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We became parents on May 8, 2009.  That also means I have a new model!

Edmund Julian, two days old.  

Edmund, a day older than above.

Our cat, Ben, discovering his new housemate. 

Of course, all the shots above were taken with the D700.  The first two with WB at 2500°K, the third in Auto.  I cannot recall the ISO, but in all of them it wasn't very high (just about 1600). 

He's keeping us busy... especially at nights.  Otherwise, I've continued with my hobbies and soon will post some macrophotography shots, taken around the garden with my Sigma AF 105mm lens.  

Right now, my Nikon AF 80-200 is still in the shop (since early February!).  It was returned shortly before my son's birthday, but the problem (sticky blades) continued, so I sent it back... and haven't heard from the shop ever since.  I'll have to call them soon and find out.

Meanwhile, I've been considering a new lens to replace the Nikon (which is the first version of the 80-200, a push-pull).  The Nikon AF-S VR 70-200 is outrageously expensive, and even more since all the prices went up, so I've been thinking about the Sigma or Tamron f2.8 alternates. 

Ooops... it seems there's a diaper change coming. 

Spring about to come!

Sure... and it looks like a bad joke, innit?

At least, one could believe something was afoot early in March...

Until we got a white surprise in the end... 

But before I continue, let me add that all of these images were made with my trusty D700.  I've been working (rather playing) with it at all times, and "exposing" it to some conditions that, admittedly, are not harsh, but still demanding... like the last photograph with the hydrant (the only one taken with my Tamron AF 200-400 zoom).  Temps were pretty low... but I've walked down colder sidewalks with this camera.

The tree up there is in my backyard.  That was during one of the first nice, sunny days this year.

The cat here belongs to a friend who lives in Madison WI.  It's a nice Maine Coon called Jiggy (she's a feisty player, and you can tell from her face).  

Last shot: March 28: snow around us (about seven inches), dressing up the boring fire hydrant across the street. 

Lately, I've taken to use relatively low ISO ratings.  It simply happens that I am far more familiar with the images I create at ISO 200 or 400 than anything done at ISO 1600 or higher.  Besides, with such luminosity, why should anyone bother with fast sensor speed?  

Or does someone do that?

I am awaiting for my Nikon AF ED 80-200 to return from the shop where I left it (in Chicago's Central Camera).  It turned out to be sick: sticky blades.  The repair will cost me a pretty penny... but I'm trusting on getting a decent lens in the end.  In the meanwhile, before getting my Nikon back, I'll keep playing with my current arsenal.

Comments welcome!

Browsing in the Menus with the command dials

First off, a word about the photos below: one of these two is a shot of Santiago Calatrava's wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The other, is the side wall of the Chicago Lyric Opera theater. I'm sure you can guess which is which...

Now, let's go down to business.  I offered a little tip last time: how to check your menus without pushing the round wheel, officially known as multi-selector, in the camera back.  In fact, you should be able to navigate through it with your command and subcommand dials.  

This is how you do it.  Turn on your D700 first.

Now that it's on, push the Menu button.   Go to the Custom Setting Menu, then to the Controls section, which is F.  Now, look for F9:  Customize command dials.  Click OK.  In the menu you will find "Menus and Playback" as one of the choices.  Click on it to turn it on.  Return to the Custom Setting Menu. 

Now that you're in the main menu... Play with it!  Let's assume you are in the Playback Menu and that your first choice, which is DELETE, is already highlighed and on top of the menu.

• Now, turn your main command dial (the one in the back of the camera, right in front of you) to the right, and you will find it goes downward, highlighting selections as it goes down.  Turn it leftwise and it goes up. 
  
• But you didn't want to do anything with Playback!  You turned on the menus to check, say, Vignette Control.  What do you do?
  
• You turn the Sub-command dial (the one in the front of the camera, right above the grip) towards the left.  Now, the cursor-selector is on the Tabs (in which the options are Playback, Shooting, Custom Setting, Setup, Retouch and MyMenu).  
  
• Turn your main command to the right just one step and you'll find yourself in the Shooting Menu.
  
• Turn your subcommand dial to the right.  This will take you from the Tabs to the Shooting Menu. 
  
• Active D-Lighting should be highlighted.  If not, that's because it wasn't the last choice you used when you turned to this menu the last time.  
  
• Turn your main command dial to the right one step... and voilà!: you are in Vignette Control.
  
• Things get better... Turn your subcommand dial to the right again...
  
• Here you see your choices: High, Normal, Low and Off.  Pick the one you prefer by rotating the main command to the right or left, and then, only then, push the OK button.
  

You're done... and you haven't used the multi-selector at all!   Ain't that cool?

I'm sure this option must be in the manual, but I didn't bother finding it or even looking for it.  I simply stumbled upon this by accidentally turning one dial while I was looking at the menus.   In essence, you use the main command to navigate them, and the subcommand dial to switch around.  The logic is pretty intuitive, because you turn the subcommand to the left when you want to go to the Tab, or to the right, when you want to go into a particular menu. 

For another cool choice with the Nikon D700 (and I believe you can use it in the D300 as well), go to D-Town TV and watch the first episode of Scott Kelby's and Matt Kloskowski's TV Nikon camera tips show.  Episode No. 1 will show you how to review your photographs in Playback without using the multi-selector, and using only the main command in your camera.  The best thing is that while you can turn from shot to shot with the main command, you can review the technical information with the subcommand dial.  

Goodbye to using that multi-selector again! 

One important last word:  check out Scott and Matt's weekly episodes and make sure to add their site to your bookmarks.  You can always find them in the list of relevant Nikon links to the left of this text.  They are really good; in fact, their first episode really convinced me to buy the Capture NX 2 software, even though I had pretty much decided against it.  In the meanwhile, have loads of fun with your toys!

I broke down...

I did... and bought a nice copy of Capture NX 2. 

The deal is this: apparently, there simply is no better software than Capture to edit RAW files, or to edit images, period.  I wasn't too crazy about it at first, but then, I read a couple of tutorials and its apparent simplicity ended up convincing me of the purchase. 

Now, I did not pay the MSRP.  The NY store Cameta Camera was selling it for about $127.  Compared to the price at which one can find it at B&H or Adorama, it's a steal. 

I'll continue with my experiences later.  For now, I have to sink my nose in the 250+ page manual that came with the CD in a relatively large box that promptly went into the recycling bin.  

Also, a couple of neat tricks for playback coming soon!

Pixel Peeping Syndrome

First things first...

Below, a nice sample of what this camera can do.  It's a piece of pottery from the Milwaukee Art Museum, shot with the lens wide open, at probably ISO 5000, Auto WB, and checked out some time later in the camera monitor.  It looked nice...  

Then, I downloaded it to my Mac... and I didn't quite like what I saw... 

When I bought this camera, I already had looked at all the possible images taken with it, found in Nikon ads (their website had some), Flicker and Nikonians.  One thing that really sold me was the almost absolute perfection.  As a friend said once about his conversion to digital, there was no grain. 

But then, how about them pixels?

Can you see the little devils?  I thought I had... in the RAW file!  This is too much... I want purity, clarity, sincerity, absolutely no granulosity...

Then, it dawned on me: I've become a pixel peeper. 

Must admit it: before opening the daffodil above (which, by the way, was done with my SB-600 at f8, in a futile attempt at reproducing the darkening of the background that relatively fast shutterspeeds can do with flash), I looked at it really close.  There they were again.  Heck!  There they are, under the naked eye, right above... and, alas, below too. 

Same little daffodil, a bit posterized because of my clumsiness at using Photoshop.  

BTW, the shot above was done with a close aperture, in P, with an SB-600.  My attempts at getting overexposed foregrounds and dark backgrounds are failing miserably...  But I'm even more frustrated because of this stupid habit of looking for flaws and pixelation.  

Is there a cure?

I guess I'll have to learn to live with it.  

In any case, for whatever is worth, I placed an order for Nikon Capture NX2 earlier this week.  It may be coming soon.  And my Nikon AF-ED 80-200 f2.8 lens is in the shop right now. 

However, life still looks good.

More about things later!

The Thing about Picture Control

Welcome to the mystery of picture control!!

Here's a photograph of Mimi, with Vivid Picture Mode.   It appeared striking in the monitor (very intense reds and yellows), so I was happy, despite the wild contrast between her fur and the seat of this very chair I'm on right now.  

Now, the same cat, under the same light and on the same spot... but with Neutral Picture Control.  The fur looked terribly flat, the colors were muted, the entire palette from the Vivid setting was gone.  

So, I switched to Standard.  Here I saw a type of compromise between Vivid and Neutral; an amicable middle ground in terms of color saturation and contrast.  

Now... that was before downloading the files into my computer and then resizing them (hopefully better this time) for internet viewing.  

Vivid... it doesn't look too vivid, does it?

Neutral doesn't sound half as bad as my description of the jpeg in the D700 monitor.  I'm feeling like with egg on my face...

Standard, however, still looks like an acceptable compromise here.

Lesson learned?

Besides never to trust your monitor... the fact that these shots look pretty much the same in my monitor leads me to wonder what the effect of this setting may be on prints.  

In the meanwhile, this is what I did with the files: they were all RAW (NEFs) downloaded to the computer via card reader and Nikon Transfer.  Then, opened with PSE 6 for Mac, and turned into JPEGs.  The consequent, intermediate JPEGs were resized in size and resolution (say, from whatever they were to 1550 on the larger side, and the resolution down to 150 dpi).  After this, I did a "Save for Web" function, and set the JPEG parameters in High.  Oh, and I also reopened the "cleansed" files and reduced the print size from 13 inches to 8 (on the large side).  In short, all files now should be clearly viewable in almost any screen size, not just in my 20-inch monster.   At no time whatsoever did I do any alteration in color or exposure here.  In short, except for the file conversion and re-compression, these are the photographs that came out of the camera. 

I'm interested in your reactions, and will appreciate comments.  Of course, soon enough I should have something to say about the prints of these images...

Couple of Issues for Shutterbugs

Here we go again... 

Here is a photograph of the cats, with the SB-600 flash aiming at them.  It was the best way to solve a problem I was having, as it can be seen below...

The cat in the foreground appears fairly well lit, but what about the one in the background?  Ben, when photographed with the SB-600 bouncing light off the ceiling, appears nicely exposed.  Mimí, behind the TV stand, was not.  I had to do something I usually don't, which is to aim the flash directly at them.  That was the best way to get the results I wanted.  Now...  a common exposure problem: exposure for highlights.  Which of the landscapes below looks better?  The one right below... 

Or this one?

The difference between them (in case it's not obvious) is a couple of notches of underexposure.  In fact, the landscape below was shot as per camera meter settings on A-mode.  It did give me a good color for the snow, as it appears right before sunset in my corner of the world.  So, I dialed two thirds of underexposure (thanks to the Quick Exposure Compensation feature; check b4 in the Custom Setting Menu) and shot again (with a slight change of position, so as to avoid the distortion effect of the post on the left), and... voilà!  Got the colors I wanted. 

Why this move?  Why tinker with the exposure?

The camera is a tool, and users tend to let it dictate their end result.  In this particular situation even though I wanted (and metered on) the sunset colors, the camera matrix meter dialed up the highlights.  It is a tendency of all digital sensors, and from what I understand, it's in their algorithm.  However, a photographer has something better: brains.  That's why, after noticing the slightly singed effect on colors, I took a second shot of the first photograph but with a slight underexposure.  This one allowed me to register the colors I wanted.

As for the snow?  One still can tell it's snow, right?  

Later on, some flash effects with this camera and the SB-600.