The NIKON Thread (Talk About Nikon Stuff here) - Page 352

spoken like a true ken rockwell groupie

Well, the most numbers I've seen in this thread has been from your posts. I've never shot a resolution chart and don't intend to. I also have never used the AF on my D800 and haven't on the D200 since about 2010. I may well have a camera that suffers back or front focus. I don't know. But if my camera did focus incorrectly and I used AF, I'd be upset. You should get what you pay for. If Nikon put an AF engine in their cameras, it had better work. If it doesn't, it is faulty, no matter what the camera is being used for. If your fork flopped down every time food was loaded onto it, what use would it be in anchoring an uncut steak for cutting? Everything has a purpose. If for the majority of users, good/perfect AF is the main purpose of a camera, it had better well perform to that purpose. 

If the purpose is to make sharp lenses, the lenses better be sharp. Though, lens sharpness doesn't yet matter: every prime aside from the 85/1,8K is sharp as a tack on every camera I've used. The lenses Nikon put out in the F2 age are amazing. I use several myself, Ai modded. They are super sharp, make amazing colours, but glow a bit here and there. They'll last far into the next hundred years. There's a limit to technology: when it becomes all electrons, it is cheapened. Current lenses lose symmetrical aperture shape when stopped down a bit, making sunstars a bit wild. They are also much much larger, heavier, and more prone to break than older lenses are. 

I don't do numbers as I don't care about them - unless asked to make images to a specific size. But I do care that what I use works as advertised. I think that is the bar none clause for most users out there, professional or amateur. Probably, professionals demand (in some ways) less of their stuff as they don't have time to bother with slight inconsistencies. Of course, I'm speaking generally. The professionals in my field just shoot a job and get paid. Most of their work is done after the fact - unless it is something like 360 degree product photography - that is mostly done by hand, then automated later. 

In some ways, you and I are arguing the same thing. It's just that I don't care what camera a person uses and if they think or know they need lots of megapixels or just a few. Whatever suits them. As long as they enjoy it. I'd not have a problem with your arguments if you took the high road and let people get the cheap or expensive camera they think they need. There's no need to police a camera forum telling people they only need this or only need that like you know what they 'need' or want or have the money for, or or or. You said it yourself: FX has better viewfinders. To a point, it does. The viewfinders are much smaller than any similar level film camera, but they are much brighter and larger than DX viewfinders (as Mattimis said) thanks to toting a larger mirror over a larger sensor. For me, that is enough to make a difference. The D200, be it 36 megapixels or 2 megapixels, has a poor viewfinder. Eventually, it would have driven me batty. 

Both bodies are too large/heavy for my tastes. Ditto the D600. Ditto the D80. Ditto the D5000. But there isn't a digital option for 35mm photography that is as small or well made as the FE/FM series. Even the F/F2/F3 were smaller than the D7000 class camera. I think that needs are not taken into account by manufacturers any more. Rather, it's possibilities and production output that weighs hardest. Otherwise, why make so many PAS cameras when the market really is falling out? Note that neither Mattimis nor I have told you what we think you need but you have told us what you think we (at large) need (and in not very benevolent terms). If your prerogative is to be right or to be the best arguer, go ahead. It's your role. But please, don't try to preach right and wrong here. That no longer makes sense.

while I agree that megapixels really don't matter up to a point, it's nice for cropping purposes.  I'd prefer if the D600 were only 12MP like the D700 was...the large file sizes is a pain to deal with when batch processing with my 3 year old computer... 

Aside from that........I came from a "DX" format (Rebel) and had up to 6 lenses before I sold them........and realized after 2-3 years of shooting with a crop sensor that I was only happy with the color depth I could get at around ISO 100 or 200.. 

I'm down to 2 lenses (one of them really old)....both are f/1.8 and a full frame D600...........I could not be happier.  

With my Rebel, I had 2 f/1.4 lenses, an ultrawide, a fisheye, a zoom/macro, and a pancake..  While it was kinda fun to have all that versatility, I realized for my needs I only really needed 2-3 lenses. 

Anyway, the full frame difference is incredible to me.  Like Ken Rockwell said in his comparison...he'd choose his crappiest lens + full frame over his most expensive lens + crop sensor.  I tend to agree :D 

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyogen 

while I agree that megapixels really don't matter up to a point, it's nice for cropping purposes.  I'd prefer if the D600 were only 12MP like the D700 was...the large file sizes is a pain to deal with when batch processing with my 3 year old computer... 

 

Aside from that........I came from a "DX" format (Rebel) and had up to 6 lenses before I sold them........and realized after 2-3 years of shooting with a crop sensor that I was only happy with the color depth I could get at around ISO 100 or 200.. 

 

I'm down to 2 lenses (one of them really old)....both are f/1.8 and a full frame D600...........I could not be happier.  

 

With my Rebel, I had 2 f/1.4 lenses, an ultrawide, a fisheye, a zoom/macro, and a pancake..  While it was kinda fun to have all that versatility, I realized for my needs I only really needed 2-3 lenses. 

 

Anyway, the full frame difference is incredible to me.  Like Ken Rockwell said in his comparison...he'd choose his crappiest lens + full frame over his most expensive lens + crop sensor.  I tend to agree :D 

Rockwell opinons are like the wind. it depends which way it is blowing and I would take little of what he says with a grain of salt.  Last month he become a canon fan as that the way the winds blowing now. He is more concerned about how much money he can beg for. Some months he preaches to shoot all automatic or P settings some he shoots other ways. Get my drift

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyogen 

Anyway, the full frame difference is incredible to me.  Like Ken Rockwell said in his comparison...he'd choose his crappiest lens + full frame over his most expensive lens + crop sensor.  I tend to agree :D 

That it the most stupid generalization one could ever think of. Try taking a crappy lens with BF/ FF and other optical issues and shoot great photos with it as compared to something like Nikon 200 VR II on a DX like D7000 or better and conclusions can be drawn then.

Thanks for the heads-up.. i don't take what he says as definitive truth and I'll take what anyone says with a grain of salt.  A lot of the stuff I've read by him has seemed quite practical.  The full frame difference is like night and day, though.  Anyone who says otherwise is on a high horse...or high :-P 

I had just gotten my camera and first lens and severely underexposed these - turned out okay after some editing

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank I 

spoken like a true ken rockwell groupie

No, it's spoken like someone who has his roots in film, not digital.

Anyone who has been doing this since film, remembers the horrid results of pushing Neopan 1600 to 3200 to try to shoot indoor sports and that was as good as it got.  They might also remember having to shoot ISO 25 film to be able to keep grain smaller than poppy seeds when printing 35mm larger than 11x14. Any digital camera released in, say, the last 4 years is capable of producing results, especially at high-ISO, which are beyond just about anything possible with a 35mm camera.  To continue to fret about technical capabilities and count megapixels is missing the point.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big FF fan (mostly because I prefer wide angle perspective and I have more confidence in wide FF glass) and I own lots of "L" glass (again, I'm a Canon shooter).  I take the time to microfocus adjust my lenses but I only do this so that I have confidence that my gear will capture a scene correctly.  But none of this is really necessary to take a great photo.  I don't care if you use an iPhone, a 5D Classic, a D800 or a Phase, it's not the camera that makes a great photo.

For example, one of these was taken with my 5D3 and one with my SGSII.

I'm not claiming that either of these is a great pic, but they're two I had handy of the same subject under similar conditions.  And, at a glance, the easiest way to tell them apart is color balance and exposure  But the 5D3 image comes out of Lightroom where it was adjusted slightly.  The other is literally straight out of my phone.  I just uploaded it to an image host a few minutes ago.  It's a JPG, obviously, but it would still benefit from a few adjustments and could look much better.

And yes, I know, these are just small web images but again, what are you really trying to do?  Do you want to take a great pic that you want to share with people or do you want to argue about high ISO performance, dynamic range, megapixels and all sorts of other information which is peripheral to the content/quality of an image?

Can you post a link to where Ken Rockwell says that he would take a FF with a crappy lens over the best DX? I'd like to see for what purpose he's talking about.

I had a darkroom in high school and developed and printed color. The color balances I get out of my D200 and D7000 are infinitely better than the best I could achieve by refining and tweaking my color in the darkroom. Just about everything about photography is easier and better now. The cameras are fantastic (if a bit too complicated) and the lenses totally beat any of my old Nikkor film lenses when it comes to chromatic aberration, coma and edge sharpness. (But of course, I'm shooting DX, so my edge sharpness is going to be better than shooting film or FX.) I have an old Nikkor 50mm 1.2 and a Sigma 50mm 1.4 and the Sigma is considerably better at 1.4. Even third party lenses are great.

It makes me chuckle when I see armchair experts online arguing over minute differences between cameras and lenses. Every time a new camera with more megapixels and less ISO noise comes out, suddenly "enough megapixels" and "plenty of low light ability" becomes "totally unacceptable". In forty years of shooting, I've owned four camera bodies... a Nikkormat FTN, a Nikon F2, a D200 and a D7000. I have to admit, I feel a bit guilty to have traded the D200 for the D7000. The D200 is a remarkably capable camera. I really didn't need to upgrade that much. Plus, I have to learn a new camera and get to the point where it's an extension of me again.

^^ Agreed. Modern digital cameras outperform equivalent sized film every time. As long as ISO values stay true to film values (despite performance increases) I'm okay. I often shoot with a Canon P over one shoulder and another camera over another, both using the same ISO values. Of course, film can be pushed a lot more than say, my D200 can. Overexpose, underexpose, it can still look pretty good. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by pushing film. When you push the ASA on film, it generally gets very grainy... even worse than high ISO noise. If you mean latitude, digital is still better. I can squeeze three stops out of my D200. With film, the contrast would go completely flat with three stops under or over exposure.

I dug around and found the article on Ken Rockwell's site that was being referred to. It's pretty old, comparing a D200 to a Canon 5D, which is not really an apples to apples comparison, but was what he had to work with back then. We will soon have the D7100 which is basically the same camera as the D600, just with a different size sensor.

As I see it, the "Fx Advantage" is going to involve:

A stop better high ISO performance, which is pretty much unnecessary because the D7100 will be perfectly able to shoot indoors without a flash.

The ability to stop down to f/11, while the D7000 will begin to hit diffraction at f/8... again not a huge deal.

A stop better shallow depth of field ability for the D600, which is also not a big deal with the excellent inexpensive third party DX fast 1.4 primes like the Sigma 30.

The FX sharpness advantage, which will be partially offset by the lack of a low pass filter on the D7100 and the fact that DX uses the center of the lens (the sharpest part).

The only time when any of these might become real issues is when you would be printing over 40 inches across, or in extreme low light situations. Size and weight aside, the major day in day out difference is the size and brightness of the viewfinder of the D600.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by pushing film. When you push the ASA on film, it generally gets very grainy... even worse than high ISO noise. If you mean latitude, digital is still better. I can squeeze three stops out of my D200. With film, the contrast would go completely flat with three stops under or over exposure.

Nope, you're understanding what I said regarding push film.  I laugh when people complain about high ISO noise with current DSLRs.  With my 5D3, I'm now happy to shoot ISO 3200 as if it were ISO 800 film.  ISO 400 digital is the equivalent to ISO 25 film.  I mention pushing film (underexposing and adjusting development chemicals/times/temps/techniques to compensate) as that is what I had to do not all that long ago to be able to shoot indoor sports and now I can do it without a second thought.

Current digital cameras are so capable that it's a just about a waste of time to argue about the technical aspects of photography anymore.  The same effort would be much spent discussing techniques.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by pushing film. When you push the ASA on film, it generally gets very grainy... even worse than high ISO noise. If you mean latitude, digital is still better. I can squeeze three stops out of my D200. With film, the contrast would go completely flat with three stops under or over exposure.

Sorry, I should have said: film (I use neopan 400 most often) can be over or under exposed and still look good. My D200 not so much. The D800 is another story. In some ways, it is not that necessary to get a perfect exposure. Same with D7000.