While it's just a rumor, the usual "leak" person who is ALWAYS right about their rumors has spoken:

We will see some wide and mid-range prime lenses from Nikon, SOON, as early as today or tomorrow in fact. Rumored are of course AF-S updates to almost ALL Nikon primes. As some of you may not know what AF-S is, it's the type of auto focus motor and it actually refers to the SWM AF method which is "the same" as Canon's USM or Sigma's HSM. Basically it's lightning fast and dead silent, with manual focus override at any time without flipping switches. As opposed to the AF-D auto focus that uses a screwdriver technology to mechanically power the lens from a motor in the camera body. Pretty dang fast, but noisy and clumsy.

Also rumored is the return from manual-focus glory, the legendary Nikon 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.2 lenses.

Personally, I'd like to see:

~ A 16mm or 17mm DX lens, either f/1.4 or f/1.8, depending on how much they would cost and how sharp they could be.

Something tells me this lens will never come, so I guess I'll have to wait for an affordable FX body so I can get *this* lens:

~ An AF-S version of the AF-D 28mm f/1.4, a lens so legenday and mythical that it goes for over $3,000 sometimes on Ebay.

~ An AF-S VR (yes, stabilized) version of the 50mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8 lenses. I'd SO buy these instead of f/1.4 or f/1.2 versions! Okay if I were a rich geek I'd buy them all, but you know what I mean...

I'd especially like Nikon to come out with an affordable FX body soon, so that I can take advantage of the amazing DOF and low light performance that would be afforded by f/1.4, or f/1.8 and VR, and of course clean ISO 6400. (As I've said before, I'd only get an FX body for use with those fast-apeture primes; for zooms I'll eternally stick with the small, light, affordable DX system. Whenever I need to be reminded of this, I just pick up a Canon 5D + 70-200 f/2.8 IS, and I fall in love with my D300 + Sigma 50-150 f/2.8 all over again...)

=Matt=

I am slowly discovering the joys of the TIF file format...

You see, I have tried many times to use Nikon's Capture NX software, but it just doesn't jive well with my brain, bottom line. For my limited faculties, the best thing to date is Bridge CS3 which is basically the stripped down ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) version of the incredibly popular Adobe Lightroom.

The problem with using Bridge (or Lightroom) instead of Nikon Capture is that you lose all your in-camera parameters when shooting RAW. Only Nikon Capture can properly read your .NEF files and retain your contrast / saturation / sharpness etc. settings, not to mention the finer subtleties of color and tone that go with the "Picture Styles" (to borrow Canon's name for it) such as neutral, vivid, or my favorite, D2X simulation mode.

Until I got the D300, I never owned a DSLR that could shoot TIF files, only RAW and / or JPG. But when I got the TIF-capable D300, its 12 megapixel resolution put a pretty hefty dent in my compact flash supply whenever I shot RAW. 14-bit, lossless-compressed or even un-compressed files just don't fit on a 4 gig CF card like they used to with my first DSLR, a D70.

So I was inclined to not only completely overlook the 35 megabyte TIF files at my disposal, but to actually go in the OTHER direction and re-master JPG capture.

To my delight, I found that the D300 was a VERY capable JPG processor, outputting fantastic images that hardly needed to be touched in post-processing. This was great for event photography and misc. events where 4x6 - 8x12 prints were the norm.

To my dismay, I said goodbye to a whole lot of dynamic range and fine detail, when shooting landscapes...

Then I started contemplating the TIF format. completely loss-less image quality, but with all the in-camera settings retained... So far, it's been quite a pleasure. Enough dynamic range that I don't have to bracket nearly as often as I used to, and amazing detail retention, especially when sharpening is set to zero in-camera and taken care of later on the computer...

I can only really shoot TIF when I'm shooting SLOW and methodical, though. With less than 200 images per card, I can't blaze away in TIF format for an entire wedding, that's for sure! I'm only really shooting TIF for landscapes and other things that might get printed HUGE.

I do realize that if I was desperate I could shoot RAW and then ONLY use Nikon capture to simply output RAW files as TIFs or JPGs with the in-camera settings, and I'll keep an on-going record of how this whole thing plays out.

One thing is for sure... Serious, big-print landscape shooters- don't shoot JPG!!!

=Matt=

Nikon, Canon, you SUCK! USM / SWM technology has been around for how many years, and you have no update to the 50mm f/1.4 lens? (Canon's 50 1.4 USM is the ghetto USM, not the good stuff)

Seriously, Sigma is picking up so much slack these days, it's not even funny anymore. It's embarrasing.

If this lens is under $500 and not prone to corner softness like the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, I may just have to pick one up...

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0803/08031801sigma50mm.asp

$5 says that Sigma ALSO beats Nikon to a stabilized version of the 50-150 f/2.8, too, and another $5 says Canon NEVER even makes one...

=Matt=

http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/46-nikon--nikkor-aps-c/377-nikkor_1685_3556vr?start=1

The hottest consumer lens on the market right now, the Nikon 16-85 DX VR, has been reviewed by PhotoZone, a pretty trustworthy site when it comes to "sterile" lab-style lens tests.

The dang thing clocks in at over 2200 "lines" of resolution. If that number doesn't inherently make you drool, then trust me, you probably DON'T want me to explain it, either. Suffice it to say that the number 2200 is about as good as it gets, even for pro-series lenses. You ONLY see 2300 in an elite handful lenses out there, by stopping down one or two stops. And SOME lenses don't even crack 2000 or 2100 wide open. Not to start a fight or anything, but a few Canon L lenses (and Nikon "pro" lenses with the gold ring around the front instead of Canon's red L ring) come to mind. This thing is probably sharper dead-center / wide open than most of your "pro" f/2.8 or f/4 Canon or Nikon zooms / primes. And the corners are quite sharp too.

No wonder it's $700! I knew at that price that it HAD to be sharp as heck, and I was right. But, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and what the 16-85 boasts in resolution, it makes up for (in the bad sense) by having a little bit of distortion, light falloff, and chromatic aberration... In this digital age though, those are the kinds of things that software can automatically eliminate, in fact the D3 (and maybe the D300?) has a BUILT IN chromatic aberration removal system.

Bottom line: I'm a huge stickler for "no compromises" when it comes to picture quality, and I WANT this lens. To the point that I'm thinking if I owned one, I'd almost completely stop using my 17-55 f/2.8 DX...

But alas, 2008 is not a camera "toys" year, sadly. Maybe I'll get it as a wedding present to myself in 2009... Along with those Galen Rowell 20x30's that I've always wanted...

Take care,
=Matt=

Today I begin in earnest to blog, no, to write full-blown articles, about more serious technical matters, in an organized, informative fashion.

I've been reading a lot of the more technical technical articles by the late Galen Rowell recently, in the book "Galen Rowell's Inner Game of Outdoor Photography". It was loaned to me by the Skunkabilly, in exchange for my "Galen Rowell: A Retrospective" book that is less technical and more just a coffee table book of big, awe-inspiring outdoor photographs.

Galen was a wizard with flash in the outdoors, and I make my best attempts to apply the same lighting techniques even in my outdoor wedding photography. Especially at sunset, there are many traditional portrait photographers who simply settle for less than the whole scene, because they may be intimidated by the task of bringing everything into the same exposure range. Skunkabilly is a fine example of one who does NOT compromise, and his ninja-like flash skills add a strong dimension to usually un-compelling or impossible-to-capture scenes.

But I digress. I want to reveal one thing, a word of caution and an eye-opening fact, to those of you who may have an external flash unit (Nikon SB800, Canon 580 EX...) and are beginning to experiment with using fill-flash in bright daylight conditions now that you have access to the wonderful thing known as "high speed FP sync..."

What you may not know is how FP (focal plane) sync actually works, and the consequences that it has on your flash power.

Basically, to put it in the simplest possible layman's terms:

Before you cross that "shutter speed sync" barrier, usually 1/180 sec or 1/250 sec for most cameras, or 1/500 sec. in the case of the legendary Nikon D70, your flash is just a PART of the exposure time. That means you get one WHOLE flash "pop" during the time that your shutter is open. After you pass that shutter speed barrier, however, your flash pop is actually LONGER than your shutter speed. So if your shutter speed is 1/1000 sec. you might only be "catching" half of your flash. And as any good photographer knows, HALF of any amount of light constitutes one whole stop, one EV. If you've got a 1/1000 sec. shutter speed dialed into a camera that normally only sync's at 1/250, you've just built in a nice fat -2 EV exposure compensation!

Why did you have NO IDEA this was the case? Well, probably because you've just always left your flash in TTL mode, and the TTL was simply bumping up your flash power by 2 EV's. If you never get too far away from your subject, and if you never crank your shutter speed TOO high, you may never discover this nasty little gremlin of FP sync...

To prove things to yourself, simply put your flash in fully manual power, and shoot pictures where your flash is the main light source. (Indoors / in low light) You may notice three things:

~ Your exposure gets about 1 stop darker for every stop you increase your shutter speed past the camera's built-in sync speed.

~ If your flash is pointing straight forward, it should read out the distance your flash can reach, and this distance will decrease as well.

~ If your subject is really close and you really start to crank your shutter speed up towards 1/8000 sec, as you lower your flash power you'll notice that you start to get some odd horizontal patterns in your light. Your shutter is moving so fast that it is starting to catch instants when there is NO flash at all!

So, what can you do? Well chances are this lovely little problem will NEVER affect you if you just leave your flash in TTL mode whenever you go into FP sync territory, and keep your subject close for safe measure. In TTL mode your flash can tell you what subject distances you have to work with, if your flash is pointed straight forward. For example with my camera set to 1/1000 sec, f/2.8 and ISO 400, my flash tells me that in TTL mode it can properly light anything from 2.8 to 31 feet, although of course not both at the same time lol... And this is with my flash zoomed all the way in to 105mm, mind you. SOME times, this will work. Other times, I'll need to shoot at ISO 200 and f/4 maybe, which limits my shooting range to about 16 feet. If I'm shooting telephoto from far away to blur a background, it's time to yank that flash OFF my camera and LEAVE it within 16 feet of my subject, commanding it wirelessly from my camera...

Take care, and I hope this article has been informative and easy to understand!
=Matt=

PS: There ARE flash units out there that can sync up to 1/10,000th of a second, of course. (And faster!?) The kidn of stuff used to take pictures of bullets coming out of guns, etc. etc. (Talk to Muzikman if you wanna get into that...) But that equipment is expensive, hehehe...

Probably just another wild rumor, but there seems to be a faint shimmer of hopeful truth behind a "leak" that Canon will have a 5D mk2 "surprise" announcement on April 22nd.

~15 megapixels, ~5 frames per second, 14-bit, weather sealing, and an all-new ~25 point AF system, for $3500. Sounds reasonable! Oh and they're gonna have a high-res 3" LCD like the D3 and D300, too. That might have been what caused the delay in the release, since the Nikon LCD's are so beautiful and Canon would get slammed for not upping their LCD res in newer models. Even though it's just an LCD and has nothing to do with the sensor image quality or the photographer's talent...

Only 42 days till we know the truth, not counting other leaks...

=Matt=

One feature I often contemplate is the usefulness of the whole dual-card slots thing, a feature you only find in high-end cameras. Here's one thing to think about:

If you could put TWO CF cards in your camera, which is for now exclusively a D3 feature but not for long I'd assume, ...would you be less paranoid about using larger size cards?

Personally, I'm not comfortable shooting more than ~500 images per memory card. Right now that's a 4 gig card if I'm shooting JPG, or an 8-12 gig card if I'm shooting RAW. I'd be paranoid to have to start using 16 gig cards, for example, if I wanted to never have to change cards. But if I had dual card slots, I'd feel a lot more brave, and I'd probably plunk down for some 16 gig and maybe even 32 gig CF cards! It would be quite an advantage to have to never swap out memory cards, I think. The camera itself would see less wear in the card slot, which would be good, and the memory card would be less likely to get lost or damaged.

Just some food for thought, for those who like to fantasize about really expensive gear...

=Matt=

I don't want to start any vicious rumors, but, ...oh pshh what am I saying, I wanna start a vicious rumor!

Apparently wedding photographer superhero Becker has come *back* to the dark side, now shooting with a Nikon D3. Congrats, dude! The geek inside me is oh-so-jealous...

=Matt=

Shameless plug:

www.thebecker.com

[EDIT] Alright, as you may know if you follow the [b]log, Becker was actually borrowing a friend's D3 for a "test drive", and is now looking for a Canon 1Ds mk3 to test drive too. So he's not officially a D3 owner / shooter, YET. Bets on his final decision, anybody?

=Matt=

Anyone who's ever been in a relationship knows that sending mixed signals will drive the other person nuts. Nikon is doing exactly this with their current lineup.

What made this weird thought and analogy pop into my head? Well I was browsing the newly redesigned Nikon website, browsing through their lenses, and then I hopped on over to the Sigma website to check out some lens specs over there.

I realized something that I've already known subliminally- Sigma has THREE HSM prime lenses made specifically for DSLR's, a 30mm f/1.4 HSM, a 10mm f/2.8 HSM fisheye, and a 4.5mm f/2.8 HSM circular fisheye.

While, on the other hand, Nikon has NO DX prime lenses other than the 10.5 DX fisheye, which is NOT SWM even. In fact none of Nikon's primes shorter (wider) than 100mm are SWM. I take that back, the new 60mm macro is SWM. But Nikon, what about the legendary 85mm f/1.4? The stellar 85mm f/1.8? Not to mention the bread-and-butter 50mm lenses, and the holy grail 28mm f/1.4?

With the death of screw-driver autofocus arriving in the form of DSLR bodies like the D40, D40X and D60, Nikon, you really need to act fast or people are going to start to get confused in this relationship. We need to start seeing SWM prime lenses. (which is AFS for all intents and purposes)

START by coming out with a 50mm f/1.4 AFS, to just barely start catching up with the likes of Sigma and Canon. Then if you want to kick some serious butt, come out with a 50mm f/1.2 AFS that doesn't have the major shortcomings that Canon's version has, and then for some REAL wow factor, make a 50mm f/1.8 VR. That would break new ground for sure, and I'd be the first in line to buy one.

THEN maybe move on to wide angle, and resurrect the mythical 28mm f/1.4, for all the D3 shooting pros out there, and PRETTY PLEASE also make a 16mm or 18mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 AFS DX lens, for ME! I'm dying for this lens!

Sincerely,
=Matt=