a relatively densely populated area — we all (even 4 - 6 km away!) still remember the very disruptive, rumbling noise caused by the Mirage IIIS jet fighters starting with afterburner!

Lea and I had been at the Air '04 in Payerne 7 years ago (2004-09-04, in tropical heat and totally blue sky) — I then took pictures with my Nikon Coolpix 5700, with mixed success: for good pictures that camera was simply too slow, the electronic viewfinder too limited. This time I wanted to do better, and so I took my Nikon D300, the tripod, 70 - 200 mm and 24 - 120 mm zoom lenses (only used the former in the end), as well as the 2x teleconverter into my slingbag and was curious to see how things would go. The weather was so-so: mostly covered sky, but at least enough visibility for the event to take place. That part worked out OK, though the contrast was limited with all that gray background. Once it began raining a few drops, but that was just minutes.

So, how did I do? Well, let's start with the downside: we arrived by train, what we thought was "just in time" — but we did not anticipate the extended foot walk due to the route which they assigned to pedestrian visitors! Once we were on site, we spent some time trying to find a good viewing spot: the initial location was not good enough, so we had to walk a while to find a suitable, central location. This was merely minutes before the event would start; needless to say that front row spots were all taken, though that was a minor issue, as things would mostly happen in the air. I had enough time to install my tripod, mount the 70 - 200 mm zoom on the tripod (with the teleconverter), to attach the camera body, and to adjust the tripod height — and (too) soon the event started! In the aftermath I should have taken more time to think about optimum camera settings: most of the shots were taken with "P", I must confess! That alone wasn't too bad, though — but I should have switched to a higher ISO setting: in lieu of ISO 200, I should have used ISO 400 or 800, maybe (above that, the D300 starts to be a bit noisy), in order to shorten the shutter speeds for sharper pictures. Of course I used the VR — but with moving objects this is of limited value.

Some general remarks: most of the pictures were taken from the tripod, though I kept the ball head loose, so just used the tripod as stabilizing support, which worked out OK. I never used the 24 - 120 mm zoom, all pictures shown here are from the 70 - 200 mm zoom, with teleconverter, using the resulting range of 140 - 400 mm focal length (210 - 600 mm equivalent @ 35 mm frame size). In the aftermath, this turned out to be adequate: with a stronger zoom it is hard to capture some of the fast moving actions, and at wider angles (e.g., 70 - 200 mm without teleconverter, or with the same lens setting, but a full frame body) I would end up doing more cropping back home — and then I might need a higher pixel count. A camera with higher ISO range would have helped, though! Note that all pictures are taken with horizontal camera position — with cropping back home, as necessary. On to the show — all focal lengths mentioned are for 35 mm frame size; click on the images to enlarge:

The event started with the PC-7 team (currently still located in Dübendorf), showing off its power in precision formation flight — the selection of a central viewing spot paid off:

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 480 mm, f/14, 1/250"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 600 mm, f/14, 1/160"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 600 mm, f/14, 1/160"

Next in the program was a F/A-18 "Hornet" fighter plane:

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 600 mm, f/14, 1/160"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 600 mm, f/10, 1/400"

Paratroopers showed off a precision landing. When you see these guys sitting in their ropes, that looks rather comfortable — not really comforting, though, considering that international war convention explicitly allows shooting at paratroopers during their descent!

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 420 mm, f/10, 1/400"

This was followed by a Super Puma helicopter presenting some amazing maneuvers: military pilots call this a "truck" — yet it can almost do loopings!

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 m, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

This being the 75th anniversary of the Swiss air defense, they had to show some live shooting at real airplanes — using self-decaying plastic ammunition, of course:

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 480 mm, f/8, 1/250"

The highlight of every airshow in Switzerland is the Patrouille Suisse, showing some spectacular acrobatics & precision formation flights on their six F-5E "Tiger":

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 300 mm, f/11, 1/500"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 300 mm, f/11, 1/500"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 300 mm, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 600 mm, f/11, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 600 mm, f/11, 1/500"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 315 mm, f/11, 1/400"

 ... and their final bouquet before finishing the show with flares:

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

D300, 70 - 200mm f/2.8 zoom + TC-20E III @ 210 mm, f/10, 1/400"

I missed the most spectacular piece where five Tigers are forming a tunnel, and the sixth machine is flying against them at near speed-of-sound, through the tunnel: exactly at that moment a guy in front of me decided to lift his daughter onto his shoulders, right into my view! Well, even with serial shots this is hard to capture anyway.

Given my lack of experience with photography at such events, I was quite satisfied: after processing and selecting I retained  almost 100 pictures out of 160 taken (could probably trash a couple more, though).

I Like Nikon's 16-35mm f/4 Zoom!

One of the reasons why I switched away from my "generalist" lens, the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm  super zoom was its tendency to produce heavy distortions at the wide angle end, see my post on super zoom lenses. I have since switched to a set of lenses, covering more than the 18 - 200 mm range super zoom. For the wide angle end, I'm now using the AF-S Nikkor 16 - 35 mm f/4G ED VR wide angle zoom lens.

This week I needed to take pictures of a piece of furniture (a bed) that I want to sell at an on-line auction (and I take some pride in documenting my auction items with good photographs). Unfortunately, that item was stored in pieces in our shed, so we had some extra work to do: Lea and I put the bed together in the little space that we had, we tried creating some white (whitish, maybe) "walls" / background using old linen, then I took my D300, the tripod and the 16 - 36 mm wide angle zoom lens — by squeezing myself into a corner and setting the focal length to 16 mm (24 mm full frame equivalent) I just managed to catch the object complete, though I was not able to keep the camera in a horizontal position, resulting in vertical lines converging towards the bottom. I could have used portrait format to avoid the tilting — but that caused strange shadows with the flash light, and due to the dark ceiling, indirect flashing did not produce the desired results (should add a reflector for indirect flashing, and/or a second flash, but — after all — this was just for a single on-line auction, so I did not want to invest more money than what I might eventually get back from the sale!). The result (raw image) is nothing to be proud of:

Furniture shot for auctioning, before processing
Nikon D300, Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4
ISO 200, f/5, 1/60, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

After doing some exposure correction, straightening and cropping in Aperture, the result looked as follows:

Furniture shot for auctioning, after cropping, contrast adjustment, etc.

Still nothing special, of course (I wish I had removed the carpet beforehand!), but — sort of — usable for an auction. I did want to remove the tilting / perspectivic distortion in order to have vertical lines; I did this in Photoshop:

Furniture shot for auctioning, after post-processing and geometry adjustment

There are plugins and third party software for perspective correction, but I normally just use the "Free Transform" in Photoshop: here I selected the entire canvas, pulled out the lower right corner horizontally until the rightmost lines were vertical, then I (horizontally) shifted inwards the upper left corner by the same amount (can easily be verified by ensuring that the picture retains the original width in the center). In this case, this second operation caused a "gap" in the upper left corner (as I did not want to cur the ladder) — this could easily be amended by stretching out parts of the unstructured background.

Still, the result is nothing to be proud of (the carpet is very disruptive, the background is amateurish at best), but at least it serves the purpose of showing the object in a half-way representative, undistorted view: auction photos in my opinion must be truthful (no photo surgery on the object itself) and show the true state of the object (I always add a meticulous verbal & verbose description), the rest (professional background, lighting, etc.) would be nice to have, but is not prerequisite (to the contrary: if auction photos are too professional, people might doubt whether they are representative for the object on sale!). Actually, the carpet & the background make it unlikely that others steal such images for their own purpose!

What I'm really getting at: I was very pleased to see that the result has no visible (pincushion or barrel) distortion — I'm sure the 18 - 200 mm super zoom would have driven me crazy with its barrel or (worse) moustache distortion at the widest angle setting! It also lacks 2 mm focal length at the wide angle end, so may have imposed further restrictions. OK, I only used the central portion of the image, where distortions are minimal anyway. Also, the 16 - 35 mm lens is a full frame lens: with a DX format sensor I'm only using the central part of the image circle, which probably helps further reducing residual distortions. On the other hand, on a full frame body I could have done the above shot with a mid-range zoom position (24 rather than 16 mm focal length), which would also have helped keeping distortions at a minimum.

A New Toy for Macro Photography

Good bye, macro extension rings! I'm glad that I don't really need those rather clumsy tools for macro photography any longer: I had used extension rings on my Topcon RE-2, in a early experimental / exploratory phase — I just scanned my photo collection, and I don't think I have used the "automatic" extension rings on my Nikon F3 more than half a dozen times, even though these were with (mechanical) aperture control / transmission and therefore substantially easier to use than the "dumb" ones that I had with my Topcon RE-2.

My new toy for macro photography is the AF-S Micro-Nikkor 105 mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR, offering reproduction ratios up to 1:1; I haven't made extensive use of this lens yet — but I have used to take photos of small stuff that I sold on on-line auctions; then I saw this interesting insect on the outside of my office window: I took these pictures through the window glass (should clean my windows!), i.e., you are looking at this insect from underneath:

Insect, macro shot
Nikon D300, AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
ISO 800, F/9, 1/320, 105mm (157mm equiv.)

Insect, macro shot
Nikon D300, AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
ISO 800, F/9, 1/320, 105mm (157mm equiv.)

Insect, macro shot
Nikon D300, AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
ISO 800, F/22, 1/40, 105mm (157mm equiv.)

I love the bokeh in these shots!

My DSLR Camera #2

In August 2007, less than 2 years after the D200, Nikon announced a successor / replacement, the Nikon D300 DSLR. I rushed to study the specifications and looked at comparative reviews — and found that Nikon had improved just about every aspect of its semi-pro model:

• 14-bit rather than 12-bit ADC (higher dynamic range)
• 12.3 MP rather than 10.2 MP sensor
• ISO 200 ..  3200 in lieu of 100 .. 1600
• improved autofocus
• self-cleaning sensor
• viewfinder with 100% coverage (up from 95%)
• 3" / 922000 pixel LCD, up from 2.5" / 230000 pixels
• (plus several other enhancements that weren't important to me)

Needless to say that it didn't take long for me to decide that I wanted to upgrade, especially after having seen the limitations in dynamic range with the D200 (see my previous blog entry). I received my new camera body in February 2008 — and I still use it to this day (OK, that's only 3.5 years — but at least it's about twice as long as I kept the D200). The price was virtually the same as for the D200 (CHF 2350 in lieu of CHF 2390). I added an 8 GB Lexar 300x UDMA CF card (CHF 320). For the time being, I kept the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm lens, and of course the Nikon SB-800 flash light.

The new camera body definitely improved my photography experience. Here are some examples of how I used it in 2008 / 2009 (apart from the usual family event / home / garden photos):

• 83 shots taken at the Basel Tattoo parade on 2008-07-19
• I had fun taking automatic serial shots to have a "film" of tree felling actions in our garden: one series with 101 pictures at 30" intervals; a second series with 103 pictures at 1' intervals; finally a third series with 42 pictures at 5' intervals (oops — here I lost the start of the "show": I forgot to double-check whether the series had really started, and when I checked after 1.5 hours, no picture had been taken yet ... )
• I documented 4 concerts of the SONUS ensemble in which Lea is participating (26, 52, 2, and 10 shots); pictures from the first concert can be found on Facebook.
• On 2009-07-30 we did a 1-day train excursion through Graubünden into the Ticino and back home - just 15 shots in Lugano — I didn't really feel like taking lots of pictures from the moving train —
• On 2009-08-06 we did another 1-day excursion, this time by train to the Lac Léman, by ship to Geneva, and back by train; the weather on the Lac Léman was gorgeous — 100 pictures
• On 2009-08-13 we did a third 1-day excursion: by train to Andermatt, and from there over the Oberalp-Pass to Chur, from there by bus to Juf and back home via Chur. The weather in Andermatt was excellent, Juf unfortunately didn't look very attractive, plus, it started raining (just 21 pictures).
• On November 13th, 2009 Lea and I attended Deborah's diploma ceremony in the Grossmünster in Zurich — this was a late evening event, flash lights were not permitted (nor desirable, I think). The 16 shots that I retained (out of 17) were all quite satisfactory, despite the limited light strength (f/3.5 - f/5.6) of the 18 - 200 mm zoom lens: the vibration reduction did a good job (I did not take a tripod along, nor did I use any other supporting means). Sure, some of the shots have noticeable color noise, but that was to be expected and is far from making the photos unusable.

After the first two years I felt pretty comfortable with the D300, it did a good job, the proportion of usable shots was very high, I liked the pictures that I got out of this gear — clearly the best camera that I have ever used so far. Sure, I also ran into a couple limitations with the camera body:

• I often wished there was a built-in GPS module, to save me from guessing where on a trip a particular shot was made.
• When taking pictures of birds I sometimes had to use excessive cropping, even at an equivalent (maximum) focal length of 300 mm — either a "longer" lens ($$$$) or a higher pixel count would have been nice.
• There are certainly limitations in low light conditions — some extra sensitivity in the sensor would be helpful.

Besides a body defect, other limitations were mostly with  the 18 - 200 mm zoom lens:

• Some pictures (especially taken towards the sun) showed an irritating artifact that I attributed to a light leak — I'll discuss this in a separate blog entry (Nikon fixed this within the warranty, at no cost).
• The lens clearly had limitations in resolution / sharpness, especially near the edges (see my separate blog entry on this and related topics).
• Worse than that, the lens creates serious distortions, especially at the wide angle end. At the very least, these distortions are time-consuming to correct — if they can be corrected at all (see again my separate blog entry).
• A larger aperture would sometimes have been helpful — though this was the least of the problems, thanks to the vibration reduction.

In 2010, I wanted to address at least some of these issues. The light leak issue was easy to address (thanks, Nikon!); in February 2010 I added an external GPS (AOKA Bluetooth GPS Adapter for Nikon DSLR, Holux M-1000 Wireless GPS Receiver) for CHF  236 — that's good value for money, even though a GPS receiver built into the camera body would be preferable, IMHO.

• AF-S Nikkor 70 - 200 mm f/2.8G ED VR II
• AF-S Nikkor 16 - 35 mm f/4G ED VR
• Nikon TC-20E III (2x Teleconverter)
• AF-S Micro-Nikkor 105 mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR
• AF-S Nikkor 24 - 120 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR

That looks and feels a bit overwhelming; I'll return to the lens discussion in separate blog entries. Briefly:

• these are all high contrast, low artifact lenses (using Nikon's Nano coating), and
• they are all full format lenses, i.e., I'll be able to use these lenses even if and when I upgrade to a full-frame camera body;
• all lenses feature VR (vibration reduction), which more than compensates limitations in the maximum aperture setting;
• with the addition of the teleconverter I now have the equivalent of a 140 - 400 mm zoom lens, equivalent to 210 - 600 mm with my current D300 body;
• the 70 - 200 has a minimum distance setting of 1.4 m — and at that distance the maximum focal length is actually only 140 mm, not 200 mm. This means that this lens is not rally as good at macro photography as my old 80 - 200 mm zoom lens that I used to have on my Nikon F3: at a minimum distance of 1.2 m, this offered a reproduction ratio of 1:6,  while at 1.4 m the new 70 - 200 (actually 70 - 140) only offers a reproduction ratio of 1:10 — hence the addition of a macro lens: this actually offers reproduction ratios of up to 1:1;
• the wide angle zoom offers a little more range at the wide angle end (equivalent to 24 mm rather than 27 mm with the previous 18 - 200 mm superzoom predecessor);
• last, but not least: the 16 - 35 / 70 - 200 mm zoom combination leaves a gap at focal lengths of 35 - 70 mm, equivalent to 50 - 105 mm with full frame sensors / 35 mm film — to cover this, a 24 - 120 mm zoom lens was added: this is not quite of the same professional standard as the other lenses (even though it features Nano-coating, internal focus, aspherical and ED lens elements), but it is an excellent all-round lens to keep on the camera most of the time (e.g., when traveling). With a full frame equivalent of 35 - 180 mm it covers more than the gap left by the other zoom lenses. Also, at a minimum distance of 45 cm it offers reproduction ratios of up to 1:4, i.e., it is better at macro photography than the 70 - 200 mm and my old 80 - 200 mm zoom lenses.

How to carry around all this gear is another story, of course ...

I have now started using the new set of lenses, the 18 - 200 super zoom went on sale last January — and I still got 43% of the original price, even though at that time the lens was 5 years old! As in other recent years, family circumstances did not allow for extended travel activities during vacations, but over the past 18 months I have now used the expanded set of lenses on my D300 body on the following occasions:

• 2010-08-09: a 1-day excursion by train, bus and gondola lift onto the Moléson near Fribourg (66 pictures, excellent weather condition, marvelous sight!)
• 2010-08-10: 1-day excursion by train and ship to Lausanne, the Lac Léman and the Château de Chillon (80 pictures, gorgeous weather again)
• 2011-04-23 - 2011-04-25: short trip to London, to visit Deborah (251 pictures, good conditions)
• 2011-06-25: Military Air Show (97 pictures, a learning experience with zooms and tripod; moderate weather & sight conditions)

So far (up to this writing) the D300 shutter has been actuated 2722 times — not really much, but more than with any of my previous digital cameras, and about as much as I did with my F3 over 20 years!

Moléson, FR/Switzerland: view onto Gruyère
Nikon D300, Zoom-Nikkor 70 - 200mm f/2.8
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Superzoom Lenses

As discussed in my previous blog entry, my first experience in photography was with fixed focal length lenses. With my Nikon F3, I used an 80 - 200 mm zoom lens because of the specific needs of color slide photography, but I still used fixed focal length lenses for the normal and wide angle ranges (24 - 50 mm). This philosophy was turned upside down when I switched to my first digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 5700: this featured an 8x super zoom lens covering the equivalent of "normal" focal lengths of 35 - 280 mm. This had the huge advantage that lens changes were no longer necessary, and the optical quality of that lens was actually quite good, though I did notice some barrel type distortion at the wide angle end. Typically, this distortion was not too bad, though: more often than not, the most obvious "defect" in such photos was not the barrel distortion, but the perspective distortion that is observed when the camera is not held exactly horizontally when taking pictures of architecture or other objects with vertical lines.

My Nikon D200 and Nikon D300 cameras were/are supposed to be cameras for semi-professionals, and so I had higher expectations into the lens, too; but as I was coming from the Coolpix 5700 with its 8x superzoom, and I was scared of getting dust on the sensor, I again wanted to avoid lens changes, and so I opted for the AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm super zoom lens (11x), giving me the amazing focal length equivalent of 27 - 300 mm in full frame format all in one single lens.

Yes, that is a convenient lens — but there's no free lunch: there had to be disadvantages, even though it is an elaborate construct with 16 lens elements in 12 groups! I used that lens for the four years between January 2006 and spring 2010, when I finally decided to get rid of it. Here are the reasons why in the end I decided for better "pro" style lenses:

At the wide angle end, the lens distortions were stronger than those of the Coolpix 5700 — worse than that: the Coolpix mostly suffered from barrel type distortions that can be corrected by post-processing. What turned me off with the 18 - 200 mm lens was the following picture (a shot from the Lugano train station towards the Monte Brè):

Lugano TI/Switzerland: Cathedral and Monte Brè
Nikon D300,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 200, f/11, 1/320, 18mm (27mm equiv.)

Some people call this "moustache-type distortion" — it is hard to correct, if at all — plus, I think it looks pretty awful!

Another, sometimes neglected aspect of lens quality is the bokeh, i.e., the looks of objects that are not within the depth of field, i.e., way out of focus. The 18 - 200 mm super zoom often showed a rather strange-looking bokeh, e.g.:

Mountain flowers near Muottas Muragl, GR/Switzerland
Nikon D200,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/160, 150mm (225mm equiv.)

or in the background to the left of this colored woodpecker:

Colored woodpecker (Buntspecht)
Nikon D300,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/125, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

 or, similarly, the grass in the background of this picture of a green woodpecker:

Green woodpecker (Grünspecht)
Nikon D300,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/80, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Now, compare this to background of this auction photo, taken with my new 70 - 200 mm zoom lens:

Water-driven laundry centrifuge
Nikon D300,  Zoom-Nikkor 70 - 200 mm f/2.8
ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/125, 70mm (105mm equiv.)

The contrast in pictures from the 18 - 200 mm lens is probably OK:

Valle di Bregaglia / GR, ascent to Soglio, view into Sciora valley & mountains, unprocessed
Nikon D200,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 100, f/9, 1/320, 95mm (142mm equiv.)

especially once it has been enhanced by post-processing ... :)

Valle di Bregaglia / GR, ascent to Soglio, view into Sciora valley & mountains, enhanced
Nikon D200,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 100, f/9, 1/320, 95mm (142mm equiv.)

Sharpness is OK in the center, but clearly has its limitations close to the edges; take this shot from a hill near our place, towards the northern part of Zurich:

Wermatswil ZH/Switzerland, view onto the north of Zurich
Nikon D300,  AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200 mm
ISO 200, f/6.3, 1/160, 135mm (202mm equiv.)

 When you zoom into the right edge of that picture, the limitations are obvious:

Lens creep is a well-known disease of Nikon's 18 - 200 super zoom lens: if you carry the camera on its neck strap, the lens points downwards — and slowly, but surely it will zoom to the maximum focal length of 200 mm. This is most pronounced when the lens is left at an intermediate focal length, slightly less if the lens is "parked" at the 18 mm wide angle end. This is a minor nuisance, but still! My impression was that this was getting worse when I used a Skylight filter to protect the front lens; there is a newer version of the lens where Nikon added a focus lock — but as far as I'm informed, this lock only works at 18 mm (i.e., minimum) focal length (where the lens creep is minimal anyway): that's not really worth much at all, as often one would like to keep the lens at an intermediate focal length, requiring less zooming for a quick shot.

Lenses With Fixed Focal Length

With my Nikon F3, I used 50 mm / f/1.4, 35 mm / f/1.4, and 24 mm / f/2 lenses with fixed focal length, to cover the normal and wide angle range. At that time (1982), this definitely was the right decision — even now, if you ask an expert what lenses you should buy for the best quality results (technically, not artistically, of course), you will be told to go for fixed focal lengths:

• they are simpler than zoom lenses, i.e., they typically use less lens elements and simpler mechanical constructions, they are therefore usually less expensive than zoom lenses of comparable quality;
• they are lighter than zoom lenses (OK, you will need more than one fixed focal length to cover a given zoom range);
• at least for moderately wide angles, for normal angles and for the tele range, fixed focal length lenses can be built such that there is virtually no optical distortion
• it probably is also easier to compensate / avoid other optical errors, such as chromatic aberration
• similarly, the achievable resolution (sharpness) and contrast are higher than with zoom lenses

Overall, it is probably safe to say that a good fixed focal length lens will beat even a good zoom lens at the given focal length, hence the recommendation to go for fixed focal length lenses.

That said, fixed focal length tele lenses (200 mm, 400 mm, etc.) have always been fairly expensive, especially if you asked for large apertures (f/2.8, f/2). Also, for the special needs of slide photography, I did decide for an 80 - 200 mm tele zoom already with my Nikon F3.

That was with analog / film cameras — with digital cameras (DSLRs in particular) things are a little different: whenever you exchange the lens there is a big, gaping hole, through which dust can enter the body. OK, there's a mirror, and behind the mirror there's the shutter, both covering and protecting the sensor, but the dust may still be in the housing, and with the next shot the mirror swings up (moving around any dust), the shutter opens, and then the dust may end up on the sensor (or the glass filter covering the sensor). Once dust sticks to the sensor, you will see it on all subsequent pictures. Most newer cameras (also the D300, not the D200) have dust removal systems, essentially a piezo element that shakes the sensor filter to shake off dust particles — but that only works if the particles don't stick. If you have sticky dust you may have to have the sensor cleaned (there are kits that permit doing that at home, though I would never try that myself: too risky!).

With analog film cameras, you may of course get dust particles deposited on the film just as well — but for the next photo you advance the film, and that gives you a fresh, clean piece of "film sensor" ...

With all this in mind, I decided not to use lenses with fixed focal length on my DSLR — I'd like to minimize the number of lens changes. My initial approach was the other extreme: to use an 18 - 200 mm super zoom lens that would cover all focal lengths (well, all lengths I was primarily interested in), hence avoid all lens changes. However that entails other compromises & drawbacks, so in the end I decided for an in-between approach, see my note about the Nikon D300.

Nikkor 24mm f/2.0
Image taken with Nikon D200, AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200mm f/3.5 - 5.6G IF ED
ISO 320, f/36, 1/60, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

Nikkor 35mm f/1.4
Image taken with Nikon D200, AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200mm f/3.5 - 5.6G IF ED
ISO 320, f/36, 1/60, 200mm (300mm equiv.) 

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Image taken with Nikon D300, Zoom-Nikkor 70 - 200mm f/2.8
ISO 200, f/22, 1/60, 200mm (300mm equiv.)

AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18 - 200mm f/3.5 - 5.6G IF ED
Image taken with Nikon D300, Zoom-Nikkor 24 - 120mm f/4.0
ISO 200, f/5, 1/60, 120mm (180mm equiv.)

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.