Every Nikon shooter knows the new 50mm f/1.4 AFS G is here. We all know it’s probably better than the previous AF-D lens. But how much better? And can it compete with the new Sigma 50 1.4 with it’s aspherical and specially coated elements, not to mention the f/1.2 caliber design overall?

Or, the quality that is by definition the most difficult-to-quantify, the lens’ bokeh.

So far, it’s not looking good.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=30420165

Just a sample of how bad it COULD be if you have anti-bokeh stuff in the background? I hope. Here’s a sample that shows some CREAMY bokeh coming from the new Nikon 50, from my b-school friend and NPS member Jan Oscarsson. Check out the 4th image in this blog post, the bokeh is just buttery!

http://www.oscarsson.dk/blog/?p=69

Overall, I’m still skeptical as to which will out-perform the other for bokeh and sharpness, the Sigma or the Nikon. I suspect that the Sigma will prove slightly better for both, but the Nikon being less glass will inherently be a bit faster to autofocus, and being a Nikon name-brand AFS, it might be a tad more acccurate, Sigma HSM can be finnicky sometimes…

So, it’s still a toss-up unfortunately. I think I’ll go on Ebay and check to see if there are any used Sigma 50 1.4′s floating around…

=Matt=

Okay, I can see how the black dot issue might never worry someone; it is a very specific problem that only manifests itself in very few conditions and it is difficult to notice anyways.

But THIS, well, *this* is downright suicide… “They’ve gone PLAID!” (Sorry, couldn’t resist…)

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=30334285

I really hope this is 1.) A complete collaborative hoax, or 2.) Just a fluke in a small handful of first-batch cameras, or 3.) Something Canon can very easily correct.

I hope it is a QC issue and they’ll fix it right away… Cause this almost takes the cake as the worst digital image artifact in DSLR history…

=Matt=

I’m serious, you reeeeeeeaaallly don’t want to watch this if you are sensitive about hitler / nazis.

But this is quite possibly the most hilarious skit of fake subtitles I have ever seen. And it’s about the Nikon D3X, which, in case you didn’t notice, debuted at $8000 just a while ago and has generated much wrath from Nikon “fans” everywhere who were hoping for a 5D mk2 or Sony A900 competitor…

After the humor wears off, you can read about the movie “Downfall” where this was stolen from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall_(film)

Whoa. Talk about dark. What an evil, sad chapter in human existence…

=Matt=

Over the past year or two I have gotten pretty darn good, or at least pretty darn lucky, with shooting children’s theater jobs in JPG and nailing the white balance. Most stage lights seem to run around 3000 K, of course with a few hotter scenes or colder scenes depending on the mood. So I just shot in Kelvin WB, and since I have a Nikon I don’t have to go into the menu to change the color temp, (Like on Canons) …so I’d just constantly fine-tune the WB for each scene.

Last week I shot in an especially dark theater, in mixed light that had VERY strong blue AND red lights in exactly the same scenes. (One side of their face would be highlighted in warm light, while the shadows would be super-saturated blue…)

When I shoot theater what I usually do is come during the dress rehearsals, snap a few portraits of the kids in costume, and then photograph the rehearsal using my D300 w/ Sigma 50-150 and my D200 w/ Nikon 17-55.

The first rehearsal I shoot is usually just a trial run. I like to sit back and just watch the moments, notice the light level and color, basically just getting ready to not miss a single moment (or fumble a camera setting) when I shoot the next rehearsal.

This time, upon reviewing my images after day 1, I was just NOT happy with the light and color. I knew it would be super tough to try and nail all the moments *AND* keep up with the JPG settings. As it is I’m already spot-metering in aperture priority mode with auto-ISO on, which can be suicide if you’re not quick. So I made the executive decision to shoot full RAW the next night.

I think it really paid off, and I think I might continue to shoot RAW for theater in the future. The color is just fantastic, the noise isn’t that bad, and the workflow isn’t un-bearably increased. With just a couple Kelvin WB adjustments throughout the rehearsal I was able to get images looking pretty acceptable straight out of the camera. And the post-processing is going pretty fast.

I look forward to getting a D700 for theater in the future. IRONICALLY, I actually only look forward to it so that I can use the camera in DX mode and shoot the smaller, ~5 megapixel RAW files.

(For those of you who haven’t been reading my blog that long, I originally shot RAW before I shot JPG. In fact when I owned the D70 / D200, I only ever shot RAW, period. The D300′s massive 12 megapixel RAW files are what recently interested me in shooting JPG again in situations in which it was possible to nail the exposure and white balance…)

Take care,
=Matt=

Apple never ceases to amaze me with their coolness. They just announced the new 24″ LED display, a gorgeous piece of equipment indeed. (I happen to like glossy displays…)

They have marketed it towards macbook pro owners actually, and (here’s the pure genius) …they ship the new LED monitor with a built-in display adapter for all new mac laptops, a built-in USB cable and hub, built-in speakers on the monitor, (in addition to the usual compliment of webcam / mic) …And, of course, a laptop power cable capable of charging any of the new mac laptops.

NICE.

Ready for the part where you want to slap Steve Jobs across the face?

…You absolutely cannot use this display with ANYTHING ELSE other than the NEW macbooks, macbook pros, and airs. That’s right, STILL no LED displays available for your mac pro tower. When you use apple.com to configure a mac pro, the 24″ display isn’t even an option anymore; only the 20″ and 30″ displays are options now. Both are LCD of course. Wow. Seriously, Steve? I’ve never seen pure genius and sheer stupidity in such harmony…

The perfectly good standard mini-DVI port wasn’t good enough? Any documented benefits of this new “mini-DisplayPort” anti-standard? I could almost understand making a display that is designed specifically as a desktop station for your laptop, even though it is still a stupid idea to NOT think up a way to allow people to also connect this display to a mac pro tower or as a 2nd display for an iMac. …But then lastly, locking out EVERY laptop even ONE generation older than the latest line, well that’s just downright idiotic.

Yet again, an Apple product I love but absolutely cannot spend money on it because of sheer stupidity on their part.

Our only hope is that eventually they’ll come out with adapters and/or new standards for the rest of their products. Sure, at MacWorld next year they’ll probably switch all their displays to LED. They’ll probably add But it is no secret that Apple likes to intentionally lock old equipment out of an upgrade path. I doubt they’ll ever fully resolve the flagrant errors that are inherent in the concept of this particular product…

It is really ironic how close I am to buying any one of Apple’s products, yet just cannot bring myself to do so out of principle.

Right now I guess I’m closest to buying a 24″ iMac; for $2350 I can get a 3.06 GHZ dual-core, 4 gigs of RAM, NVIDIA 8800 GS 512 DDR3 graphics, a 500 gig 7200 HD, USB 2.0 ports, FW 400 *AND* FW 800 ports.

But I just know that for that much money, I could build a kick-ass and fully upgrade-able PC desktop. The crazy thing is, that $2350 iMac I described is the most bang-for-buck Apple offers. For the $4500+ that a quad-core, 8 gig RAM, etc. etc. mac pro costs, I could maintain a cutting edge PC system for over a decade or two…

Yet again, I postpone upgrading my computer system because of “fatal flaws” in Apples otherwise awesome system, plus my habitual in-decision in general, and the money factor. Oh well, maybe my macbook will completely die on me and cost more to fix than I originally paid for it; that would sure force me to pony up…

=Matt=

I really have to begin this thread by disclaiming that EVERY digital sensor ever to be closely scrutinized has displayed one artifact issue or another. This is in no way a vendetta against Canon or the 5D mk2 in particular. All Nikon sensors have had their issues, in fact Nikon may win the prize for most notorious digital artifacts, with the D70 moire problem and the HUGE D200 banding issue.

ANYWAY, the 5D mk2 has picked it’s digital artifact poison. This time the victims are city night photographers. Good luck taking pictures at night with pixel-size street lights or spectral highlights. Especially at high ISOs…

Like I said, no sensor is perfect. You just have to pick your poison… Luckily for most 5D mk2 purchasers, this artifact will never be an issue. Architectural night photographers, however, be warned…

Take care! And fell free to ask me about what artifacts or issues YOUR favorite Nikon / Canon camera might have, it’s possible the data is rattling around somewhere in the back of my head. I’m not sure what the D3 / D700′s artifact issues are, but I do remember reports of severe banding in “pushed” images at HI+ ISO’s…

=Matt=

[EDIT] By the way, I misspoke when I said the D700 has moire. I meant the D70. It had a VERY weak anti-aliasing filter, and therefore certain cloths would generate incredible moire patterns. Google it.

And yes to clarify I am talking about the tiny black dots to the right of all those small lights. They do look like USM / CA artifacts, but neither of these explanations make sense given the direction and the fact that I believe they are RAW images…

Okay whenever a new full-frame camera body comes out, I complain about the “AF point spread”. Even the high-end, pro-series flagship models.

And people speculate and wonder about why autofocus points are still so tightly clustered towards the center of the viewfinder…

So I thought I’d blog about it. Actually, Canon recently did an interview surrounding the release of the Canon 5D mk2. I’m too lazy to find it, but I do believe that this point came up, the fact that the 40D / 50D have their focus points so spread out around the viewfinder, while the 5D / 5D mk2 have the same focus point arrangement yet it is considerably more clumped towards the center.

There are two things that we need to understand about this situation.

1.) They’re actually using the same physical SIZE autofocus module in the crop / full-frame cameras. It’s just that the crop sensors are, duh, cropped, and so the autofocus spread APPEARS wider.

So, when we consider the 40D versus the 5D and the D300 versus the D3, in the viewfinders it LOOKS like this:

So, the size difference is definitely significant. And one of the main reasons why I simply LOVE my D300. (And a reason why all my 40D shooting friends LOVE their cameras…)

2.) The REASON that they don’t develop larger autofocus modules for the full-frame appears to be this, based on the Canon interview and response to why the 50D has such good AF point spread versus the 5D mk2:

Basically yeah, it is a technical limitation caused by the angle at which light hits a full-frame sensor. On full-frame at wider angles, light hits the sensor at quite an angle sometimes, and I guess this kills the autofocus accuracy. The crop-sensor lenses however usually receive light at a better (perpendicular) angle, so they can AF correctly even at the apparent edge of the frame, since it’s not nearly the edge of the true full frame…

It may have a little to do with the size of the image circle that most full-frame lenses create, but then again DX lenses create a smaller image circle and yet lenses like the 12-24 DX with an equivalent wide end of 18mm still focus perfectly fine at it’s outermost AF points.

It probably also has a bit to do with light falloff, or vignetting. On full-frame MANY lenses exhibit

Anyway, the hope is that full-frame camera makers eventually find a way to spread out their AF points a little more. Maybe if we get a more complete line of new high quality lenses like the latest 14-24 and 24-70. The older Nikon 70-200 2.8 for example definitely has a limited image circle, and I dunno how it would work on full-frame with more spread-out focus points. Vignetting being the reason, in this case…

Anyway, still waiting on the D3X official release, but I expect it within the next 24 hours…

Take care,
=Matt=

[EDIT] D3X is announced now, actually. At midnight on the dot, eastern USA time…

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0812/081201nikond3x.asp

Specs are as predicted, D3 body with 24.5 MP sensor, ISO 100-1600 native with 50-6400 non-native, 5/7 FPS, and no video recording. Aces, Nikon, aces…

Take care again,
=Matt=