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| In Part1 I described my way to the Nikon D1. Deciding on the D1 was not a difficult choice, as there was no other affordable camera in town. Today, the choice is much more difficult, but I will address this later in Part 3. Buying the D1 is only the start, and finishing with Adobe's Photoshop will surely not be the end. But in-between, you have to make a lot of decisions, based on limited knowledge. So, you have the money, but you quickly realize that for the amounts discussed (~US$ 5.000), you only get the body, and you do not need to be knowledgeable in SLR photography to understand that you can not take a single picture with a body alone, even in the digital world. |
You need a lens, or better lenses, otherwise why bother with the possibility for interchangeable lenses. Happy all of you who already own NIKON cameras and have a choice of lenses at hand from your previous 35mm life. Lucky you. But as you read in Part 1, I came from the Canon camp, and had to buy a lens, at least one to start with. Because I did not have the chance to spend much time comparing cameras, I concentrated my studies on the available lenses. The guys from Nikon marketing were quick to lead me the right way, by launching parallel to the D1 a new lens, the AF-S 17-35mm.
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| AF
NIKKOR 24-120mm f3.5-5.6D |
AF-S NIKKOR
17-35mm f2.8D IF-ED |
AF
NIKKOR 60mm Micro f2.8D |
AF NIKKOR 14mm f2.8 ED | |
| Focal length | 24 - 120 mm | 17 - 35 mm | 60 mm | 14mm |
| Digital equivalent | 36 - 180 mm | 25.5 - 52.5 mm | 90 mm | 21 mm |
| Min distance | 0.5m | 0.28m | 0.219m | 0.2m |
| Glasses | 15 in 11, 2Af | 13 in 10, 3Af, 2ED | 8 in 7 | 14 in 12, 2Af, 1ED |
| Size | O 80mm, L 72mm | O 83mm / L 106 mm | O 70mm / L 74.5mm | O87mm/L97mm |
| Filter | 72 mm | 77 mm | 62 mm | na |
| Weight | 550g | 750g | 440g | 670g |
| Yen list price | 84.000 | 230.000 | 57.000 | na |
| www.photodo.com rating (5 max) |
2.3 | not yet rated | 4.2 | not yet rated |
As I did my homework, I knew that the lens multiplication factor was 1.5, so a 17-35 zoom translated into quite standard 25-52 mm. You might say: "Thank you Nikon, that's great", but quickly you realized that the catch is the "S" behind "AF-" and before "17-35mm". With Nikon, "S" means money, lot of money, as these lenses use the silent wave focus motor, better say engine for this price. It is very fast, very quiet and very expensive. Is it very good? I did not buy it, but its reviews are more positive than negative, and I suspect the negative ones come from the non-Nikon die hard's. Anyway, not yet my quality league, and as I was used to a wider zoom area on my Canon (FD 35-105mm), 25-52mm equivalent was not my preferred spectrum anyway. Navigating through the lenses, having learned not to consider (better say: look at with envy) everything with the magic "S", quickly produced a short list. The way to work through the catalogue is simple: Step 1: avoid the "S"-word, Step2: look at the zoom range and (very important) Step 3: multiply everything with 1.5 (not the price, dummy). You can also do it the other way round: Step 3: what range do you want, Step 2: divide by 1.5, Step 1: avoid the "S". I tell you its hard to avoid the "S", but I managed so far, and decided for the affordable 24-120mm. When you decide for this lens, you must always say in discussions: "my first lens to start with", stressing the words "first" and "start", as every other keen will look down at you with pity, having chosen this "looser". The photodo rating is a low 2.3, but believe me, its not such a looser, before you start to realize its weak points you learned a lot about digital photography, and will continue to like this lens for its universal use, as it is a 5X zoom, not heavy, and not "S", witch means noisy, slow focusing, but affordable.
I recently had a friendly exchange of opinion with Uwe Steinmueller from www.outbackphoto.com, who pointed out the importance of a good lens. His argument is understandable: better a bad camera with a good lens than a good camera with a bad lens. It is the lens that catches the light. Although Uwe claims not to be a professional, looking at his work he could be one. Myself however, as many others maybe, are not yet ready and capable to distinguish the fine nuances. I am getting closer, the more pictures I take and compare, analyzing not only subject and composition, but also technical proficiency (as lightning) and color accuracy. So my way was to come in low (not with the best lens) and work my way up. Uwe is rightly a strong supporter of the RAW format, converting it into JPEG's or TIFFS. I presently shoot directly JPEG, and now, after 3000 pictures, start to see the deficiencies. And will also move to the RAW format soon. I think I am learning more (or faster) starting as I did than having started with the "S" class and RAW format. Crazy, maybe, but it feels very rewarding. Also, I think that a lens analyzed for 35mm should have a different (better) rating using on a digital camera. Why? The 1.5 factor. Not that the lens will be 1.5 times better, but is it not using all the glass of the lens, only its center, and it is at the edges that lenses start to distort and get into trouble.
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Size matters |
I, as others, had problems to understand this 1.5 factor. Digital forums were full of it, and tried to find a simple explanation. On the left, you see the size differences of different "receiving" formats: 35mm film, APS film, Nikon D1 CCD and the tiny red block, a Coolpix 990 CCD. As you can see, they vary in size, thus they capture different zones from "what comes out of the back of the lens". The picture at the right give you a impression of what - with the same lens - a 35mm film would capture and what the Nikon D1 CCD would capture. If you now assume that the "35mm film picture" was taken with a 50mm lens, you would need a 75mm lens to catch just the same area as the D1 CCD (darker) does. It is somewhat more complex, as the distance from the film (or CCD) to the lens also plays a role, but this is how I can live with the multiplying factor without running into a mental state of confusion each time I look at lenses for my D1. |
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Below a summary of some other other interesting lenses, 2 with the nice focal range of 80-200, one "S" - the other normal, look at the price difference, and the recently announced 80-400(!)mm VR, which stand for Vibration Reduced. Very interesting, but there are no tests or reports yet available, the lens will ship shortly according to Nikon. So better wait and do not place a blind order.
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| AF-S
NIKKOR 80-200mm f2.8 |
AF NIKKOR
80-200mm f2.8D IF-ED |
AF
NIKKOR 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR |
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| Focal lenth | 80 - 200 mm | 80 - 200 mm | 80 - 400 mm |
| Digital equivalent | 120 - 300 mm | 120 - 300 mm | 120- 600 mm |
| Min distance | 1.5m | 1.8m | 2.3m |
| Glases | 18 in 14, 5ED | 16 in 11, 3 ED | 17 in 11, 3ED |
| Size | O 88mm, L 207mm | O 87mm / L 187 mm | O 91mm / L 171mm |
| Filter | 77 mm | 77 mm | 77 mm |
| Weight | 1.580g | 1.300g | 1.340g |
| Yen list price | 245.000 | 154.000 | na |
| www.photodo.com rating (5 max) |
4.1 | 4 | not rated yet |
Before the storm
of abusing emails starts, yes, there are alternatives to Nikon lenses. They are
called Sigma, Tamron or Tokina, just to mention a few, and are much cheaper. I do not mention them here in
detail for 2 reasons: one, I think they do not reach the quality of Nikon lenses
(although I must admit that this is derived from Forum contributions and looking
at the ratings published by photodo), and two,
most discussions with respect to digital camera's focus around color accuracy.
If the CCD is a source of "color problems", the lens is too. So to minimize on discussions in the search of the guilty, I stick with
Nikon. Then I know whom to blame.
| One more Nikon
item needed, if you want to take pictures in the dark: the flash. My
technical understanding is increasing slowly, and I fully trust the
technical need Nikon is claiming, as they offer their top flash (SB 28) as
SB 28DX specially for the D1.
So, now we got a camera and a lens, and start taking pictures. With the connection to your TV, PAL or NTSC, you can watch your pictures on TV, what a horrible quality. And showing them on the back LCD, tiny and small. What digital photography is all about is also computing and printing. So you need more. |
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In order not to have to download from your camera, which is not to difficult, but not the fastest if you work with several CF cards, best you buy a CF Card Reader, not expensive, always connected to your PC. Just push the card in, and drag and drop the pictures where you want them. There are many makers offering them, I could not identify any problems with them, so go for what you feel suits you best, and design might become the biggest factor. |
Well done, now your files are on your PC, and with a good browser you can quickly view them (if they are in JPEG format). A slide show is also quickly set-up, and you can import them in and out of other applications like PowerPoint, Word or whatever you work with. The next step you want to realize is printing them.
| On the printer front, opinions start to vary again. First decision: inkjet or dye sublimation, meaning in easy words: cheap or expensive (factor 10+). The quality factor is not so big, but they are worlds apart. No real professional will rely on inkjet for long. But for the keen amateur, today's PhotoPrinters offer all you want. You will have the choises of makers (Epson, HP, Canon, etc), who all have strong points in one or the other field. None is really bad. For me a desisive factor will be the availability of paper and ink cartridges, does the shop next door stock them. Yes, you can order everything via the net, but you might live, like I do, close to a internet connection but far away from the closest distribution point. Old fashioned, but save and quick. |
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Finished buying? No way. After printing you pictures, you start to realize that color balance, brightness, contrast, crop, whatever is just not optimal. Once you reached this stage, you will quickly want your private development studio. You will start with programs like PotoEditor, free with most windows releases, or other. At the end of your quality learning curve, you will end up with PhotoShop from Adobe, believe me. But do not rush to the nearest shop (on or offline) and spend up to US$ 600. Check the many disks you received with your printer or camera, maybe PhotoShop LE is part of the package. LE stands for Limited Edition. This does not mean that only a few are distributed, and its therefore very rare and precious, but the functionality is limited. But large enough to start learning the atrocities of PhotoShop. And again, once you reached the borders here, you can upgrade at a lower cost. |
More, yes, if you want. Assuming you are a keen amateur, having had a 35mm life before engaging in the digital adventure, I am sure you have a lot of films numbered and stored. Once you got the feeling of what you can do with photo imaging software, you also want to start putting your artistic hands to these older pictures. Your only solution of quality: a film scanner, like the Nikon CoolScan LS30. Middle of the range, thus affordable for the keen. And once you got the feeling, you start to dig deep and unbury those 1951 B&W's that were shot by your parents before you were born. Again and again people consider staying with their 35mm equipment, buying a good scanner and converting their film into digital pictures. It is a alternative worth considering, but in my view only a short term fix. Once the digital cameras reach 6-9 MegaPixel at affordable prices, you get no gain in quality anymore. The simple fact that you do not have those film and developing costs with a digital camera, and just can take picture after picture - even if you throw away 90% afterwards, is one of the best arguments to go digital. |
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