Nikon Stuff

Rumor: Sony to announce 4 new cameras with 14MP and 16MP APS-C sensors

dapp — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:14:07 +0000

Today Sonyalpharumors reported that Sony will release four new cameras with 14MP and 16MP APC-S sensors and guess what? One of the expected new feature is AF during video recording. Sounds familiar? The rumored Nikon D3100 DSLR is also expected to have continuous AF during video recording. My initial report about the D3100 having a 10MP sensor is probably wrong and Nikon may use this 14MP sensor from Sony.

The good news is that the Nikon D90 replacement was rumored to have a 16MP sensor and this could be the new 16MP sensor from Sony (tweaked by Nikon of course – this is the first 16MP sensor from Sony). Another description of the new Sony sensor is that it has a “very good high ISO” – the Nikon D90 replacement is also expected to have improved high ISO.

Here are the details:

Sony A55 16MP 10FPS EVF-1.44M 1.1X magnification 95% AVCHD full HD
Sony A33 14MP 7FPS EVF-1.44M 1.1X magnification 95% AVCHD full HD
SonyA560 14MP 7FPS MF recording AVCHD full HD
Sony A580 16MP 7FPS MF recording AVCHD full HD
Announcement is expected in August, in stock in September.
The A33 and A55 models are rumored to be Pellix cameras.
All new models are expected to have DOF preview, panorama/3D, ISO 100 (base), 15 AF focus points and AF during video recording.

The question is who will release the first DSLR with continuous AF during video recording. I bet it will be Nikon.

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mGallery – your portfolio in your pocket

dapp — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:30:38 +0000

The free Nikonians mGallery app for the iPhone is now available.

The app makes it easy to showcase your own photography portfolio on your Apple iPhone or iPad.

Understanding Optical Slaves, Pt. 2

dapp — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Editor’s note: There are enough questions coming in via the comments that I am prepping a slave-related Q&A for later this week. If you have a question that has not yet been asked, please get it into the comments ASAP. Thanks.
__________

In part one, we talked about the differences in optical slaves, and why internal slaves were usually better solutions.

In this post, we’ll look at the practical side — how do you get the best performance out of your slaves?
__________

#$!%! Thing Didn’t Fire!

Slaves are a little like radio remotes in that they are not 100% perfect and reliable. (But the good ones are damn close.)

And unless I am working in an environment alongside other photographers, I almost always use a hard cord or a PocketWizard on one flash (which becomes a “master” flash) and optically slave the others. It’s generally very reliable, and a fast way to work.

So, which flash to use as a master and which to slave? The answer might be different than you think.

Power vs. Angle of Coverage

Say you have a key light firing at 1/2 power, and three more accents set at 1/64th power. Try using your most powerful flash as a master and slaving the accent lights. If that main light is gonna be bouncing off of all sorts of things, so much the better.

But if you are running flashes at only modest power levels, you might try using the flash with the widest beam spread as the master flash. Often, beam spread trumps power level as the reason for a flash to be the master. The reason is simple — the other flashes have to be able to see the light from the master to fire.

For example:

In this instance I would use the umbrella fill flash as a master, even though it is gonna be at a lower power than the key light. Reason being, the umbrella light will go out in all directions and the other flashes will see it better than if I master sync’d the key light at bottom right.

On the other hand, if I used one of the other flashes as a master, the umbrella flash might not fire. This could happen either because of the limited beam spread of the other flashes, or because the umbrella itself was shading this flash and reducing the intensity of the light from the master flash before it reached the slave.

The More, The Merrier

Realistically, with as many flashes in a photo as in the above example, they will usually all fire no matter what.

As long as at least one slaved flash can see the master, it will likely set off at least one other slaved flash, and so on. This cascading effect means that it is actually easier to fire off of a room full of 50 slaved flashes than it is to fire, say, two.

In the Usual Suspects -style photo above (more here) there was a 2-stop down umbrella right at the camera, acting as an on-axis fill. Those slaved, low-powered accent lights were fired by the umbrella. And if they weren’t, one of the many other accent lights took care of the problem for us.

Be Like McNally

Knowing how to choose your master/slave flashes correctly is a good skill to have for those of you who use Nikon CLS or Canon eTTL syncing methods, too.

One trick Joe uses for complicated setups is to use an off-camera TTL cord and hang that master flash out somewhere where all of the remote/slave flashes can better see it. There is usually a spot that will get the job done — and often that spot is not right on top of your camera.

But you can think that way for manual-flash slave setups, too.

For instance, if you had one PW and several slaved flashes that were gonna be used as gridded key lights, you might remote-/hard-sync a background/scener/rim light (upper left) that all of the gridded flashes’ slaves could see. Problem solved.

And this is an instance where the slaved flashes’ rotating heads would come in handy, too. You can point the heads at your subjects and rotate the bodies of the flashes so the slaves can see the master flash. (That is why near-360-degree rotation on flash heads is so useful.)

Hiding the Sun

Sometimes the problem is that the ambient light level is very bright, causing difficulty for the slave. It has to see that pulse of light to fire your flash. And if the slave eye can actually see the sun, too, that’s a lot of competition.

Shading your flash eye with a little gaffer’s tape will make a big difference in the range of your slaves in daylight. Just make sure you shade the sun while leaving a clean line of sight to the master flash.

It’s Firing By Itself

If your slave is so sensitive it is getting false fires (assuming it is not a total piece of crap that would false fire inside of a dark closet) that is an easy problem to fix, too.

You can “dumb down” a slave by partially covering the eye with tape until the offending false positive trigger is canceled but your master will still fire the slave. With “super” and “ultra” slaves, you might have to do this more often than you would expect. No big mystery — they are just that good.

What’s Your Favorite Slave Tip?

Do you have a favorite slave tip I left out? Do you know a great slave that doesn’t break the bank?

Hit us with a comment (and/or a URL to a picture that proves how good your “giant killer” cheap slave is) in the comments.

The Nikonians event of the decade

dapp — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:36:21 +0000

The Nikonians event of the year, actually the event of the decade with Nikonians turning 10 years old, ANPAT 10 is about to take place early September. A week full of activity from dawn till dusk, prizes, chit-chatting with the founders, loads of fun, learn other hard-core Nikonians and shoot, shoot and shoot!

Last seats available - we have hard limits on the number of participants - so book ANPAT 10, the event of the decade now.

10th Anniversary Photo Contest Grand Prize results

dapp — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:28:58 +0000

Congratulations to the winners of our Nikonians 10th Anniversary Photo Contest. The Grand Prize winner not only takes top honors, he also manages to be the subject of one of the Honorable Mention images.

Nikonians News Flash #158

dapp — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:06:45 +0000

This week Ray passes along the latest photographic news relating to Nikon and Nikonians:
-Potential light leakage Nikon 24-70
-New lenses expected soon
-D90 short lived?
-Russian "Space Shots"
-Nikon provides cameras for Whitney Museum of American Art youth program
-European Wedding Photographer switches to Nikon D700
-Winners of New Member Photo Contest
-Winners of Nikonians 10th Anniversary Photo Contest

Download Nikonians News Flash #158 (NPC-NF-2010-07-24.mp3; 4:56; 4.52MB; MP3 format)

Thanks to the Gang in London!

dapp — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:27:09 +0000

Did a Kelby Tour stop in London on Friday, and honestly, it was a blast. Had good talent to work with on stage, and the audience couldn’t have been a nicer group of folks. They even stuck with me for one situation as I once again tilted at the TTL windmill with virtually no chance of success. But, I figure, hey, it ain’t my job when I’m up there to just do the “safe” thing. Failure is a form of progress, and photographically, a tremendous source of knowledge. Push the envelope. See what might happen.

Did I mention we had fun?

Anna, trained as an actress, had many moods and faces. She was wonderful to work with.

This was her response to my request to project an illustrative mood for a story in a woman’s magazine about “Men Who Leave.” One shoot Lastolite all in one umbrella, off to camera left. One SB 900, no compensation, TTL.

Then I asked a very different face in the crowd to come up, and Jim graciously agreed. I told him he looked “professorial” to me, and he just rolled with it. We positioned the new 30″ Ezybox Hotshoe Soft box above him, and shot this.

If you notice though, his eyes are not really sparked. It’s nice light, true enough, but Jim has glasses and pretty deep set eyes, and I had to get something going to spark them just a touch, and snap up the feel of the light. I tried a snooted grid, made by Flashpoint, which, by the way, makes some terrific stuff for small flash. This one is cone shaped, and comes to a very small circle with a honey comb grid at the end to control the spill of light. Fits the face really well. Ran this second SB900 at minus three EV, with Drew hand holding it, camera left.

The difference is subtle, but it’s definitely effective. Drew has gotten to be a master at taking these small, spot light flashes and locating them. What he does is use the test button to repeatedly flash the person’s face, and get the sweet spot of the light just right. The above pic took about 4-5 minutes to shoot, and Jim was a great subject.

Then we went to town with Anna, using Quadras, one in a deep Octa overhead, and another in a smaller Octa just below her.

I told her she could do anything she wanted, and she, uh, embraced that opportunity.

The background is lit up with one SB900, running on SU-4 mode, and popping off the main set of Quadras. These two pix were shot at F8. But, given her exotic eyes, done by the wondrous makeup artist Katie Cousins, I decided to take a look at what a limited depth of field portrait might do.

Time for the 200mm f2! Without a doubt the sharpest telephoto lens I have ever used. The above was done TTL with a 3×6 Lastolite panel overhead of Anna, with 2 SB900 units firing through it, both in the same group. She is just about standing on the silver reflector material that comes with the skylite panel, and there are two SB900’s popping into that, both on manual, 1/128th power. This, by the way, was the identical setup for the first pic of this blog, the group of wonderful maniacs up top. The system followed me all the way, from f5.6 for the group, to f2 for Anna.

Then we switched up to the Quadras, trying min DOF with them. Great thing about these little puppies is that on “B” port, at min power, you can dump them through a sophisticated light shaper like the deep Octa at like, 8 watt seconds. The result is below.

This is just the overhead Octa. The combo of the two lights gave me too much power for f2, so we replaced the low light with a big silver Tri-grip, and we were done. Anna is giving me the eye here, but I still managed to crack her up every once in a while, just with my generally idiotic behavior.

Like I say, ya gotta have fun doing this, otherwise there’s no point to it, ’cause if you don’t have an absolute love affair with photography, it’s just too hard and frustrating to keep doing. I try to accept success and failure in equal and unequal measure, because if you stick with it, you know what the reward is?

You get to do it again. More tk…..

Nikon D90 slowly fading away

dapp — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:20:43 +0000

Nikon D90 was removed from the employee purchase plan for Best Buy employees as of July 21st, 2010.

Amazon lists the Nikon D90 as “Usually ships within 1 to 2 months”:

The D90 kit is still available.

Nikon UK is out of printed brochures for the Nikon D90 and D700:

I got multiple reports that dealers (mainly outside US) cannot order any D90 cameras from Nikon (and in some cases, D700). Nikon D90 must be running really low on stock right now.

Posted by NikonRumors.com
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Expected prices of upcoming Nikon lenses

dapp — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:33:02 +0000

Those are the expected prices of the rumored lenses from Nikon. Please note that the prices may vary in different countries and may not be 100% accurate due to the different exchange rates and price policies:

Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.4G N: around $1600

Nikkor 24-120 f/4 ED VR N – around $1300

Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 ED VR – around $1000

Nikkor 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 ED VR DX – around $300

Posted by NikonRumors.com
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Nikon planning an August press event in Europe

dapp — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:05:03 +0000

The word from Europe is that Nikon is planing a press event in at least one European country during the week of August 16th-20th, 2010. We can eliminate Monday and Friday, since those are not preferred days for new product announcements, which leaves us with August 17th, 18th and 19th as a potential announcement dates.

I do not know if this is going to be the first, the second or the only press conference Nikon will have before Photokina (two years ago, the AF-S 50mm f/1.4 lens was announced on the first day of Photokina and yes, it was a Monday). I also don’t know what will be announced – for now, the candidates are new Coolpix cameras, new lenses, D3100 and D90 replacements (Nikon EVIL system should be announced at Photokina). No word yet for D700 replacement.

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