Nikon Watch

Red finally came out with details on their Digital Stills and Motion Camera (DSMC, as opposed to DSLR) cameras. How long has the “modular” Nikon body rumor been around? I’ve even seen reports from pro’s saying that the thing actually exists, but Nikon keeps it under wraps. What a shame we don’t see things like this coming out of the Nikon labs! Hopefully this will kick Nikon in the butt and we’ll get something like it- I would love to see a replaceable sensor instead of having to buy a new body every 2 years to get the best image quality.

Red Scarlet Modular Body- 1 possible configuration

This shot simply shows a possible configuration- 7 different sensor backs you can choose from depending on the mount, sensor size, FPS! There’ll even be (presumably, this won’t be vaporware) a 28kMP back that does 25fps in 2010.

Oh hey! Notice something else we don’t see in the camera companies- a F’ING CLUE about what they’re likely to bring out in the future- Red’s actually establishing a baseline roadmap for what they expect to achieve in 2 years!

Want to see the rest of the images that you can attach to this camera?

So- to get a minimal Nikon F-mount-based system, you’re looking at:

Scarlet 5k/39fps @ $7,000

Red Handle @ ?

Lens Mount @ ?

Battery @ ?

Electronic Viewfinder @ ?

Recording Module @ ?

Then what you still don’t have is autofocus, so I hope you’re good at that!

If you want a FF 35mm sensor, you’re going to shell out $12k.

Then because all of this dreamy tech wasn’t enough, they decided to cobble together a 3d setup:

3d Scarlet Setup

If I didn’t already have a ton of cash invested in Nikon- this would leave my wondering if investing in Red gear wasn’t the way to go- the fact that they’re able to come out of virtually nowhere a couple of years ago and even have the audacity products like this tells me they’re not going to sit on their asses while people keep begging to buy things like new AF-S primes, updated 70-200mm, Apheric 28 f/1.4, another Noct, etc.

If I was Nikon, I’d change my pants, then ask how much cash we had on hand and maybe make them an offer. Failing that, I’d be dusting off all those cool ideas we’ve been playing with but not actually seriously considering making into a product, and taking some risks!

After all of that was done, I’d have an extremely frank and open discussion with our customers explaining where we’re going over the next years, produce a truthful product roadmap, and set some audacious R&D goals.

If I was Red, I’d figure out how to get autofocus in there- but I’m not a motion guy, maybe it’s not as useful as I’d think. I’d also think about heavily targeting still photographers as soon as the motion guys are satiated.

Thom’s got a nice article about Nikon’s current instant rebate policy and how its complexity is making it harder to compare prices between retailers. Also interesting (to me anyway), that it appears that Nikon takes 60+ days to give the rebated money back to the retailer- thus effectively costing the retailer interest during that period. If you’ve checked the (US) interest rates lately, you’ll see how this is not a really good thing for our retailers.

Surprisingly, I’ve heard from a lot of dealers. I can tell you that they don’t like this new Nikon rebate program. They pay for stuff up front, sell it to you for a discount imposed by Nikon, apparently have to participate in an advertising program to get the rebates, then have to file absolutely pristine paperwork to get their share of the rebate back (they don’t get US$300) in 60 days or more. Essentially, NikonUSA is getting a loan from your dealer, and at good terms. Given the economy at the moment, putting monetary pressure on dealers is not a smart thing for a manufacturer to do. The manufacturer just might find they have fewer dealers and lower volume when all is said and done.

As a public service- there are absolutely no credible rumors of a new 70-200mm with or without Nano coating, with or without VR2.

Carry on.

Conclusion? Noisier than a Hoover, equally capable of driving my dog nuts– and:

GPS functionality is well-implemented, but only works sporadically in urban environments and not all all indoors, and it has a significant drain on battery life unless you keep turning it on and off. LAN connectivity is limited to merely uploading pictures to Nikon’s My PictureTown online gallery, and RAW support is plagued by slow processing times and no continuous shooting mode at all.

Well it’s a point and shoot, so suprise, and if it was much more expensive, you’d be into SLR territory.

Samples are here, and I have to say that this isn’t Nikon’s best work.

Nikon 50mm af-s f/1.4g sample

Vilhelm got to attend an NPS event and play with lenses that cost more than old Porsches and also the new (low-cost) Nikkor 50mm AF-S f/1.4g lens and managed to take a few shots.

Unfortunately, there’s just no way to get a sense of how good the lens is from these shots. Some are saying (from these shots alone!) that the bokeh isn’t too hot, that there’s some CA,etc. I suggest we tell them to take a chill pill until we get our hands on some real copies to play with.

Shots like these really make one wonder WTF Nikon is thinking. The lens has been announced, presumably, it’s released in its final form and being manufactured- WTF don’t we get a slew of samples from Nikon themselves so we can avoid the pointless speculation by idiots like me about how good the lenses perform?

Searching Flickr for 50mm af-s also gets us some other shots (of the lens itself, mostly).

However, this claims to be from the 50mm af-s on the D3, homemade shot of the lens itself,

Ok, she ain’t a dedicated HD video camera, but she actually does pretty well against real video-only cameras if you don’t wobble the camera too much while you’re shooting.

If you can get past the ads between every page, you’ll eventually come to the conclusion- and keep in mind, these are video dorks, not stills-dork (like me):

Comparing the Nikon D90 to HD camcorders may be unfair, but, being the first of its kind, its the only product we could put it up against. The Canon EOS 5D Mark II, the second SLR to record video, has impressive specs—a 1920 x 1080 video quality, stereo microphone input, and an H.264 video compression codec. The question will be, would you rather pay $999.95 ($1299.95 with the lens) to play around with video on the Nikon D90, or shell out $1700 more to get your hands on the Canon? Then, of course, you need to question whether a first generation product is ever a good investment. Stay skeptical.

dpReview posts a nice review of the Sony a900 and includes a wad of shots for comparison at the different ISO’s from 50-6400. But come on, it’s unfair to compare the D3/D700 sensor to anything else at high iso!

And while Sony’s clearly kicking ass and taking names in the megapixel race, it still isn’t up to the competition provided by the Dynamic Duo- Nikon and Canon.

Sony a900 @ 6400iso

Nikon d700 @ 6400iso

I’ve been looking at getting a PC-E lens recently and they’ve been a bitch to find in stock.

Nikon tends to make the more advanced lenses in small batches- so when you see them, you want to JUMP on them (or wait 3-6 months sometimes- good luck finding a 200mm f/2, for example).

But right now, BHPhotoVideo (one of the few very reputable, large resellers) has the 85mm in stock for $1,739.95.

If you like this site, and you’d like to buy one and throw me a couple of bucks, do me a favor and click on the this picture below, then buy it and I’ll get a tiny cut:

If you don’t want the 85mm (I’m looking at the 24mm), then Calumet Photo (also reputable, but I prefer B&H and their lower prices and better service) has the 24mm for $1,899.99  and the 85mm for $1,949.99. They’re both currently in stock (according to their system) but it’ll cost you more than you’d pay at B&H. The 45mm is marked as out of stock.

Apparently, Nikon has been sending out messages to various people asking them to take a survey:

It was a pretty nice survey.  It got a bit weird at the end with the Myers-briggs mini-test, and the “what does the D3 make you think?” Round and Playful definitely what come to mind when I think of the D3. (?)

Wonder what else is on there- it didn’t seem to have any interesting questions on it since there’s been only a tiny bit of chatter about it.

Just keep reading down the page if you don’t care about Capture NX.

Nikon Capture NX brings out the angry boy in me

Capture NX Gripes

Install Count Limits

I’m a software developer- I get machines and reinstall my OS on a rather regular basis. Each time I do this, I reinstall Capture NX - the last time, it told me that my key was invalid (it’s not). I presume that I’ve hit the install count maximum.

This pisses me off. Over the course of the 2 years (or so) that I’ve had it, it’s been on 2 different machine and about 4-5 different OS installs.

I’ve paid for it and I shouldn’t be treated like a pirate just because I reinstall my OS or upgrade my machines. I’m actually more of a Ninja anyway.

Version Checks During Install

I installed NX2 since I couldn’t get NX1 to activate. Then NX2 expires and I realized that I got a copy of V1 with my D3. So I try and install that only to get an error telling me that a newer version had already been installed on my system! Right- I had installed NX2 and I’d also run the UNINSTALL before trying V1.

Turns out that the only way to reinstall V1 was to nuke \program files\nikon\* and ALSO nuke \Program Files\Common Files\Nikon\* . Then I could finally install it.

Faster vs Better

I didn’t buy a fast machine and a D3 with nearly $2000 lenses because I wanted low-quality shots. For some reason- there are several areas where you can choose between Fast and Better quality. Why can’t I set it up for best quality all the time?

Capture NX Attaboys

Online Key Purchase

You can buy the activation keys online (despite what I’ve seen on some forums). I put in my credit card, bought the upgrade to V2 and the activation key worked.

Capture NX Misc

30″ Monitors Are Crucial!

This sounds stupid- and it is, but a 30″ monitor at 2560×1600 is finally just about big enough to have most of the tool windows (contrast, Camera corrections, etc) on my screen and see my shots big enough to edit them without having to move stuff around or reduce the size of the image.

How would you improve NX?

Nikon D90 Review

dpReview has checked out the D90 and gives you a 37 page review! They give a nice comparison to the d80, and overall appear to like it. Surprise.

Anyone not running Vista 64 bit can totally ignore this post.

Top .5% and developers still here? Ok- we all know Nikon’s using a 32bit shell extension in order to show the preview thumbnails in Explorer when you select View and the icon sizes (like “Large”).

Unfortunately, 64bit Explorer can’t use 32bit shell extensions (what happened to thunking?) so can’t show anything but the NEF-associated icon itself. But I came across a post that said that we can launch the 32bit explorer like this:

%windir%\SysWOW64\explorer /separate

and heck if I didn’t get my previews back!

[Edited for typos- MUST stop posting near midnight...]

Do you like really blurry shots of equipment taken by amateurs with point and shoots? Really?

Well tell me this- do you like close-up shots of the intimate of kit lenses? Really? Ok, well here you go (Engadget):

Nikon D90 unboxing and nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6g kit lens

Mark Cargill has thrown together a comparison of the Zeiss 25mm and the Nikon 24-70mm.

Despite my love for Zeiss lenses, I like the color on the Nikkor, however there’s less distortion on the Zeiss- as you’d expect with a prime, but the Nikon definitely looks sharper to my eyes at 100%.

[Update: due to popular demand, I've added the picture. If this gets me in trouble, for some reason, it your bastards' faults!]

D90 Jello-Shots!

Here’s a great article on why we’re seeing deliciously wobbly jello shots in movie mode on various SLR’s.

I was going to include this picture (mildy racy) to illustrate this story, but decided against it. Leave a comment if I didn’t make the right choice.

The old girl sure isn’t acting her age lately!

Let’s make it another 75!

Nikkor 50mm AF-S MTF Chart

Nikon has put out the MTF chart and the related technical data for the new 50mm AF-S f/1.4g here.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, we don’t have any test shots.

Hate to be ghetto twice in a row, but you have to admit it’s warranted:

Nikon D60 Gold (Grillz) Edition

Makes me think of:

Get more info and see more pictures here.

PCWorld (huh?) reports that Hasselblad CEO Christian Poulsen says they’ve got a 60 megapixel H3DII-60 that yields 94% fullframe coverage on their 645 format.

Hasselblad 500cm

“We feel that it’s important to emphasize the 94% coverage, because, although we hear the phrase ‘full-frame’ being used quite frequently, no manufacturer has yet achieved true medium format full-frame,” said Poulson at the huge German photokina show.

My 500cm, dejected, weeps on the corner. “Don’t worry little 500cm, you’re still the only Hasselblad I can afford I’ll ever love. We’ll be together as long as they’re making Provia 120, 100iso.” (I’m not very romantic…)

Nikon D90 movies are getting out and we’re starting to see how they handle real-world situations, and I don’t mean during earthquakes! But viewing the footage below, you’d think that house was made out of jello and St. Andreas was happy that day.

If you  have a D90, I’m guessing that you’re going to want to use a tripod and I’m also very curious as to how quickly moving subjects are going to show up.

If this “jello” effect is common, then movie mode isn’t going to be too useful.

I’ve read that Canon has similar problems, I’ll try and get some examples for you.