Transitions - and other bittersweet changes

I understand that I haven't posted anything new for a long time. Although, I'm really surprised at how many hits this blog still harvests. Thank you everyone for your patronage. It's nice to know that I can contribute something to our community.

Times are changing ... the economy is in the shithouse, my 401(k) looks like a deflated Under Dog balloon from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the Big Three want $25 billion to cover the mistakes they've been making since Jimmy Carter was in office.

On the up side, I bought gasoline for $1.62/gal this morning, we have a new president, and I found a brand new, in the box, untouched warranty card, Nikon D200 on sale at Amazon for $799. With the blessing of my beautiful bride I was even allowed to purchase it. As of this writing it is in Indianapolis having shipped from Lexington, Kentucky yesterday on it's way to Minneapolis scheduled for delivery on Tuesday. I'm very excited.

Unfortunately, I will have to sell my D70s. The camera that got me started on digital photography. A great little camera with only a few drawbacks (for me) I've discovered. I toiled with this decision for a long time. Especially with the questions about which other camera. Is the newest technology really essential? Is the expense something I can live with and/or prosper from? The D300, D700, even the D90 seemed to be much more than I was willing to deal with. I just wanted a kick-ass Nikon workhorse that won't let me down ... reputation comparable to the F2 so many years ago.

Here's what I think I've gotten over the D70s: a broader ISO range, a larger (and much needed) LCD screen, much more accessible functionality, 67% more pixels, heftier build, 2 more frames per second, 10 more focus areas, better subject tracking, noise reduction, and a little bit of an ego boost. Is that fair?

I purchased the D70s under similar conditions. It's production was discontinued in 2006. I bought mine in November of 2006. The D200 production may not be discontinued but it's close ... at least it seems to be at closeout prices.

Anyway, the D70s has served me well. I've made a little money with it, I've re-learned the fundamental principles of photography, I've ventured into flash photography including off-camera (something I had never done before), I'm having a blast sharing with other photogs on the likes of Flickr and I'm looking to demand more from my camera.

Just as a sidenote: When I was still shooting film I was using a Nikon N90s. What a great camera! The D200 is very similar so it's almost a homecoming. I'm looking forward to the change but I'll always remain thankful for my D70s, my training wheels.

Before:


After:

i shoot nikon

Friday Night Lights

This weekend was senior prom weekend and having family of graduating age I was afforded the opportunity to shoot four couples as they prepared for their evening of emancipation, debauchery and erotica (oh, don't they wish!). Anyway ... there were parents and point-and-shoots everywhere all wondering who the "serious" guy was with all the camera gear!?! Although, there was some kid there, I assumed he was a family member of whosever house we were at, that was using a high-end consumer, digital video camera ... perhaps a Canon GL1 or something.

Anyway, I was just using my D70s fit with the Nikkor 18-70mm AF-S DX Zoom f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED. I chose that lens because I knew I'd have a chance to work in pretty close and 70mm works pretty nicely for portraits and the 18mm could give me plenty of vista doing candids of eight highschool kids. On the camera was an SB-800 Speedlight (What a nice piece of flash equipment! If you don't have one, get one).

Settings:

• Matrix Metering


• Aperature Priority


• ISO 200


• White Balance: Flash


• TTL BL (Balanced Flash Fill)

I set the aperture at the widest possible (depending on the zoom length) to keep the background as out of focus as possible ... I really need to get that f/2.8 glass sometime. I think I rode f/4.0 throughout the shoot. The time of day was nice. We were shooting between 5 and 6 PM in a nicely shaded backyard that offered ample diffuse light with some nice sun coming through. The only problem was some pretty busy backgrounds.

I played around a little with the difference between TTL and TTL with balanced flash fill (BL). I was getting a lot of burned out highlights with straight TTL ... probably because the flash was pretty harsh. I think that next time I may also try a Stoffen diffuser to knock the harshness down. I find as I look at the shoot that the BL works nicely with the ambient light at a distance of about 2 meters. But, when I backed off I really needed an extra boost of diffuse light in TTL mode and could have added more light with exposure compensation.

Shooting the candids I wanted to be able to act quickly so having the camera in a semi-automatic mode (Aperature Priority) helped support speed but I lost the flexibility of getting more accurate exposures in manual mode. It's all give and take, I guess.

All the images in this post were shot in NEF (Nikon's version of RAW) and had no additional processing beyond exporting them to JPEG's.

Gotta go burn some CD's for the parents ...

i shoot nikon