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.

Re-discovered my Paxette 35 SB!

Over the past week we have been cleaning out old stuff and trash (mostly from my parents in-law and Lea's grandparents) from the shed behind our house (over 20 m3 / 700 cft, about half-way through so far!) I found a cardboard box labeled "photo lab stuff etc." in my own writing. I must have packed that box for our move back from Germany to Switzerland, back in 1992 — turns out that the contents were actually much older:

• drums for developing films, last used around 1977 — trashed
• bottles with chemicals for developing film, prepared around 1977 (almost all of these chemicals should be prepared fresh and will not hold for more than a few weeks!) — trashed
• utensils for developing paper prints (I once had everything for creating b&w prints, except for the enlarger) — trashed
• boxes with glass plates from glass-framed slides (removed all the glass some 25 years ago, in order to avoid fungi to "eat up" my photos): weird that I would keep such stuff — all gone now
• a small slide viewer — kept this, as I have sold my slide projector a couple years ago ...
• a box with five Kodak Tri-X Pan film rolls, exposed, but not developed — I think developing this now would be a pure waste of time!
• a set of 49 mm filters for my Topcon RE-2 — I may try selling these for a dime or so (the last three are only useful for analog b&w photography in the digital area there are plenty of software tools that emulate these filters and much, much more):
  
  • Hoya UV(0)
  • Hoya Skylight (1A)
  • Topcon Yellow SY 48.2 Y2 (1.5x)
  • Hoya Orange O(G)
  • Hoya Green G(X0)
• my set of non-automatic extension rings for the Topcon RE-2 (9, 14.5, and 30 mm) — I may try selling these for a dime as well, however, it will be hard to fine anyone with interest, let alone a need for such archaic equipment ...
• the non-electronic flash light "Ariosa B99" that I used with my very first camera (I may return to this in a later blog entry) — and
• I rediscovered my Paxette 35 SB! The metal parts of the hard leather enclosure are clearly corroding (after 47 years!), one belt attachment has fallen off, the camera itself still looks OK — but clearly, it is non-functional by now: the timer clockwork is not moving, the shutter doesn't open at all (the aperture blades still seem to work OK), and either the selenium cells are gone, or (more likely) the analog brightness indicator is stuck / corroded). So, I thought I would take a couple photos to document this camera, than it will go into trash:

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 75mm (112mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 95mm (142mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 100mm (150mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 48mm (72mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 48mm (72mm equiv.)

Braun Paxette 35 SB, picture taken with
Nikon D300 (lens: 24 - 120mm f/4.0), ISO 200, f/20, 1/60, 65mm (97mm equiv.)

I still remember well how I was holding this camera through the protective fence on the North (NW) side of the top floor of the Eiffel tower in Paris, back in 1969 (I'm not sure my current camera would fit through!)  — it was fun, but the results were rather modest in sharpness and contrast ...

View down from top floor of the Eiffel Tower, North side, in July 1969
Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

Some Experiences With Tripods

I must have had a tripod with my Topcon RE-2 already, but don't remember the details. Around 1983, I was looking for a tripod for my Nikon F3 - and followed a personal recommendation, as I had no idea what to select. It was one of these "This models works perfectly for me, why don't you just take that?" recommendations - I should have made some comparisons myself! The tripod was an early Slik model (the Slik 500G, if I'm not mistaken), aluminium, with a 2-way panorama head; it had one big advantage: it was very light - but that's about the only feature that I liked about it. The head was a bit clumsy to use, though just stable enough for my equipment, the screw-type telescope leg and center column fastening mechanism was a permanent nuisance (one would typically not fasten or unfasten the intended leg segment), stability and stiffness overall was very marginal. In 2006, when I already had a Nikon D200, one of the legs simply broke off.

My next tripod was a Manfrotto 725B that I purchased in 2006 for the Nikon D200 with a 18 - 210 mm superzoom lens. I bought that in a local store and explicitly asked whether it would be strong enough for that type of camera and lens. I was not disappointed in that respect: the tripod was at least twice as heavy (1530 g) as the previous one (also aluminium, but much more rugged), bigger as well, reasonably short for transporting (49 cm, with a carrying bag) — and it was very stable (for my purpose), the leg fastening mechanism was a joy to use. It was maybe a bit short (133.5 cm without using the center column) — I typically had to use the center column (extending its maximum height to 166 cm) to get the camera to the desired height, hence giving up some of the rigidity. The aluminium ball head featured a one-lever lock, making it fast and easy to use, and the quick release plate turned out to be very handy. The Nikon D200 with the given lens was just about the right (maximum) size camera for this tripod — however, I did not anticipate the evolution of my equipment! With the Nikon D300 and new lenses a few years later, the ball head turned out to be clearly too small, insufficient to hold heavier "pro" type lenses — and with the Manfrotto 725B, the head was built in / non-exchangeable — so in the end (January 2011) I sold it again for 30% of its initial price, after 5 years of occasional (mostly indoor) use.

I now have a new tripod, the Cullmann Magnesit 525C — and I'm happy with it! The tripod offers more flexibility than any tripod that I had before: the legs can be stretched out individually and at various angles (even beyond horizontal!), it is very rugged, and it does not come with a built-in head: I selected the Cullmann Magnesit MB8.5 ball head: this supports gear up to 6 kg. I have two quick release plates: the regular one that I keep on the camera when the tripod is likely to be used, and a second, longer one that can stay attached to my 70 - 210 mm telezoom. OK, that's 2.5 kg just for the tripod (even though the tripod itself is carbon, the head alone is 900 g), and the thing is not exactly tiny (61 cm when packed with the head) - but I won't be running around with it. The smaller and lighter MB6.5 ball head would have been more than sufficient for my needs — but that wasn't available earlier this year.

I have used the Cullmann indoors (for taking pictures of stuff that I sell at auctions), and I did a first outdoor test at a recent military airshow in Dübendorf near Zurich (a few km from my place). This was a test for me in several ways - for one, I had never been at an air show with a DSLR, and then, I wasn't sure whether using a tripod at an airshow with its rapidly moving objects would make sense at all. It did make sense for me in the end, as it helped staying "organized" with the sometimes rapid action at this event, and the ball head was fast enough in use, and even helpful as flexible support, i.e., without fixing the camera position. (there were some other aspects that I had to learn that day, but that's something for a separate blog entry).

I can't resist posting a set of two shots that I made back in 1983, during our vacation in Finland. Lea and I were staying on my friend's cottage (Mökki) at the east end of a little island named Miehinkisaari on a lake called Yli-Kitka, some 30 km north-west of Kuusamo (a real nice area!). I placed my Nikon F3 on the tripod, at the lake, pointing towards the landing place for the rowing boat. The idea was that I would take a picture of Lea and myself, sitting on the landing place, like this:

July 1983, Miehinkisaari, on lake Kitka, near Kuusamo, SF
Nikon F3, color slide, scanned using Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED,  4000 dpi

this was the first attempt — it worked out as intended - but as I wasn't quite sure whether a) the timer worked properly at all, and b) whether I made it to the photo position in time, as I had to run around to the left, and onto the landing place, all within the limit of the timer, and when I was finally sitting, I did not hear the shutter. So, I gave it another try, just to be sure: back to the camera, forward the film, make sure the timer is selected, press the button, and run out to the place next to Lea ...

July 1983, Miehinkisaari, on lake Kitka, near Kuusamo, SF
Nikon F3, color slide, scanned using Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED,  4000 dpi

... and I almost made it, though I certainly did not hear the shutter this time! Only after returning home we saw that the timer caught me in mid-air (well, my right foot may still be on the wooden planks?), shortly before a hard, maybe painful landing ...

My First Digital Camera

In 2004, I wanted to take up photography again — and I wanted to "go digital", really digital, i.e., fully electronic rather than mechanic. Our kids both had started with Nikon Coolpix 775 cameras (2.1 MP, 3x zoom lens, equivalent to 38 - 115 mm "normal" focal length), back in summer 2002, and they were happily taking pictures. Coming from a (now unused) Nikon F3, I was looking for something "higher up", but hesitated spending lots of money on something that I had no experience with. Somehow, I found the looks of the Nikon Coolpix 5700 appealing (a conventional camera with parts of the body cut off). That camera was introduced in summer 2003, at a price of CHF 1600.-; in January 2004, when I saw a new one on sale in an on-line auction for just under CHF 1200.- (which I thought was a reasonable price) I went for it.

In the aftermath, this was a mistake, of course (no experience yet with on-line auctions!!) — not because I had been cheated dramatically, but this was a shop owner selling off his stock because newer and better models were lurking around the corner (and came out a couple months later). And of course I hadn't tried it out — but at that time this would not have helped because I did not have anything to compare with, nor had I even ever used our offspring's cameras. The latter would not have helped either, because the Coolpix 775 had an optical viewfinder, the Coolpix 5700 does not. Here are my findings and the camera's features:

• 5 MP sensor, 8x zoom lens (equivalent to 35 - 280 mm "normal" focal length), plus 4x "digital zoom" (i.e., built-in cropping, hardly usable), minimum distance 3 cm for macro photography;  shutter speed up to 1/4000 s;
• An absolutely tiny, 1.5" (stamp-size), 100'000 pixel flip-out LCD in the back — ridiculous by current terms;
• An equally bad, 180'000 pixel electronic viewfinder — unusable for serious manual focusing, hardly usable in low light conditions (and no optical viewfinder to help out!);
• Zoom speed was OK, but focusing could take seconds — one had to be patient with this camera! If you were not used to it you were likely to take a photo before the lens was in focus — whomever I handed the camera (for a quick a shot with me on it) fell into this trap, and the tiny screen or the viewfinder were hardly suited to indicate how much out-of-focus a picture was.
• Needless to say: in low light conditions that performance was limited
• I had the original 32 MB (unusably small!) SD card, as well as a bigger 512 MB card — enough to keep any single day's production and more, assuming JPEG (see below, I took my laptop along on trips and offloaded the photos every evening);
• The built-in flash was OK, but hardly suited for good results (limited power, always pointing forward);
• Finally, I'm notoriously bad at reading manuals (i.e., I rarely ever do!), an so inevitably I found myself in situations where the camera insisted on popping out the flash where I did not want tit, or conversely, where it refused to turn on the flash where I really wanted — because I managed to maneuver myself (i.e., the camera) into odd "locations" in the menu settings, or by inadvertently pressing an inappropriate button; similarly, when I wanted to take a macro shot, I had forgotten how to switch to macro mode, and the camera would not focus at all ... :(
• On the bright side, that camera was compact and light (500 g), easy to carry along on trips!

Despite all this, I made some very reasonable photos with this camera; the viewfinder shortcomings did not seem all that bad initially — after all, coming from analog photography I was not used to seeing and checking the results immediately after taking the shots anyway! At least in good lighting conditions I could not blame the camera for doing a bad job — here's a shot from my office window into the garden in mid-winter, showing a pretty good dynamic range:

Our garden in Uster / ZH, in winter
Nikon Coolpix 5700, ISO 100, f/6.4 1/319, 10mm (39mm equiv.)

Overall, the camera did some 1300 - 1400 shots in our hands, covering the following key events:

• The Air '04, a military air show in Payerne, VD (51 photos, a challenge for the autofocus!)
• Walk around the Greifensee near Zurich (39 photos)
• May 2005: Southern France: Avignon, Marseille, Arles, and Tarascon (300 photos)
• July 2005: Finland / Finnmark: Porvoo, Helsinki, Hvitträsk, Sipoo, the Finnmark/NO, Lakselv, Kakslauttanen, Kaunispää, Varangerfjorden / Nesseby, Niilanpää - Kiilopää, and Rovaniemi (477 Photos)
• In August 2008, Lea also took the camera to the Hessenpark and Darmstadt, Germany (72 photos)

Particularly on the trips to Southern France and Finland, the Coolpix 5700 served its purpose well — yet after less than 2 years it was clear to me that I wanted to return to a "real" camera, i.e., a DSLR: the electronic viewfinder, the slow focus, the somewhat cumbersome menu system (i.e., the need to study a manual!?) all drove me away from this camera. My DSLR arrived in spring 2006 (to be discussed in a future blog); I kept the 5700 for a while (see above), but 2009 it developed a serious problem — Nikon replaced the sensor at no charge (even though the warranty had long expired). However, soon thereafter the camera was left attached to the USB port, and the battery was drained completely — this caused new damage: zooming only worked towards the far(tele)  end,  to return to wide angles one needed to turn off and back on the camera — not really practical! In the end I was fed up with it and sold it as defective, for CHF 34, at an on-line auction.

At that time I was using Apple's iPhoto for managing the pictures; iPhoto then did not read the RAW format from a Coolpix 5700, and I wanted to avoid an extra conversion step for importing, so I was taking pictures in JPEG format — not lossless, of course,  but at least that saved me from having to add a 1 GB or bigger memory card (these cards were expensive, after all). I have since consequently switched to using RAW format only.

My Last Analog Photo Gear

As mentioned in my previous post, the accident with my first SLR camera gave me the chance to start from scratch. So I spent some time thinking carefully about all the limitations that I experienced with my previous gear, and how to avoid such restrictions with my next camera - and naturally I ended up buying way too much equipment - some of it I later sold without ever having used it! Here's my recollection of considerations that I took into account, back in 1982:

• I was focusing on color slides - this implied that pictures should look fine "as is": there is no easy way to do cropping on a slide: at the wide angle end, one can typically work with fixed focal lengths and adjust the picture composition by taking a couple steps - at the narrow angle end (70 mm focal length and beyond) this is often not practicable, so I wanted a tele-zoom lens
• I was frequently taking pictures inside buildings, or in streets and narrow locations, etc., so I also wanted to expand to focal lengths below 50 mm
• Inside buildings, the lighting is usually critical (this was the time of analog film, so at 400 ASA one would already start getting grainy pictures), so I wanted the focal lengths at 50 mm and below with large (but still affordable) apertures
• For macro photography I wanted to add extension rings again - but automatic ones, if possible, as this makes macro photography so much easier.
• One thing I had been missing with the Topcon was flexibility with the viewfinder: the preferred viewfinder screen depends on the type of lens attached (no autofocus at that time!), e.g.: for macro photography one wanted a clear viewfinder, for low light conditions a fresnel lens with focusing aid is better, and for architecture photography I was often missing a grid that helps getting the photo straight (again, there is only so much straightening one can to while framing a slide!)
• And of course I was looking for a camera body (and Nikon somehow appeared to be the obvious choice to me) that wold give me all this flexibility ....

So, here's what I bought, back in fall 1982: I took the Nikon F3 - their top-of-the-range camera at that time, so I was sure I would not be disappointed — and here's the additional gear that filled up my Tenba photo bag:

• 24 mm f/2, 35 mm f/1.4, and 50 mm f/1.4 fixed focal length lenses
• 80 - 200 mm f/4 Telezoom lens
• Nikon flash SB-16A
• a leather enclosure that I never used (always had the camera in a bag)
• additional viewfinder screens C, G2, G3, and R - the only one I ended up using is "R" (Grid)
• a set of automatic extension rings
• filters & other, small stuff

And — so you might ask — was I happy with all this equipment? Well, yes, in that I certainly did not have any of the limitations that I experienced with my previous SLR. Over about 20 years I took some 3000 pictures with it (gross under-use for professional equipment that is built for 100'000+ exposures!), and as far as I can tell (in my own measures), the number of good shots was exceptional (i.e., I typically didn't discard many slides) — but of course not all accessories turned out as useful as anticipated, plus ...

• time went on, of course, and not too long after my purchase, cameras with autofocus started appearing — and there I was with all my lenses with manual focusing ...
• for me as a non-professional photographer, a single viewfinder screen ("R", with the grid) would have been sufficient;
• the most popular lenses were the 80 - 200 mm f/4 telezoom and the 35 mm f/1.4; I often found pictures from the 50 mm lens "boring", "ordinary" - and also the 24 mm f/2 wasn't used very heavily. It was OK for architecture and in buildings, but for landscape, pictures often had a "flat" appearance;
• I should have switched to the high-eyepoint viewfinder when that became available it's just easier to work with;
• I ended up doing far less macro photography than anticipated. Actually, I could cover most of my "close-up" needs by using the telezoom at a focal length of 200 mm at its minimum distance of 1.2 m

For the first 10 years, I used it quite often (in my own measures) - it served me well on our vacation trips, and during all the excursions we made during the 6.5 years that we lived in Germany, as well as of course places near where we live now, such as this autumn / evening picture from the Pfäffikersee near Zurich:

A hazy autumn afternoon on lake Pfäffikon / ZH
Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

1993 — 1995 the camera remained unused — I was probably too busy establishing myself in my home office; I resumed photography in 1996 and used the camera till summer 2002. By that time our kids had digicams, Lea had used a Fuji APS camera for a while (until somebody lost it in London, or had it stolen ... ), but clearly, I now saw that for me the era of analog photography was over. In 2007 / 2008 I sent in the body for a revision (the electronics was broken, and apparently it also had a light leak), then I auctioned out all of the above gear. Back in 1982 I had payed some CHF 5500 for the equipment, after 25 years it returned some CHF 1500 — the body alone still was worth 37% of the purchasing price (ignoring currency depreciation).

Also this camera story ends with an anecdote (this time without accident / bloodshed!), indicating how much I had lost interest in analog photography in the end: when I was about to sell the F3 and wanted to turn it in for repair in 2007, I realized that the exposure counter indicated 35 photos: I turned the rewind handle - and indeed there was still a film in the camera, with pictures taken 5 years earlier, up in Northern Finland!! I sent in the film for development, and — as expected — I received a set of color slides with awfully degraded photos; I spent a couple hours in attempts to restore the original colors — so far (I'll give it another try) the result is very modest ...

My First SLR Camera

In 1971, in my third year at high school, our chemistry teacher expanded his course into applied sciences: his facilities included a complete dark chamber for film development & for making paper copies - and so we also received some classes in photography. We took photos during excursions, using whatever cameras people could lay their hand on - a wide range of cheap viewfinder cameras to SLRs, from no-name models up to Minoltas and Leica. That was the point where I found that my Paxette 35 was no longer adequate. and so I asked the class mate with the most photo experience to help me find a better tool.  The well-known brands such as Minolta, Konica, Pentax, let alone top brands such as Nikon were not within my financial possibilities — but after some comparison I ended up buying a Topcon RE-2. This was a handy tool that served me quite well for over 11 years (given my modest ambitions & needs): it featured shutter speeds of 1 sec .. 1/1000, and a fixed focal length RE Auto-Topcor lens, 58 mm / f/1.8 .. 22 (minimum distance 45 cm). I never had additional lenses, but did eventually buy a set of extension rings for macro photography.

For me as a hobby photographer, this probably was just the right tool. At home I typically used b&w film, while on vacation I normally used Kodak Ektachrome 200 or 400 for color slides. Over the 11 years that I used it, I generated over 3000 color slides and filled dozens of b&w film rolls. Sure, it had its limitations - but it worked — up to our honeymoon trip to Southern Germany and Austria, where I took over 500 photos (that was a fair number in the age of analog film!). Actually, it later turned out that during the second half of the trip the metering was starting to degrade — but that wasn't the killer for this camera:

The killer was — the photographer! We had visited Linz, Wilhering and Stadl Paura, then we drove up to Passau, where we stayed for two nights before finishing off the trip by paying a visit to St.Florian. We had just arrived in Passau and had parked our car downtown, in a parking lot. There was a second, lower part of the parking lot that led to the nearby street or passage. Rather than taking the regular exit from the parking, I decided to jump / run down the little, 2 - 3 m bushy slope, down into the lower part of the parking lot, taking a shortcut. Well, I did not see the green, coated wire that was spanning the bottom rim of the entire slope, some 20 - 30 cm above ground ... even if I had seen the wire in the end — I was at full speed, too late to stop, so I stumbled over the wire and (to Lea's dismay) fell flat on my face, or rather, my forearms. Luckily, despite the terrible sound I did not break any bones, I just had a couple bruises. What probably saved me from bigger damage was the fact that in my left hand I was carrying my Topcon, by its shoulder strap. Once I was falling, I swung the left arm over my head, blasting the camera onto the floor (that was the source of the sound!). It hit the ground on the backside: the lens was still intact (to this day I use it as a magnifying glass), though the bajonet had a dent. The camera body was destroyed beyond repair. Thanks to the leather enclosure, I managed to rewind and take out the film, mostly without exposing it to the bright, full sunligh — there were still a few pictures on it that I could restore! The wrecked body later served as a toy "camera" for Deborah when she was 3 to 4 years old, until I discarded it -

Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

Image scanned from color slide, using a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED slide scanner, 4000 dpi

I was lucky in the end: the damage was negligible (excepting the camera, of course), I did not need the camera in St.Florian, as I already had a collection of pictures of that place from an earlier trip — and now I had a good reason (and a slightly bigger budget) to buy the camera of my dreams ...