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s90 Journal Learning
My Nikon D200 Learning the
D300
Learning my latest Nikon dSLR
February 9
Pelican Landing, with Cormorants
Leave the d7k turned on and nothing much happens. No big deal. The effect on the battery is the same as if you had turned off the camera. But leave the D300 on, even if it's not doing anything but sitting there, and the battery goes on vacation. It's easily enough recharged, but I bet it takes longer than the d7k's. It's a difference worth paying attention to. I thought I was going to photograph more birds this afternoon. No such luck. The viewfinder was gray, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Letdown, but at least I know about it and might remember next time.
When the battery still had plenty of juice I spent about a half hour playing focus games. I wanted the D300 to be better at it than the d7k, but I'm not convinced. Eeach time a new pelican materialized in the outter bay, flying toward shore, the D300 could not — or would not — focus till it filled at least 20% of the frame. I tried all three focus configurations. I'll have to re-research them in Ken Rockwell's D300 Users' Guide before I learn which mode is which again.
I might thumb-switch the focus mode lever from center to follow focus while the pelican — my usual practice target — is flying in low and outside. I remember trying that when I first figured out the focus modes for the D300 many moons ago, but I don't remember being very successfull at it. The closer the subject is and the less confusing the background, the more likely focus is. Mostly just like the d7k.
As deep is the deja vu all over again feeling, I may actually be making progress. Maybe one more day in a row with the d300, then I'll try the d7k again. Maybe by then I'll have a greater appreciation of the newer camera, even if getting the D300 back only cost me $224, and the d7k was more like $1,200.
February 8
No Camera or Lens Would Have Got This on Auto Focus
—
Even
Manual Focus Would Be Very Challenging
So my Nikon D300 finally got back from the Nikon shop in Melville, New York — recommended by a Nikon repair person who said they'd do a better job than their Los Anglees location, or get it back quicker, or something. I dallied sending it back, but the recommender said it would take three months, and when I finally sent it to Melville, it did take almost exactly that long. But they didn't just replace the shutter mechanism the repair person told me about. In fact, they did a great long list of fixes:
The shutter mechanism had started wrecking every twentieth exposure, then gradually ruined down to every fifth or sixth shot, then every one. And that's when I finally sent it and a check for $300, which they either ignored or destroyed, and they requested I fill out an online form charging me much less, $224. They also replaced the aperture operation (probably associated with the shutter), base plate, bayonet mount, rubber grip (it had long become loose), rewind side rubber (no idea what that means), CF cardholder rubber, cleaned the CCD, did a general check & clean. All for $224.
What I got back yesterday was enough like having a new D300 that, at first, I thought perhaps I should not have bought the D7000. After some practice, however, I can see and feel a great many smaller differences, and I'm less sure about that. I have, for example, become a great fan of Auto ISO.
About One-third of the Width of a Full Frame — and Still Plenty Sharp
Then I took it out today to see how it ran. It focused on everything but a hawk hiding behind a bramble of branches, usually very quickly, and showed me where it decided to focus with series of brightly colored boxes. I hadn't known to miss that, but I did. Only just now, as I write this, did I realize the one way I might have focused the hawk would have been if I'd switched the focus to manual and dialed it in. Of course the hawk didn't perch there that long.
At first, the only issue I missed from the D7k, was auto ISO, but gradually I noticed and remembered that the older D300 still does not render higher ISOs as cleanly at the D7k. And when the hawk that hid behind the branches flew from tree to tree, it did not focus quickly on its fleeting form. I probably won't get to try that on the d7k, but I doubt one focuses a lot quicker than the other, and I'm not really willing to test the comparison.
I was very pleased with the D300, however, and soon, my fingers had remembered many of the techniques my mind had all but forgot. I should probably weigh them both to see which is lighter. I suspect the d7k is, but the d300 felt very light in my hand when I hefted it. It's like having an old friend come back into my life.
February 6
Frightened Pigeons
I am using the D7000 more than ever. Right now it's attached to my 300mm f2.8 tele lens, and just yesterday I hefted the clunk and the camera around downtown for about three hours, discovering fatal flaw after fatal flaw in this silly camera. Because the lens is so difficult to handle (weight + ungainly balance + no-easy-way-to-hold-it or pick it up), it's now even easier than before to accidentally bump controls, thus changing, say, the top left, mode dial, which I did at least a half-dozen times that cold afternoon. It likes to settle on M for Manual, baffling me with shots at the last exposure setting I set. That day, those were all waaaay overexposed.
It also often reset the aperture I'd set repeatedly. I have three manuals for this fool thing, and I keep thinking I might have learned all its spastic tendencies, but I don't think I'll ever catch up.
I may finally have got used to bumping that dial, so I check it more often. But normal handling should not so easily change the controls. Even Nikon's semi-pro cams don't do that.
My Panasonic Lumix G2 is as easy to bump and mess up the dials, too, but it was a whole lot cheaper than the D7000 behemoth. It's also way lighter and easier to adjust, not to even mention that I don't have to guess at exposure as often. If that little camera focused and shot as fast as my D7000, I would never have needed the 7000, even if the G2's sensor is only 2/3 the size of the D7000's.
But I still miss my Nikon D300, which is still in the Nikon shop. It'd been there a couple months already when they finally billed me for it, even though I'd sent them a check with the camera, early in the last quarter of last year. They charged me for it around Christmas, and I am still waiting. The local Nikon repair guy (not Garland) said it would take about three months.
It would — and it (and the D200) was the only camera I've ever known that would — allow me to set it to focus on the first thing in its line of sight. Take these scared pigeons. The D300 would focus on the closest bird, not the huge building behind them, like this D7000 shot did. Usually it does better. But it's not dependable. With the D7k, I had to wait for the pigeons to fly out to a place where there was no building immediately behind them, so I could focus on those tiny specks of birds.
I have a D200 that, like the D300's controls, don't easily bump, but the D300 was so much easier to use, I tend to avoid using my D200, even though it far outlasted the D300 that I bought at least two years later. I probably should have settled on my D200 and not bought the much-more-amateur D7k and instead waited for the D400, for which I am still waiting. Not sure what I'll do with the D7k then.
Meanwhile, I absolutely adore my 300mm, even if
it weighs as much as a small elephant.
December 8
Cormorants and Pelicans Racing for Fish
I'm getting better. Using the little, difficult-to-get-at or push, button on the Auto/Manual Focus switch near the bottom of the lens now allows me to choose how much of the image I want to focus on. The smallest, dot target for birds like these swimming somewhat far away. Switching to the wide swath across the middle of the viewfinder when they're closer. Not something I can easily alter while I'm shooting — nor is there any feedback in the visible image that is bounced through the lens, off the mirror and through the pentaprism. I have to look at the info window on top of the camera.
I also have to look there to see the aperture actually change when I am in A for Aperture-priority mode, which I understand is not actually an aperture-priority mode. It's also where the Exposure Compensation works, and I can only see that in the top-of-the-camera window. It does not show in the viewing window — well, actually, it does show, but it is always wrong. Contradictions like that still pile up and baffle the living dickens out of me sometimes when I am trying to use this camera instead of think about it. But there's been noticeable progress in some important areas.
Selecting the precise area of focus in this image made it possible to focus on the birds, not the background — and to have that choice. Both were far away from my perch almost in the cold water on the rocky edge of White Rock Lake not more than a couple miles from my house. I've come a long way in using this camera, but still every time I go out with it, I miss my Lumix G2's Electronic Viewfinder.
My focus has improved, but my exposure, which I can always see directly on the G2, is elusive. Visible only in the LCD. And to look at it, I have to stop what I'm doing. I wonder whether Nikon will ever incorporate an EVF in one of its professional cameras.
Not that the D7000 is one of those. I still expect to buy a couple steps up, to the Nikon D400, when they finally catch up with their production next April (projected) after the factory floods in Thailand and the Tsunami and nuclear fallout in Japan. Otherwise, the D400 might have been rumored early enough that I would have got it instead of this.
Trouble is, now when I go out with my G2, I miss the d7k.
I loved my D200 and I cherished my D300, which was a significant improvement over my D200, as well as the D7000. Then my D300's shutter disintegrated way before its time, and I moved over to the m43 (pronounced micro four-thirds) format Lumix G2, with a sensor about two-thirds the size of my DX Nikons. And sometimes I dream of having a full-frame FX sensor again.
I've heard that soon we'll be able to view electronically what our camera's sensors see, with a standalone device or one mounted inside my glasses. I can't wait. I didn't wait, but now I have to. Switching back and forth between the D7k and the G2 is very confusing. At first the G2 was what my fingers knew how to do, without being interfered with by my brain. Then, gradually, my new Nikon took over. Now I have to try to rethink it, every time I use the G2, and the D7k is beginning to feel ordinary, understood, quick. Except where it still baffles me.
Odd transition.
I even sometimes use Live View on the Nikon, although I always used it on the Panasonic.
November 18
Goofy © notice, but first RAW shots in a while
Oh, it's a Ring-billed Gull looking almost saintly. Shot at ISO 1600 or more, but shot RAW in the latest version of Photoplop I loaded couple months ago, then avoided like the plague, because I didn't think I knew how to run it. Still don't know a lot. Used to say I only ever bought every other version of those things, then I went two full versions before tuning back in.
The amazing and beautiful Female Northern Shoveler
Anyway, so I loaded the CS5 version of Photoshop, avoided it till this camera came along, then today, I shot RAW (and JPEG, just in case. Don't need to do that again, thank goodness, dealing with both versions is way too confusing. Tried that yesterday. What a mess.) and processed just the RAW, and it looks just so good to me.
Thick-lipped Tree with just the right colors and tones
Tones are right again, colors not so much today, because the light was mostly dark, and I was shooting at least 1600 ISO, but running the really good images through dFine filter to kill the really big bumps of noise, which I've always done, just this camera is gentler about showing high ISO noise than anything else I've ever shot.
Tin Wood Man standing in a yard
Feel like I'm just getting into something really good for my photography here. Really pisses me off when I can't do what I want with a camera. Has been very frustrating the last week or so. I know the d7k will do stuff, but I just didn't know how to make the camera do what I wanted it to do.
Blue-eyed Squirrel with a Purple Forehead
Got me kinda excited. Need to read some more of the Thom Hogan guide, though. Got to a point last night that I just couldn't absorb any more information. Glazed over. Had to sleep, so I could think it deeper. I never photo squirrels. But it was perched there staring at me, it's cute little hands holding that morsel of food. Its tail laid nearly flat on the ground. Very uncharacteristic of me. The wood metal man, too. Just a passing notion. Of the visual kind.
Will probably open my ography up a little now.
November 17
Barred Owl Ready for Release Nikon D7000 Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 prime lens
I've just got Thom Hogan's Complete Guide to the Nikon D7000, which I ordered from him (only place you can get it), and I've already learned several things that I thought I knew differently. Some of that is the difference between what Ken Rockwell claims and what Thom Hogan says. I am also understanding more hidden details that I had all wrong.
I keep hoping he'll get to the focusing part, because that is the part I am still most confused about (as well as the part of Nikons D200 and D300 I was most corn-fused by), but there seems to be an order in Hogan's presentation, and I'll go along with it. I skipped the parts about "if this is your first digital camera" and other basics, but I am applying myself to understanding as much else as I can. I've just changed several camera setup parameters, and I hope they show in increased image quality.
I watched Kathy Rogers of Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation release this Barred Owl and several other owls into the wild out behind the Trinity River Audubon Center in complete darkness. I got my flash to work this time, but not at all when they were released, because I didn't know how to make it fire when the camera would/could not focus. Very confusing flash implementation.
November 10 2011
Mallard Pair Landing Nikon D200 ISO 1600 f/6.3 1/500 +1.67 EV Sigma 150-500mm
I almost sent my D7k back to Amazon, because I was having so much difficulty figuring it out — and because it won't format SDHC cards, a major failing in a camera (There's a firmware update that's supposed to address the D7k's failure to recognize some memory cards, but it won't work on my computer. I checked out my Nikon D200 (above) and hope to send my Nikon D300 with its disintegrating shutter back to Nikon to get it fixed.
Meanwhile, I'm saving up for a D400, which so far, has only been rumored. I never buy new cams till they've been thoroughly vetted by all the pixel peepers on Digital Photography Review and others' Nikon Forum members, who may not all do that much in-the-field photography, but they sure know how to find flaws in new cameras. And by then — usually six or eight months into a new camera's life — the price will come down some. Waiting is a win-win proposition, but boy do I wish I could get my hands on a D400 today.
I found an extremely detailed unboxing of it online, to have helped me rebox it. I saved all that stuff. Never used most of it. The strap is pristine, because I far prefer The Crumpler. I don't know how many shots I've taken with it, but most of them were out of focus or over-exposed, problems I rarely see with my Panasonic, although they are very different beasts. With my Panasonic Lumix G2, I'm looking at the same view the sensor sees — same exposure, aperture, shutter speed, light balance, EV compensation, etc.
I'm always flying blind on the D7k. Still wish I could meld the best parts of each camera into one.
Using the D7000, I miss the big buffer and fast continual shooting on the D200 and D300. When I use any of my Nikons I miss the Panasonic G2's ability to "see" the scene just like its sensor does, in the shooting colors, exposure and shutter speed. And I can't put any of those cams in my pocket, like I can with my Canon S95. So many cameras, so many distinct camera personalities …
October 2011
Day 4
Egret Landing on the Far Side of the Pond — significantly overexposed
Okay, I read the manual — PDF version, and will again. Learned stuff about how to set the camera and noted pages to go back to to fully figure out what they are saying or what I want and can choose among. You may not see much difference between yesterday's taking off pelican and the day before yesterday's landing pelican. But for one thing, yester's pelk was correctly exposed to start with, and the day had lots of well-exposed and correctly-focused images to choose from.
I even set the EV controls backwards, so when I go between the d7k and my G2, I don't stay confused.
