The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

First post in the Nikon Forum and introducing myself

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Hello all,

My thanks to Guy Mancuso for inviting me to join here. We know each other from the Alt DSLR thread at FM. Guy and I were involved at one point in testing the prototype BrightScreen for the Leica R9/DMR combo, and I tested the prototype for the Canon 5D. All water under the bridge now, of course.

I have sold all my Leica glass, and the R9/DMR. Currently I am using a D200 with all the ZFs except the 85/1.4, and hanging on to a D2Hs as a backup until the new camera arrives.

I gave a D3 on order, as well as the 14-24/2.8 and the 24–70/2.8. I have the 80–200/2.8 and, with the ZFs, that pretty much exhausts my needs, lens and focal length-wise, for my shooting assignments. I follow the Robert Capa dictum in this regard...

I am looking forward to new Zeiss ZF glass, and—frankly—I can't wait to get the D3. "Only" 12Mp, but what pixels. The high ISO performance looks incredible, and I very much like Nikon's flash system. And, personally, I feel Nikon's pro body ergonomics are better for me, for fit and layout.

My work varies from architecture to products, with occasional corporate portraiture to leaven the mix. Last assignment was for John Deere, shooting forest harvesting equipment on location and in action, and I have just returned from Vancouver (where I was running a workshop) and shooting a Pilates studio interior for the owner, and some images of stretching exercises using the students there for my next book.

As soon as the next book is finished, I will book on the next workshop GM and colleagues are running—I look forward to sharing a beer and stories with people I have never met, but nonetheless feel close to.

Thanks to all for setting this forum up. :eek:
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Kit glad you got the honor of breaking our Nikon section in. Look forward to further reports on the D3 and D300 camera's that are hitting the streets. On paper they look really nice in many ways.


BTW great to see you here my friend.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Hi Kit, please relate your experiences with this camera when you get it.

I've decided to hold back on getting the Canon 1DsMKIII when it becomes available, and am seriously looking to a Nikon D3 for my wedding photography. I have a Hasselblad H3D for high resolution work ... so 12 meg., full frame sounds perfect for my documentary wedding images. Probably only need a fast general Nikon zoom ... and a couple of ZF primes. I'll keep all the Canon stuff just in case they make the next leapfrog step : -)

I assume the D3 has focus confirmation in viewfinder when using the Zeiss F mount glass ... right?
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Hi,
Is this the introductory thread? I guess so.

I'm Jorgen, a photographer and graphic designer living in Bangkok, making a living (more or less) from industrial and product photography, using a Fuji S3 with an assortment of Nikkor lenses. Although the upgrade to a D3 seems to be an obvious choice, the cost level in this part of the world makes investments very critical. Because of that, I may end up with a D300, at least for the time being.

I also do travel photography within the region, with an Olympus E-1 (smaller kit, more rugged, fantastic lenses, particularly the wide-angles) that will be upgraded to an E-3 as soon as possible.

This forum is a great initiative. For a while, I was worried that Guy should take all his knowledge and his great spirit with him and ride into the Leica-forum sunset, never to return again. Reading his threads about the DMR and later the M8, has been an enormous learning experience. I guess there's a Leica out there in the future for me, hopefully earlier rather than later :)

Jorgen
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Hi Jorgen glad you made it over here and welcome. Invite some of your Nikon friends over and enjoy yourself. We all want to hear about the D300 and the D3. They both sound very positive to the market. Thanks for the nice comment about me and honestly i am trying to reinvent my life and make teaching much more important part of my life, i honestly need my own forum to do that. i just need to drive if you know what i mean and Jack is a amazing partner in our workshops and forums so maybe i will get through this mid -life stuff on with a new direction.
 

PSon

Active member
Hi Kit, please relate your experiences with this camera when you get it.

I've decided to hold back on getting the Canon 1DsMKIII when it becomes available, and am seriously looking to a Nikon D3 for my wedding photography. I have a Hasselblad H3D for high resolution work ... so 12 meg., full frame sounds perfect for my documentary wedding images. Probably only need a fast general Nikon zoom ... and a couple of ZF primes. I'll keep all the Canon stuff just in case they make the next leapfrog step : -)

I assume the D3 has focus confirmation in viewfinder when using the Zeiss F mount glass ... right?
Marc, I thought I had the spec sheet but I cannot locate it; I will post the information once it is found.
Son
 
M

Melbourne

Guest
New here and have posted on the "small sensor thread"
I'm awaiting the D3/300 and lenses as after 10 years with Canon I'm changing back.
Last Nikon I had was the F4.
My work is in Film and TV stills and almost always have to work in very low light, so I firstly, I just fancied a change and secondly, The D3 seems to tick all my boxes. No gripes with Canon at all but this seems to be a good time to make the move.
I did fondle one for a few minutes here in London last week and it did feel as if you had more direct control, rather than via the menus as with the Canons.
I see some of you use Ziess optics, are they easy to use on the Nikons and do they make much difference ?
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
One and a half year ago I tried the D200 with a couple of ZF lenses, but I had huge problems with the viewfinder.
There was a substantial mismatch between what the screen + viewfinder were telling me and what the green confirmation light was telling me.
When I saw a sharp view in the viewfinder the confirmation light wasn't at all lightening.
And when the confirmation light showed up, the image in the viewfinder wasn't at all sharp.
But worst of all, none of the two signals were to believe.
The D200 wasn't designed for manual focusing, so there was no "snap" sharpness in the viewfinder when focus was right. The deapth of field was far too wide to get any snap with the build in screen.
I liked the ZF optics, but at that time I couldn't find a satisfying camera solution for the lenses, so I ended up selling the D200.
Now I am very interested in the positive news about the D300 viewfinder that Ray Harms tell us about in the "AI-S" pancake + nokton thread. And I expect the larger D3 viewfinder will be a lot better for the manual focus purpose. http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=174
I hope Kit Laughlin will chime in on this very soon. He has nearly all the ZF lenses and I know he has ordered the D3 to shoot those lenses.
 

woodyspedden

New member
As I said in the AIS pancake thread, I am using the new Voightlander 40 2.0 asph pancake with my new D300. I did a shoot at a party where the light was very low and I had some serious focusing issues. However I was not using the focus confirmation light because frankly after a year shooting M8's I just forgot about it. Ray was kind enough to point this out to me so I went back and did some low light shooting paying very close attention to the FC lamp. All of the shots were extremely crisp as a result. Also understand that the D300 does not have as good a viewfinder as the D3 so the D3 should be even better and yes it also has the FC lamp.

Just some initial impressions. I have done no serious testing as yet.

Woody
 

harmsr

Workshop Member
I hope this tip on the focus confirmation light helps you guys. It works for me up to a 50mm lens (cropped FOV of 75) perfectly. However, it was not sensitive enough to nail the 85 1.4 lens under 2 meters of distance.

Best,

Ray
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Hello All, and esp. Hello to Guy and Jack. This will be a great forum, I believe, and the user's interface is the best yet, bar none.

I will be brief today; two reasons. One is that I am on a deadline to have a book finished (with hundreds of BW photos, new text and new illustrations) by end Feb. Time is tight.

Two, the D3 arrives tomorrow; I have had the D3300 for a week now. Initial thoughts re. D300:

MF with any of the ZFs is difficult. The 100/2 makro has a paper-thin DOF at ƒ2, as everyone knows: you have to nail focus to make this baby sing. When you do (about 1/10, right now) the bokeh is extraordinary, and the colours saturated. It makes images that trigger the "Wow" factor.

1/10 is nowhere good enough for someone making money out of images.

Jim Lakey (BrightScreen) has his ProScreens waiting—I asked him not to fit them to the new cameras (he is my camera dealer, too; highly recommended). I buy retail BTW, so am not in his pocket. Point is I wanted to be able to compare the standard focussing screen with the Brightscreen. This I will do, but after I have settled in with both new bodies.

But (and there's always a but) the D300 has some interesting focussing issues with AF, too. I am going to test more today, but my razor sharp wide open 80–200/2.8 is soft on the D300. No amount of fine tuning AF (all the way from +20 to -20 can get that lens sharp on that body. I honestly thought I was losing it yesterday after trying to get it sharp—so I pulled it off the D300, and put it back on the D200.

10/10 perfectly sharp images resulted, wide open, same setup.

So, two points here: one is to remind everyone that the AF and MF systems in these new cameras are separate systems. One, the other, or both, can be off. The D300 cannot AF accurately with this lens, and MF (via the standard focussing screen) is not good enough for me.

After some retesting today with other zooms that from experience with the D200 (which, thank god, I kept) I know are sharp, I will decide whether to send the body back to Jim and ask him to send it back to Nikon under warranty or repair.

I had this once before, with an S5 Pro: when I sent that back (MF, in this case was way out) the mirrorbox was so far out of spec the factory just replaced it. I have said this before, but it is worth repeating: QC, these days, is about the percentage of product that gets returned, rather than what might happen in the factory.

I feel that the AF system is out of whack; a +20 AF fine tune gets it *close*, but no banana. More testing today.

And while it is over in your part of the world, I will ask Jim to fit a Proscreen and to calibrate MF, once the AF is up to scratch.

There is a lot to like about the D300: the extra stop in low light (but honestly, the results here really are a reflection of Nikon's new NR algorithms; the camera is not much better than the D200 if the NR is turned off—and I believe that some NR happens even if NR is set to "OFF", above 800 ISO), the new Info button that puts all major shooting parameters on the LCD (at last!), and the AF fine tuning—if the body is in spec.

The LCD is incredible, and shows you the closest thing to an on-screen view. Definitely good enough to check focus (although remarks above re. focus were made after seeing images on screen).

The control surfaces are better laid out (especially Playback), the finder is cleaner, and you get the option of 14 bit NEFs. I will leave it to others to test whether there is any visual value in prints via this option.

That's all for now; possibly more later. I should have the D3 by midday tomorrow, my time. The D3 is the camera I have been waiting for since the "digital revolution" hit us. 12Mp is enough for everything I do, whether for print or web, and many here will recognise this reworking of an old adage: "it's not the number of pixels that counts, it's the quality of the pixels. Let's see.

I forgot to mention: if the AF system is out of spec, you can't rely on the focus confirmation light....

Guy, does this take you back to the R9/DMR?

:)
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
Kit, thank you so much for this structured and elaborated report of yours. Exactly what I personally needed to qualify my own decisions about maybe giving it another try with my AI-S and ZF manual focus lenses.
I am looking forward to hear more about your experiences with the manual focus ability of the D3 viewfinder too. I suppose we can expect it to be significantly better (as long as the focus system isn't off).
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
Hello all,

My thanks to Guy Mancuso for inviting me to join here. We know each other from the Alt DSLR thread at FM. Guy and I were involved at one point in testing the prototype BrightScreen for the Leica R9/DMR combo, and I tested the prototype for the Canon 5D. All water under the bridge now, of course.

I have sold all my Leica glass, and the R9/DMR. Currently I am using a D200 with all the ZFs except the 85/1.4, and hanging on to a D2Hs as a backup until the new camera arrives.

I gave a D3 on order, as well as the 14-24/2.8 and the 24–70/2.8. I have the 80–200/2.8 and, with the ZFs, that pretty much exhausts my needs, lens and focal length-wise, for my shooting assignments. I follow the Robert Capa dictum in this regard...

I am looking forward to new Zeiss ZF glass, and—frankly—I can't wait to get the D3. "Only" 12Mp, but what pixels. The high ISO performance looks incredible, and I very much like Nikon's flash system. And, personally, I feel Nikon's pro body ergonomics are better for me, for fit and layout.

My work varies from architecture to products, with occasional corporate portraiture to leaven the mix. Last assignment was for John Deere, shooting forest harvesting equipment on location and in action, and I have just returned from Vancouver (where I was running a workshop) and shooting a Pilates studio interior for the owner, and some images of stretching exercises using the students there for my next book.

As soon as the next book is finished, I will book on the next workshop GM and colleagues are running—I look forward to sharing a beer and stories with people I have never met, but nonetheless feel close to.

Thanks to all for setting this forum up. :eek:
Hiya Kit,

That really does seem to be one of the great combos in DSLRs right now: the D3 or D300 and Zeiss lenses. I think about that for myself (for non-RF work).

Cheers,

Sean
 
Last edited:
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
BTW, the other camera that works very well with (and is fully coupled with) the Zeiss SLR lenses is the ($600 with rebate !) Pentax K10D. It's actually quite a good little body for Zeiss lenses.

Cheers,

Sean
 

harmsr

Workshop Member
Kit,

Once you get your body sorted out for focus issues, I think the D300 will surprise you in how much it is improved over the D200 in terms of focus.

With the D200, I had to change out my screen to the 13mm microprism screen from Brightscreen or I just missed too many shots with the ZF lenses.

On the D300, it is is easier to see on the screen and the focus confirmation light works very well for me on the 35 and 50 focal lengths. I get optimal focus when going from close to far at the moment the light turns solid.

I have the new 24-70 2.8, 105 2.8 VR Macro, and 70-200 2.8 VR for autofocus Nikon lenses. These all focus perfectly on my body and are very sharp. Hopefully Nikon will sort your body out quickly.

This is a photo that I posted on LUF for another purpose, but it was taken under 1 meter of distance with 50 ZF 2.0 Macro on the D300 at ISO 3200, f5.6, 1/40s and hand held using the focus confirmation light. The file was the 14bit uncompressed, processed at default in ACR and then just resized & converted to sRGB for the web. I'm really enjoying this new camera.

Best,

Ray
 

woodyspedden

New member
Hello All, and esp. Hello to Guy and Jack. This will be a great forum, I believe, and the user's interface is the best yet, bar none.

I will be brief today; two reasons. One is that I am on a deadline to have a book finished (with hundreds of BW photos, new text and new illustrations) by end Feb. Time is tight.

Two, the D3 arrives tomorrow; I have had the D3300 for a week now. Initial thoughts re. D300:

MF with any of the ZFs is difficult. The 100/2 makro has a paper-thin DOF at ƒ2, as everyone knows: you have to nail focus to make this baby sing. When you do (about 1/10, right now) the bokeh is extraordinary, and the colours saturated. It makes images that trigger the "Wow" factor.

1/10 is nowhere good enough for someone making money out of images.

Jim Lakey (BrightScreen) has his ProScreens waiting—I asked him not to fit them to the new cameras (he is my camera dealer, too; highly recommended). I buy retail BTW, so am not in his pocket. Point is I wanted to be able to compare the standard focussing screen with the Brightscreen. This I will do, but after I have settled in with both new bodies.

But (and there's always a but) the D300 has some interesting focussing issues with AF, too. I am going to test more today, but my razor sharp wide open 80–200/2.8 is soft on the D300. No amount of fine tuning AF (all the way from +20 to -20 can get that lens sharp on that body. I honestly thought I was losing it yesterday after trying to get it sharp—so I pulled it off the D300, and put it back on the D200.

10/10 perfectly sharp images resulted, wide open, same setup.

So, two points here: one is to remind everyone that the AF and MF systems in these new cameras are separate systems. One, the other, or both, can be off. The D300 cannot AF accurately with this lens, and MF (via the standard focussing screen) is not good enough for me.

After some retesting today with other zooms that from experience with the D200 (which, thank god, I kept) I know are sharp, I will decide whether to send the body back to Jim and ask him to send it back to Nikon under warranty or repair.

I had this once before, with an S5 Pro: when I sent that back (MF, in this case was way out) the mirrorbox was so far out of spec the factory just replaced it. I have said this before, but it is worth repeating: QC, these days, is about the percentage of product that gets returned, rather than what might happen in the factory.

I feel that the AF system is out of whack; a +20 AF fine tune gets it *close*, but no banana. More testing today.

And while it is over in your part of the world, I will ask Jim to fit a Proscreen and to calibrate MF, once the AF is up to scratch.

There is a lot to like about the D300: the extra stop in low light (but honestly, the results here really are a reflection of Nikon's new NR algorithms; the camera is not much better than the D200 if the NR is turned off—and I believe that some NR happens even if NR is set to "OFF", above 800 ISO), the new Info button that puts all major shooting parameters on the LCD (at last!), and the AF fine tuning—if the body is in spec.

The LCD is incredible, and shows you the closest thing to an on-screen view. Definitely good enough to check focus (although remarks above re. focus were made after seeing images on screen).

The control surfaces are better laid out (especially Playback), the finder is cleaner, and you get the option of 14 bit NEFs. I will leave it to others to test whether there is any visual value in prints via this option.

That's all for now; possibly more later. I should have the D3 by midday tomorrow, my time. The D3 is the camera I have been waiting for since the "digital revolution" hit us. 12Mp is enough for everything I do, whether for print or web, and many here will recognise this reworking of an old adage: "it's not the number of pixels that counts, it's the quality of the pixels. Let's see.

I forgot to mention: if the AF system is out of spec, you can't rely on the focus confirmation light....

Guy, does this take you back to the R9/DMR?

:)
Kit
Sorry to hear about your focus issues. I suspect the AF and the FC light issues are related.

My copy of the D300 has as close to perfert autofocus as I could ask for and likewise a colleague of mine who just got his. Thus I suspect you have a faulty camera and this is not a design issue but the sample size here is too small to draw conclusions.
Woody
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Ray, thanks for that, and I definitely will do more and practise more with the ZFs on this body before sending it back. Nice shot of the M8!

Hello Woody,

Yes, FC light and AF use the same light path and focussing system. More on the 80–200/2.8 situation.

I shot an interclub club gymnastic comp last night, informally, as another test of the AF capabilities and their interaction with the D300, and tried out two more lenses, too. The images from the 80–200 are usable, but none is really sharp. I did not take the D200 body with me (silly in retrospect) but I may have another opportunity to shoot that same lens/body combination (80–200/2.8 on D300, as well as D200) and (if Fortune smiles) the 80–200/2.8 on the D3, as well.

The 80–200/2.8 may be misleading me as to focus accuracy and sharpness because it just may be that the test setup is too close to its minimum focussing distance—and I may be misinterpreting what I see in the images. I think back-to-back with the same lens on the different body will show what's really going on once and for all.

I shot a cat with the D300/ZF 100/2 and although the hit rate is higher than day 1, still low. I think that for my eyes (well, right eye!), an MF focussing aid will be necessary. If I do return the camera to Brightscreen, I will ask Jim to install (and calibrate) the MF system to the new screen.

I also shot with an older lens, the AF 60/2.8 micro Nikkor D—and the AF system on the D300 with that lens is very sharp, even wide open (and these lenses are not really sharp until ƒ5.6–8).

So the upshot of all this is that I am unsure of what's really going on. Once I have the D3 and D200 back on that location and shoot them alongside each other, I will have more to post. cheers to all, KL
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Further to the D300 AF focussing problems I reported:

I spent all morning testing all my AF primes and zooms. All focus perfectly on the D300 today—including the 80–200/2.8. I really don't understand my initial experiences; I used the same setup re. tripod, refocussing, and re-testing after running though the AF Fine Tuning control from full (+20 to -20) though intermediate settings. Today, all lenses performed just fine, and the fine tuning move the zone of critical focus as expected.

A number of possibilities suggest themselves: that I may have been too close to the minimum focussing distance of this zoom, and that confounded the adjustments; that the target (red metre markings on a steel rule) were insufficiently contrasty, even though I was using the centre AF point, and focus hunted between subsequent exposures; or that the contacts were not perfectly clean.

Today, I used a different target at a slightly greater distance, and it seems to work just fine. All the other lenses were considerably sharper, though, so there may be an underlying problem with that lens are near focussing distances. On a John Deere job recently (shooting harvesting machinery in the forests, working), some of the images they liked the best were shot on that lens, but at 50–75 yards away, and wide open.

When the D3 arrives, I will try that lens on all three bodies on the same location, and perhaps I will know more then. Cheers, kl
 

harmsr

Workshop Member
Kit,

Glad to hear that the AF is working fine now. How is the MF confirmation light working with the Zeiss lenses? Mine works great at 50 and wider, but I never could nail focus on the 85 1.4 at 1.4 or 2.0 consistently enough to keep it.

Best,

Ray
 
Top