mike j
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Yes, they will get better and better but I think the direction is wrong, in my own opinion only. The attention seems to be more on creating smaller pixels but then they turn around and cram the sensor with as many as possible. I think that the consumer has become obsessed with the marketing campaign of pixel count and dismissed the fact that this also has a direct effect on heat in the sensor. Granted a Hasselblad H3D offers a total of 39 mp and that a newer model is due out with around 50mp, which is great for larger print campaigns but at least Hassleblad was more honest about the heat/noise limitations by only having a max of ISO400 on the body.
I know that you know this as well, 10 -12 mp works out great for ½ – ¼ page high fashion spreads but more mp works far better for full page and larger spreads, where crisp detail is far more apparent. I feel that the backs will start feeling more and more pressure with the DSLR body’s and the amount of mp that they are cramming into these new sensors but the present consumer market may slow the process down as the limitations on the ISO will also have a direct relationship. Even though I have grown sick and tired of the heavy light washed out look, if I have to shoot this way, I will rent the equipment before I drop the $40,000.00 for a more limited cookie look cutter assignment. Now, if they were to start working on sensor cooling elements, I might rethink this but in the mean time, I believe the near future holds a justifiable surrogate from digital backs to DSLR body’s with newer prime lenses.
amen and amen on the larger pixels!
I also have been using 2.0 on my pc digi-darkroom now for several weeks.. I really.. really like it..
Will probably go from 1.4.x to 2 on my mac when Upgrade to a mactouch pro this October…
Agree with Morsie here. 48MP is astronomical. My iMac is loaded with the full 3GB of RAM it can take; it’s a 2.1Ghz processor. It can barely run Lightroom with 10MP RAW images (of course, I have about 30,000 of them in the archive). You’d flat need a Mac Pro tower (minimum $4k with monitor, and that’s not much of an improvement over what I have – you’d need to spend $6k right now to get in the ballpark). Ouch.
Also, my interpretation is a little different. Nikon is due for a D3x. Most people expect it to have range in the 20-25MP area. That would meet the qualifications on that ad.
I certainly think Nikon needs to release its next high-res pro flagship before going to medium format, especially since they currently have four (4!) 12MP cameras on the market (D90, D300, D700, D3) with more out there (D2x) in the used arena. Canon has a flagship that can make a print big enough to fit the side of a bus.
Zach
PS If Nikon goes to a digital rangefinder, that would be great too, but I’d rather see it stay in the DX range and focus on being portable and quiet. All rumors of the old F3D prototype that supposedly was out there seem to have died, but how cool would it be to have access to all of Nikon’s manual lenses with a digital back? They could just sell the back door for the existing F3s.
I’ve got a quad core 3GHZ processor with 4GB of RAM and I keep an active library of about the same number of images…here’s the deal…
SATA 3GPS drives (raid on the workstation) and eSATA or FireWire800 connected SATA 3GPS RAID arrays for the external storage.. I store NOTHING on the local machine, all of the lightroom librarys all files..
I am currently running three companies.
A Third Party Administrator in Little Rock (I’m the COO)
An information technology company based in Hot Springs (AR) (CEO)
A Telecommunications (cellular hardware and routing) based in St Louis (co-founder)I am from Vermont and have lived in damn near every state, I now (obviously) live in Arkansas.
I originally went to school (after spearheading and running my high-school photography department) for Photography and Aviation (I planned to be a fly-in photog for National Geographic)..
There is only one SAFE way IMHO.. first.. you need something relatively inpenetrable for the climb, ride, whatever into the back country.. queue the pelican or pelican style case.. these are VERY rugged..
Its gear driven. The 400mm 4.5 G is about $2500 to $3500 used. That’s just way outa my price range right now. My thoughts are to get the fastest longest lens I can afford. 200mm lenses aren’t that bad but once you go over that you better have good credit or a trust fund.
You can pickup 400 5.6’s all day on ebay for under $300.00 probably under $200… with a 2x TC you are gonna be at 5.6 anyway… trust me a gear driven 400 5.6 is gonna focus with 90% more reliability than the TC on the 2.8 200… you can pickup the 400 5.6 for less then the price of a nikon 2x TC..
I used to let my BIL use my gear driven 2.8 with the 2xtc.. while I used a 400 prime… I’d be rattling of shots while you would hear him cussing while his lens was still hunting…
Both Tokina and Sigma make decent (non-pro)400 5.6’s…
I have had this exact setup… first… is the 2.8 afs or gear driven?
My 2.8 gear driven 2.8 with the 2x TC would hunt like crazy… and remember that you add the extension of that tube which makes the lens longer and more prone to wiggle and makes the whole setup longer… (about as long as the nikon 2.8 80-200 AFS VR)…
The AFS type extenders work a little better.. but… nothing (IMHO) beats a prime…
BTW.. I hated the 2x TC so bad I gave it away… if you are going to use a tripod on that lens it will probably work fine.. but handheld just gave me fits…
Doc Trout:
I am somewhat of a husky angler, and generally haven’t met many meals I didn’t like. Sure spaghetti and meatballs are a staple around our house, but I got to be honest with you if someone were going to drop down a plate of neon orange and chartreuse spaghetti and meatballs I might throw-up a little in my mouth. So tell me, just what the hell are fish thinking when they are munching down on a neon orange san juan worm with a chartreuse “egg” dropper.
Seeking The Truth,
Matt TuckerI think you mean right before they munch down… when they are munching I think it would be something like…
“swim away, swim away, oh crap!, swim away”…
Guys, the D90’s video feature is truly big. This is the biggest thing to happen in the camera world since the shift to digital, I promise you. I expect interchangeable-lens video camcorders to be the next step.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/technology/personaltech/28pogue.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em
Incidentally, I wrote my NPS representative yesterday and proposed the obvious: why doesn’t Nikon adapt the D90’s technology into an actual camcorder which could accept the F-mount? This is a no-brainer, and it’s amazing no one has thought to do it so far.
Among other things I learned in this article – the D90 can take 5 minutes of video in HD, but 20 minutes in standard definition, which would still be way overkill for the internet. There are some drawbacks – autofocus is pretty slow because it isn’t linked to focusing the motor of the lens yet (though that is surely coming). Sound is mono-only.
Also, the D90 has a GPS-in port, but I am not sure if it could take a feed from, say, my standard Garmin GPS (which I love). Nikon supposedly has a GPS dongle of its own coming, which may mount to the flash hotsync (not a good solution in my mind, since you need flash, too, often-times). This GPS-in port is obviously for Geo-tagging images, something I do a bit of myself for my private fishing log using Google Earth. For me, it’s a pain to do that, because I have to find the exact timestamp of my image and match it to the timestamp of my GPS track. However, it has proved very useful in locating certain features (like Neal’s waterfall from my Georgia Brook Trout post) from the air, when tree canopies obscure the visual. Geotagging just makes it that much easier, though you’re then left with the need to strip that EXIF data out before posting an image on the net if you don’t want to be crowded on your water.
Personally, I am getting excited about the D400, which will probably be our next body (we currently have the D70 and D200). I am hoping against hope that D400 represents Nikon’s push to move the FX chip into the pro-sumer market, hopefully at 12 megapixels and $1500. Alternatively, they may stick with the DX chip and move up to 16MP or so, and add the GPS-in port, the dust shaker, wireless transmission to computers (already possible with Eye-Fi SD chips, which are also supported in the D90), and probably some other stuff I haven’t thought of like voice notes.
Zach
Lets add 12-20FPS in crop mode at like 4mp-6mp… that would rock… on a DX sensor in a brightly lit situation 4mp is fine res..
Boy are we getting pickey, want camera under $500, must use CF cards, only 24FPS. This is the first DSLR with a built in movie mode, and 720P at that!
First off, you can’t compare this with a video camera. That it’s not. But as a still camera, with the capability of shooting short HD video, that’s outstanding.
Second, you guys are missing the point with the video and lens issue. Shooting video with the DSLR allows you to control your depth of field unlike no video cam under $3000. The camera also doesn’t auto focus while in video mode, but unlike some of you new guys who never shot film, let alone had a manual focus camera, You can do it yourself!
The SD card thing is a bit of an annoyance, especially when you own tones of CF cards. But SD isn’t all that bad and on the bright side, you can’t screw up the camera by inserting the card backwards and bending the pins.
Overall, for the $1000 for the body, I think the D90 is going to end up being used a lot more by pros then what Nikon expects. I really hope Canon comes out with something similar, I’d hate to have to start switching back.
By the way, here is a great video on the D90 shot totally with the D90 by professional photographer Chase Jarvis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQX1rC-fRADang… who here didn’t start out with a manual 35 or super 8?
D90 is a consumer camera, don’t doubt it. Nikon has got its customer well trained. At $1k for the body, they are going to sell a bunch of them.
To me, the movie mode is absolutely a killer app. I think this thing will sell like hotcakes. If and when Nikon ever gets the movie mode down into the D40 class, I would consider buying just for that feature. However, I had a more radical idea this morning talking to Carter. I think Nikon should debut an F-mount video camera for under $500. They wouldn’t need a lot of the shutter hardware the D90 requires, or the software, prisms, mirrors, etc. They would only really need the Live View components with the front-of-shutter chip (I assume that’s how live view must work).
I think they could make it slick, make it cheap, give it more than 5 minutes of recording time, and open up the world of F-mount lenses to the video landscape. That would be so sweet.
Zach
I don’t know… aren’t cinema camera lenses like really dang fast (like f2 or better)… I don’t know how that thing is going to function with slow f4’s and f5.6’s… jeeze.. did I just call and f4 slow?
I didn’t notice it took SD cards- well, that’s no good.
no kidding.. to me.. SD even SDHC sort of puts a camera into “consumer” territory, or P & S or something… CF rocks.. they are super tough and reliable… SD’s scare me… I guess it shouldn’t matter that much.. but I typically have fresh CF’s in my right vest or cargo pocket and move them to the left once they are full or too close to full to risk not having enough space… I wouldn’t want to lay prone in wet grass, mud or on rocks with SD cards in my pocket.. I think I’d snap em like tooth picks..
24FPS D movie mode.. sort of weak… I sure would like to see 30fps or better…
I looked at specs this AM.. pretty sweet… and $1299 kit price is right…
http://www.itinerantangler.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?num=1218818903
and whats up with using SD cards.. jeesh!
My vote is for the Olympus – Stylus 8.0MP. Shock proof, water proof, and under $300. If you buy it at Bestbuy you can get the 4 year no questions asked warranty for about $50.
These cameras work great for a lot of folks.. however I’ve had two of the SW’s fail on me.. one flooded in a couple of feet of water.. and the other had so many bad pixels out of the box it was just unbeliveable…
