Nikon D3 Pro Shooter's Guide

It reviews autofocus tracking, active D-lighting, auto-iso, etc, and tells you which it recommends in most cases.

If you’ve been using your D3 for a year now, it’s probably nothing new. If you just got it and want to shoot football tomorrow, it’ll definitely help.

The Nikon Asia links requires a registration, I couldn’t even find it on the Nikon global site, so here’s the link directly to the PDF.

Nikon SDK

[Update: The D3x is NOT included, yet one presumes.]

Some time ago, I read that there actually was a public SDK for Nikon’s newer cameras. When I tried to find it, I got about as far as Leonard Nimoy did during that episode of In Search Of… Big Foot.

Well today I found an article by someone claiming to have taken movies with his D700. I presumed it was a joke and almost skipped it but it’s real.

He claimed to use the SDK and said that it was easy to get a copy. “Yeah, right,” I said and fondly remembered the intervalometer I coded up for my Canon G3 with the very easy to obtain Canon SDK.

But he was right, some time between a couple of years ago when I got my D2x and today, Nikon put up SDK.Nikon.com. All you have to do is fill out the form and you’ll get an emailed link to download SDK libraries for the D40, D60, D90, D200, D300, D3, and D80, for Win2k – Vista, Mac OSX 10.3-4.

You can also get a NEF decoding library for the D1, D1X, D1H, D2X, D2Hs, D2H, D100, D70, D70s, D50, D200, D2Xs, D80, D40, D40X, D3, D300, D60, D700, D90.

This is the LONG WAY from Nikon deciding to encrypt the white balance info on your nef’s and then not playing nice with Adobe and other companies.

As a coder, I’m really glad to hear all of this, I’ve downloaded it but haven’t cracked it open yet.

Keep in mind, if you don’t know what a compiler is, this is all basically useless to you until other people come out with software that uses the libraries.

License: It looks pretty permissive- you CAN make products that compete with Nikon and Nik, etc, which is normally the problem with this sort of thing.

Btw- when you get your link to the DL site, DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING before the session times out, otherwise, the link expires, you have to apply and get an email again!

Nikon D3/D700 Firmware Updates

Sorry I’m late to this one. No reports on issues with the update that I’ve seen:

D3 for Windows here

The following improvements have been made in version 2.01

- Geodetic information is now displayed in ViewNX Ver. 1.2.0 or later and Capture NX 2 Ver. 2.1.0 or later for images captured with the GPS Unit GP-1 mounted on the camera.
- Autofocus-response performance in focus mode C (Continuous-servo AF mode) with relatively dark subjects has been increased.
- When the AF-ON button is pressed, the monitor turns off and a focus point can now be selected using the multiselector.

- Photo information displayed in full-frame playback has been modified as follows:
HI-, LO- has been changed to Hi, Lo
WARM TONE has been changed to WARM FILTER
COLOR CUSTOM has been changed to COLOR BALANCE

- Manamah, displayed in the Time zone options for the World time item in the setup menu, has been changed to Manama.
- An issue that, in extremely rare cases, resulted in noticeable black dots in images captured with Long exp. NR in the shooting menu set to On has been resolved.
- When the Speedlight SB-800 was mounted on the camera with flash mode set to Distance-priority manual (GN) mode, and then the exposure meters were reactivated or the camera was turned on, the distance information displayed on the SB-800 changed.  This issue has been resolved.
- An issue that, in some rare cases, caused images captured with the following lenses to be under-exposed, has been resolved.
AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
AF VR Zoom-Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED (5.0x)

I’m interested to see how the black dots issue has been resolved- I’ve seen this on every exposure >8 seconds or so that I’ve taken at night. I figured it was due to the dark-frame subtraction of HOT pixels, maybe they’re detecting the hot pixels and not quite doing an exact subtraction. The effect was noticeable enough that for any shot that I cared about, I had to do PP to fix it.

D700 for Windows here

The following improvements have been made in version 1.01

- When Custom Setting a4 Focus tracking with lock-on was set to Off in Continuous-servo AF, the lens drive moved gradually without achieving focus.  This issue has been resolved.
- When the Speedlight SB-800 was mounted on the camera with flash mode set to Distance-priority manual (GN) mode, and then the exposure meters were reactivated or the camera was turned on, the distance information displayed on the SB-800 changed.  This issue has been resolved.
- When the Multi-Power Battery Pack MB-D10 was mounted on the camera and an EN-EL3e battery inserted in the camera but no batteries inserted in the MB-D10, and SB-900 flash mode set to TTL auto flash mode, the flash mode changed to A mode when the exposure meters turned off or were reactivated, or the camera was turned off or on.  This issue has been resolved.  (This issue has also been resolved with SB-900 firmware Ver. 5.02.)
- An issue that, in extremely rare cases, resulted in noticeable black dots in images captured with Long exp. NR in the shooting menu set to On has been resolved.
- Manamah, displayed in the Time zone options for the World time item in the setup menu, has been changed to Manama.

Basically the same as the D3 except with a battery pack issue.

Windows here. Mac here.

Changes? Some minor crash fixes, some minor bug fixes, D3x support added.

Full list:

Modifications enabled with 2.1.1:

• Support for RAW images captured with the D3X has been added.
• When images containing GPS information captured with another manufacturer’s digital camera were opened, GPS information was not displayed. This issue has been resolved.
• When RAW images captured with another manufacturer’s lens and the camera’s Vignette control item in the shooting menu set to any option other than Off were opened, Capture NX 2 sometimes froze. This issue has been resolved.
• When attempting to open 1-bit monochrome TIFF (LZW) images, Capture NX 2 quit unexpectedly. This issue has been resolved.
• When attempting to open some images saved in NEF format using Nikon Capture or Capture NX v1.x, Capture NX 2 quit unexpectedly. This issue has been resolved.
• When images were opened in Capture NX 2 v2.0.0 or v2.0.1 with which optional Picture Controls were not installed, and an image Picture Control setting was modified and then a settings file saved, Picture Control settings were not accurately reflected when the settings file was applied to images later opened in Capture NX 2 v2.1.0 with which optional Picture Controls were installed. This issue has been resolved.
• When attempting to save enhancements applied to images in some system environments, the enhancements were not saved. This issue has been resolved.
• When multiple images were opened and white balance adjusted for each image using the Set Gray Point option under White Balance in the Camera Settings palette, an error message was displayed when clicking on the image after clicking the Start button. This issue has been resolved.
• When Color Noise Reduction under Noise Reduction was adjusted and the image saved in NEF format, Color Noise Reduction effects were removed when the image was again opened and the Noise Reduction check box unchecked and then checked again when logged in to a Windows user account with a user name containing 2-byte characters. This issue has been resolved.

[Updated: Added release date]

Nikon D3x Officially Announced - Product shot

She’s here! There’s an official shot from the product images site in the US.

From the press release:

• 24.5MP
• 6048 x 4032 native
• 5:4 crop mode with 20.4-megapixel resolution
• 5.49 micron pixel size
• 14-bit files (NOT 16 bit as was rumored)
• Processed files are approximately 138 MB (? In what format- uncompressed TIFF?)
• 5 FPS native
• ISO range of 100 to 1600, expandable to 50 (Lo-1) and 6400 (Hi-2)
• NO sensor-cleaner

Release Date /  In Stores:

December 19th

Supposedly. Don’t hold your breath, but get your name on the list.

Prototype Bodies

I don’t like surprises, never have– you can’t plan for them, so I’m happy to report no surprises here.

Nikon does however throw us a bone- check out this shot of the prototype bodies for the D3x, cleverly masked with “D2H” logos:

Nikon D3x Prototype Bodies

Sample Images:

Nikon D3x Sample Images

Wow, notice the small black makeup spot above the model’s eyebrow on the RHS of the image, and we need a little more tweezering… boy.

Price

$7,999.00. What was my guessed price range? $7K – $7,500- So I’m not too far off. Certainly not the $9,500 equivalent that the Japanese home market will be paying!

Lenses

No lenses? No lenses.

The Bangkok Post (”All the news that’s fit to print”) reports that Nikon has laid off 1,500 contractors due to reduced demand:

Nikon Lays off 1,500 in Thailand

Japanese camera-manufacturing giant Nikon yesterday laid off 1,500 of its subcontracting staff in Ayutthaya province after a slump in orders due to the global financial crisis.

…

All the dismissed workers are under subcontracts and have worked with the company for less than a year, said Pongthai Musikapong, of the Labour Protection and Welfare Office in Ayutthaya.

…

Nikon (Thailand) set up it first factory in Thailand in 1990. There are 8,000 permanent staff and 4,000 subcontracting staff at its four factories.

Well that stinks for everyone involved. Nikon mainly makes the lesser products in Thailand- we I believe that means they expect to see fewer of the low-end cameras and lenses being sold. This makes sense since the Pro’s will largely continue buying what they have to have in order to work, and the amateurs spend for completely different reasons.

Presumably, the USA versions will follow. What’s the difference between the Euro versions and the USA, etc, versions? I’m guessing that the only actual difference is in the text translations (”localization”).

So if you learned French (or if you’re a native speaker) or you prefer “whilst” to “while”, then here’s your Windows and here’s your Mac link.

What’s changed? Highlights include:

• The range of settings available for ISO sensitivity settings > ISO sensitivity auto control > Minimum shutter speed in the shooting menu has been increased from 1/250 – 1 s to 1/4000 – 1 s.
• A Copyright information item has been added to the setup menu.  When Copyright information is enabled, the copyright symbol (©) is shown in the shooting info display.
• Focus acquisition performance in dynamic-area AF mode has been improved.
• Focus acquisition performance with contrast-detect AF has been improved.
• Auto white balance performance has been improved.
• An issue that caused an increase in noise with shooting in [M] exposure mode at a shutter speed setting of bulb with the shutter held open for less than 8 seconds and Long exp. NR enabled has been resolved.
  
• An issue that prevented shutter release at the specified shutter speed when no operations were performed for 30 seconds in mirror up mode has been resolved.
  
• An issue that caused abnormal image display when  Image review was set to On and the playback zoom in button was pressed immediately after shooting at the following settings has been resolved.
• Image quality:  NEF (RAW ) + JPEG
  
• NEF (RAW) recording:  Lossless compressed or Compressed
• Image size: S or M

Reports are that Nikon is moving their mysterious BIG! announcement from October 22nd to November 20th:

Nikon’s expected MX press event delayed until November Just one day after an announcement of a planned press launch of what many expected to be Nikon’s new MX format comes news that the event has been postponed…. the event is now on for November 20th, though no location has been announced and may point to a location change.

The rumored MX format from Nikon that is likely to be unveiled at the event is believed to either be larger than the company’s existing full-frame FX format or simply upgrade the existing D3 and D3x DSLRs to a sensor with 25 megapixels. Nikon has not informed the press about the reason for the delay.

There’s also been some speculation that Nikon may simply be announcing a printer… also a rumor that it’ll simply be some amateurs.

Upgrade and save some cash (link takes you to the Nikon Mall):

Nikon up300x - Private Pr0n Viewer

This one is really unexpected- the UP300x and UP300. They’re personal media players (PMP) with 4 gigs of memory and motion tracking. This is a very un-Nikon product and it’s hard to see how it fits into their product offerings. The fact that it’ll only be available in Japan (so they’re saying) normally indicates that the company realizes that it’s whacky and isn’t likely to sell in high numbers.

There’s been some conjecture that it could be used as an electronic viewfinder for various future cameras, but that doesn’t explain the motion-sensing (presumably like a Wiimote).

What might be kind of cool is to hook this in Camera Control Pro and put your camera onto a motion-controlled mount on the tripod (does anything like this exist?) then you could wirelessly control your camera from a fair distance. But that’s a bit silly, isn’t it?

I’m thinking the only swell use for this, at the moment, is to allow you to watch pr0n anywhere and everywhere without anyone knowing– but I could be wrong.

No word on how good that display is though- I’ve seen similar devices- the image is universally crap.

New Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-S G

The Good:

• It’s finally here!
• It’s AF-S – silent wave motor for focusing
• It’s a G-style lens (actually, this could be good or bad depending) so it works on the lesser bodies that don’t support screw-drive focusing
• Available in December

The Unknown:

• Anything about how well it actually performs
• How well it’s new optical system that “corrects sagittal coma flare and chromatic aberration” actually works
• When’s the 85mm and the 35mm or 28mm coming? (Where’s my Noct?)
• Does the regular AF version go away now?

The Bad:

• This isn’t designed to be a high-end lens
• No aspherics
• No ED
• No Nano

Price is $439, which is fine.

Here’s a DPReview look at it- no test shots, etc.

Friggo points me to this announcement by the Eye-Fi guys:

EYE-FI COLLABORATES WITH NIKON TO INTRODUCE THE ‘EYE-FI CONNECTED’ NIKON D90 DIGITAL SLR CAMERA

Mountain View, Calif., August 27, 2008 — Eye-Fi, Inc.(www.eye.fi)…today announced that it collaborated with Nikon Corporation, a world leader in digital imaging and precision optics, to deliver enhanced integration of its Eye-Fi cards with Nikon’s newly announced digital SLR camera, Nikon D90. …

While Eye-Fi cards work seamlessly with conventional SD-compatible digital cameras, the Eye-Fi Connected Nikon D90 gives users an improved out-of- box experience and more control of wireless capabilities. The camera will detect when an Eye-Fi card is inserted and manage its power settings to ensure that photos upload effortlessly for sharing and storing. In addition, the Nikon D90 will include an Eye-Fi menu that allows users to turn the wireless function on or off, giving the user more freedom to customize how and when they want to use the Eye-Fi card. …

Basically, they were able to squeeze a WiFi trasmitter into the size of an SD card and have worked with Nikon to make the D90 more aware of it.

Now if they’d only make this possible on the pro bodies, we could all ditch our WT-$4’s and not look like such big dorks. In reality, the WT-4 is much more capable, but I just want an occasional replacement for that USB tether.

I love to see companies I work with on a daily basis agreeing to cooperate and be nice to each other:

 Microsoft and Nikon Enter Into Patent Cross-Licensing Agreement
Agreement furthers Microsoft and Nikon collaboration on new products and features in digital imaging.

REDMOND, Wash., and TOKYO — Aug. 27, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. and Nikon Corp. have signed a patent cross-licensing agreement to further the development of each company’s current and future product lines.

The agreement covers digital cameras made by Nikon as well as a broad range of other consumer products each company manufactures and sells. The agreement was signed by representatives from both companies at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Although the contents of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by Nikon.

Microsoft and Nikon have a long history of collaborating to bring high-quality, cutting-edge consumer products to the market, including wireless cameras and RAW processing technologies. The companies believe that this patent cross-licensing agreement will substantially benefit customers of consumer products including digital cameras. Both parties will be able to innovate openly with each other’s technologies, enabling new features and products to come to market. …

The most interesting bit has to be that Nikon is paying MS (how much?)! Hopefully we’ll get much better RAW codec integration with Windows (Vista64 bit does NOT work with the codec- inexcusable.)

MS has also been doing some really interesting things with their Labs department like PhotoSynth.

Just the Nikon D90, new consumer-grade Nikon 18-105MM F/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens, and the GP-1 GPS unit (with no details on it DETAILS here).

Let’s hope we see new primes at Photokina… I would LOVE a delicious Nokt…

I can’t find any details on the GP-1 and or that says that the GP-1 can be used on anything but the D90. If anyone sees any material like that, please let me know.

I’m sure there’re plenty of people who’d like to use it on their D3 and D700, etc.

[Update]

I was able to find some official info here.

From the product website:

It’s compatible with: D3, D300, D700, D2X, D2Hs, D2Xs and D200 (via 10-pin remote terminal cable GP1-CA10)

Features

• Geotag (image positioning information of pictures such as latitude, longitude [Geodetic System WGS84]) can be added to the image.

• Correlation between pictures and maps is supported by GPS function in conjunction with ViewNX version 1.2 software (no-charge download available Autumn 2008) and my Picturetown.

Power source: Supplied from camera body

Acquired data: Latitude, longitude, altitude, time information

Time required for satellite acquisition: Approx. 45 sec. (cold start), approx. 5 sec. (hot start)

[Update: Movie Mode examples can be found here thanks to Frigggo.]

Nikon has announced the D90 @ $1299.95 for body and lens kit that includes the new AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens. Nikon expects the D90 kit to be available in September.

Also- there’s a GPS add-in GP-1 unit available in November with no price yet.

Here’s the entire photo gallery and here’s a shot of it with the GPS unit.

Specs (from Engadget)

• New 12.3 megapixel Nikon DX-format CMOS image sensor with Integrated Dust Reduction System.
• Low-noise from ISO 200 to 3200, ISO 6400 available.
• D-Movie mode records in 320 x 216, 640 x 424 or 1,280 x 720 in AVI format.
• Scene Recognition System based on 420 pixel RGB sensor for improved autofocus, autofocus and auto white balance, in addition to Face Detection.
• Multi-CAM 1000 autofocus with 11 AF points.
• 3-inch, VGA Live View LCD.
• 4.5 fps continuous shooting, 0.15 second startup, 65ms shutter release lag.
• SD / SDHC storage.
• HDMI output
• 5.2 x 4.1 x 3.0-inches.
• 1 pound 6 ounces without battery.
• $1,299 kit price.

Interestingly, the leaked shots were no faked this time! Maybe we only see fakes with the higher-end bodies.

Movie mode is a first in Nikon’s SLR bodies, I’d -LOVE- to see some samples if anyone has any, please send them along. Interesting how it doesn’t use the full resolution of the sensor, I wonder if that’s due to processing speed or possibly flash write speeds. If it was simply processing speeds, then we should expect to see this integrated into the pro bodies if the sensors could be made to work this way. It’d be pretty impressing to get high-res movies at 24 fps or better (some might even pay $17,000 for such a camera).

CaptureNX has been updated to version 2.0.1 (Windows only, apparently). Per Nikon:

Capture NX version 2.0.1 resolves printing issues that occurred with Capture NX version 2.0.0. To upgrade Capture NX 2, click the Install button in the Nikon Message Center available Messages display.

Modifications enabled with Ver. 2.0.1
* An issue that caused images to be printed smaller than the paper, or only a portion of images to be printed, when paper orientation in the Page Setup dialog was set to Landscape with the following operations has been resolved.-Page Setup… selected from the File menu-Print… selected from the File menu and the Page Setup… button in the Print layout dialog clicked

-The print button in the activity toolbar clicked and the Page Setup… button in the Print layout dialog clicked
* An issue that prevented display of the Print layout dialog with some systems when Print… was selected from the File menu has been resolved.
* An issue that caused an error message to be displayed when the print button in the activity toolbar was clicked with some systems has been resolved.

I’ve got 2 printers on my system and the way I’ve got it set up in order to bridge 2 networks is a little funky. I’m not predicting good things but I’ll be printing a bunch today, let’s see if I run into anything.

Software is HARD!

[Note: zoetmb  rightly points out in  the comments that these are overall Nikon Corp numbers, not specifically related to camera revenue. I hope to get the chance to review the entire filing over the next few days to attempt to glean some more information from our hermit company.]

Nikon Corp’s 1st quarter results are in and no one’s going to get a bonus.

Net income dropped to 18 billion yen ($166 million) in the three months ended June 30, from 23.4 billion yen a year earlier, Tokyo-based Nikon said in a statement today. Sales climbed 6.4 percent to 237.9 billion yen. …

Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, declined 21 percent to 28.7 billion yen.

The yen appreciated 17 percent against the dollar in the year ended June 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

They’re projecting that sales will go up a bit, but overall profits will go down. Maybe if they put out 10 more Coolpix’s…

[Update: I CANNOT find a picture of the ethernet port- has anyone seen one?]

Whee! New point and shoots and Coolpix’s- we apparently didn’t have enough.

But I’m actually happy to know the P6000 is real- on occasion, I have a pang of guilt when using a Canon- but you can’t argue with results and I love my G3 and would be happy to get a G9.

Here’s the rundown in order of the press-release, meaning that this is the order of items that the Marketing-droids think will most make you want to buy it:

• 13.5 mp
• Built-in GPS for geo-tagging
• added wired LAN support via a dedicated Ethernet port built into the camera. Users can upload their images and data directly from the P6000 with an Ethernet cable to the secure Picture Bank service on my Picturetown
• MyPictureTown easy uploading
• PSAM shooting modes for creative control
• Raw mode via “all-new” NRW format (wtf?), ViewNX updates due in October to handle it
• Some custom button functionality
• Adding even more synergy between D-SLR cameras and compact COOLPIX cameras, the P6000 incorporates a pop-up flash, optical viewfinder for easy composition and the added bonus of system expansion with an optional convertor…
• Plays nice with iTTL and the CLS
• features a quality finish and a front panel constructed of solid Magnesium alloy

P6000 will be available nationwide beginning September 2008 at a MSRP of $499.95.

So what’s notable: GPS included, new NRW raw format, contains the most synergy of any Coolpix.

First: SYNGERY?! Did Nikon invent a time machine capable of taking us back to 1993 to mine corporate-speak?

But even more- OM.F.G- another proprietary raw format. Maybe we’ll be lucky this time- the whole damned file will be encrypted instead of just the white balance.

An ethernet port! My heart flutters- can anyone tell me if I can ONLY upload to MyPictureTown (does anyone use that?) via Nikon software are does the camera show up as an FTP/HTTP server or something? Any clue which speed? (PLEASE 100mb…) 100mb would be on par with fast USB, 10mb would not be a good replacement for a USB card reader.

Nikon’s announced the new Coolpix S710- a 14.5 megapixel noise machine targeted at people who have $350 to buy a camera with.

The only standout feature is the incredibly high ISO settings for a point and shoot which uses pixel-binning to get to 6400-12800 iso’s.

I’d really love to see some low-light images with this thing, but can’t seem to find any and I really don’t expect to be wowed when I put its output next to my D3… or D2x… or, say, my Holga with 400iso Tri-x.

Nikon has also announced the Coolpix S560, for people who have $250usd and need an adequate but largely undistinguished point and soon.