Archives for January 2007

Digital Camera Resource Page

The 10D’s images are excellent, the resolution is the same as the D60 but there’s less noise and artifacts visible. Even the higher ISO 400 and 800 shots are noticeably “cleaner” and I was surprised to see very useable ISO 1600 images.

DPReview.com

I have no concerns in stating that as things stand (at the time of writing this review) the EOS-10D is the absolute best in class, with the best image quality, lowest high sensitivity noise, superb build quality and excellent price (not to mention the huge choice of lenses).

The Canon EOS-10D is the best deal out there for a digital SLR camera.

Luminous Landscape

There are two new features found in the 10D that don’t even exist in the 1D and 1Ds. The first is an automatic orientation sensor that tells the camera if a shot has been taken vertically or horizontally and then tags the image so that it shows up with the correct orientation on screen. The second is a feature which I’ve been asking Canon for for a couple of years; a mode which automatically switches from single shot focus to focus tracking if the subject starts moving. Hooray!

Cnet

Though not without its quirks, the 10D is a great candidate for a first digital SLR.

Digital Outback Photo

Canon has now with the 10D (excellent price/feature/quality ratio), 1D (the action champion) and 1Ds (defining digital state of the art) a very strong offering of digital SLRs. We hope that this will keep Nikon and Fuji busy to follow up.

The EOS-10D will immediately dispel any longing for the D60 though, as it’s a genuinely more capable camera in almost every respect. While the image sensor still has the same ~6 megapixel resolution, the numerous upgrades in nearly all other aspects of the cameras operation (most notably in the AF performance) really makes the 10D a whole new camera.

Mac Dev Center

When Canon started shipping the EOS 10D in March 2003, digital photography took a turn for the better. From the first grip of the magnesium body, this SLR feels right at home. Better yet, it shoots like a real camera.

Where to Buy

First off, consider going to your local camera store (and I don’t necessarily mean Wolf Camera at the mall). By going to your local camera store, you’re supporting your community and you just might build a lasting relationship with people you can rely on when you need some help or answers. If you’re buying online, I recommend sticking with Amazon, B&H Photo or Adorama. These three vendors are reliable, trustworthy and generally have the best (legitimate) prices. Additionally, purchasing your camera through these links helps support this site. You can still find some used a refurbished 10D bodies popping up on these sites.
[tags]canon, eos, 10d, reviews, price, availability, order[/tags]

Flickr Hacks

January 27, 2007 By Eric Reagan

Thomas Hawk has a great post on the Top 10 Flickr hacks. Check it out…

Cellblock – A New Tool for Photographers

January 27, 2007 By Eric Reagan

Cellblock is a cool new tool that makes adding a slideshow to your site about as simple as can be (note the handy slideshow in the right sidebar now – click in the bottom right corner of it to go to full screen or just click here). Now, you can login to your cellblock account and upload a few photos (3MB limit). Better yet, you can email your photos to a particular email address that you set up for your individual cellblocks. What’s more is that you can shoot those images that you can’t wait to show everyone directly from your cell phone / camera phone to your cellblock and instantly publish them to the rest of the world! Pretty darn cool if you ask me! It embeds into your site just like a YouTube or MySpace video.

Want to give a try on Photography Bay? Just send your image (your image) to photographybay@cellblock.com. No need to stick anything in the subject line. Just attach an image and shoot it to me. I’m still learning my way around this thing and am having trouble with portrait-oriented photos at the moment. If you figure out the problem before I do, then pass it along. In the mean time, stick with horizontals.

Control freak? Don’t worry, you can opt not to publish photos until you’ve had a chance to review them, which I do (so no funny stuff). Thanks to the Trademark Blog for turning me on to this!

UPDATE: Regarding my problem with portrait-oriented (vertical) photos – One of the development guys at Cellblock posted a comment stating that this issue is being addressed and will be fixed soon.

We will be exposing a rotate function over the next couple of weeks that will take care of portrait/landscape issues.

Stay up to date on the Cellblog (the Cheat Sheet is worth a read anyway) or I’ll keep you updated when groovy stuff happens.

You? A Famous Photographer?

January 24, 2007 By Eric Reagan

It doesn’t take much these days to gain notoriety with your photographs. More than anything (especially in the “breaking news” world), it’s being in the right place at the right time. Chances are that if you read a blog like this one you’ve probably got a digital camera of some form on you for most of the day. Check out the Washington Post’s recent article, Regular Folks, Shooting History. The power of the Internet has changed photography forever. It continues to evolve and makes it all the more possible for even the most amateur point and shooters to become famous photographers.

Canon 1Ds Mark II Reviews

January 23, 2007 By Eric Reagan

The Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II is a top model in the Canon EOS DSLR line, with a full-frame 16.7 MP CMOS sensor. A professional grade camera body, the EOS 1Ds Mark II is large, ruggedly built, and is dust/weather-resistant. The Mark II is the successor to the 11.4 MP Canon EOS 1Ds and has been replaced by the 21.1 MP Canon 1Ds Mark III.

Reviews

DPReview

Performance is another area which impresses, of course we all expect a professional digital SLR (especially one with this price tag) to operate quickly and be instantly responsive to our every request. But when you consider that this camera wasn’t designed for the fast-shooting sports market it’s equally amazing to use it and realize that in many ways it is just as capable at continuous shooting as it is at delivering superb resolution. Four sixteen megapixel frames per second for 41 frames without stopping is something mighty.

Luminous Landscape

In the end, the 1Ds Mark II stands alone, (for the moment at least), as the camera with the combination of highest image quality and fastest handling available. There are faster cameras and there are higher resolution digital solutions (various 22 Megapixel backs, and soon the Mamiya ZD 22 MP camera). But for the money, the size, the versatility, and the performance, the Canon 1Ds Mark II is currently king of the hill.

Digital Outback Photo

Very clean files up to ISO 400. Even ISO 800 looks excellent and ISO 1600 is very useable too. This seconds the findings we had with some real world nature shots in Sedona that behaved very well at ISO 400. This excellent ISO behavior is more important to us than even the extra resolution.

The Digital Picture

Is the Canon EOS 1D Mark II for professionals only? Definitely not. Having excellent quality in-focus images appeals to a large number of non-professional enthusiasts as well. Keep in mind – all of us are capable of taking bad pictures with the best camera available. The Canon EOS 1D Mark II has the ability take your photography to a very high quality level.

The Mark II is an excellent value for the pro who needs its increased resolution and improved performance, and to the extent that the Mark II enables them to earn more income, they will buy it. But to the rest of us mere mortals, justifying an $8000 camera plus the necessary upgrades in computer and memory resources is a big stretch, one not many enthusiasts and semi-pro’s will make.

Where to Buy

The Canon 40D Cometh

January 22, 2007 By Eric Reagan

Looks like someone let the cat out of the bag a little early. So, when should we expect the 40D and what are the features?

First, this is speculation, however, it’s a somewhat educated guess based on recent developments in the Canon EOS DSLR product line.

Expect the release of the Canon 40D to correspond with the official announcement at the PMA this year, March 8-11 in Las Vegas, NV. Almost every product cycle and release announcement corresponds with either PMA or Photokina (in the fall every 2 years). That said, I think most folks would now consider it a fact that the 40D will be announced/released shortly before or during the PMA show in March. However, I’d expect you’ll be able to actually put your hands on one near the end of March or beginning of April.

Now the fun part – what’s it made of? [Read more…]

Nikon D2H Reviews and Resources

January 21, 2007 By Eric Reagan

The Nikon D2H is 4.1 MP DX format professional DSLR, which was introduced in July 2003. Nikon refined and replaced the D2H with the D2Hs in 2005, adding new features developed with the flagship D2X Digital SLR. See a comparison of features improvements and changes between the D2H and D2Hs at DP Review.

Reviews

Acuity is good, color is excellent, and noise performance is at least as good as previous Nikons, if not better. With the right settings and discipline, this camera performs more like a 5mp or higher camera.

DP Review

The Nikon D2H is one of a very few cameras which feels almost perfectly ‘sorted’. By this I mean it’s very difficult to use the camera and find faults, almost any faults, which will affect the camera’s purpose in life, which is to be a very fast, flexible, robust and reliable photographic tool.

Lonestar Digital

Underpowered? Not necessarily …. the 4.1 megapixel sensor actually could be considered to be a strong point because of its smaller, easier to manage image file sizes. Practically speaking, the smaller file sizes are faster & easier to work with.

In some ways the D2h is a huge improvement over the professional standard D1H camera. Advantages are much, much better battery performance and a much bigger LCD screen. A big disadvantage of the D2H is the lack of an electronic shutter which drops the flash sync speed.

Rob Galbraith

Image quality generally matches or exceeds the D1X and D1H Saturation is up, detail is up, noise across the range of ISOs looks to be slightly worse while skin tones seem to be both up and down, depending on the subject and illumination.

The D2H was nearly transparent as I used it; it did not demand my attention or make me wait, and allowed me to concentrate my efforts on capturing images, not operating a camera.

Moose Peterson

Clocking my camera, it seems to be delivering about 8.61FPS shooting above 1/250. That’s pretty darn cool. Coupled with the ability to shoot RAW + JPEG, it’s a great system.

I’ve said before and will say again that the D2H is easily the most enjoyable camera to shoot with that I’ve yet handled, with a fluid, fast, and easy to use user interface that intrudes minimally on the shooting experience. Overall, a powerful photographic tool, not to mention a thoroughly enjoyable one.

Where to Buy

First off, consider going to your local camera store (and I don’t necessarily mean Wolf Camera at the mall). By going to your local camera store, you’re supporting your community and you just might build a lasting relationship with people you can rely on when you need some help or answers. If you’re buying online, I recommend sticking with Amazon, B&H Photo or Adorama. Frequently, you can find used or refurbished models on these sites. These three vendors are reliable, trustworthy and generally have the best (legitimate) prices. Additionally, purchasing your camera through these links helps support this site.
[tags]nikon, d2h, review, dslr, test, digital camera[/tags]

Nikon D2X Reviews and Resources

January 21, 2007 By Eric Reagan

The Nikon D2X is the predecessor to the Nikon D2Xs, both of which are 12.2 MP professional DSLRs. The technical specifications can be found here on Nikon’s website. The Nikon D3 was introduced in August 2007 and offers several upgrades.

Reviews

DP Review

The D2X is a camera which grew on me the more I used it, its instant response and solid build instill a level of confidence unavailable in lesser cameras. You know that every time you press the shutter release the camera will respond instantly and you’ll get the shot. As a photographic tool it’s as close to perfection as I could imagine, there’s really very little else you could want from a camera.

Frankly, the D2x is more camera than many amateurs can handle–they simply don’t have the shot discipline (or the lenses) to get all the bits of resolution of which the camera is capable (pardon the pun). Pros shooting for large formats may find a deeper discussion of resolution slightly useful, but when I have to get out a magnifying glass to examine differences printed at 13×19″ on my Epson 2200, I think that we’re beyond the point where 90% of the market will find that discussion useful. For the pros: you’ll need Nikon’s best lenses to fully achieve what the D2x is capable of capturing, and, yes, we really are in the realm of better-than-35mm resolution.

What makes the D2X special is its fantastic high speed, instant response, brutally fast autofocus, superb usability and construction so solid you can use it for self-defense.

The Nikon D2X is a bit of an enigma. With both full-frame and High Speed Crop modes, it is versatile like no other camera, equally at home in a studio or a sports arena. It is feature rich, offering the exposure controls and Custom Settings demanded by professionals. Its 12.4 megapixels of resolution, while lagging the 16.7-megapixels of Canon’s 1Ds Mark II, set a new standard for Nikon and will be well-received by those with large investments in Nikon glass.

Let’s Go Digital

The Nikon D2X is definitely one of the best D-SLRs available these days. Especially looking at its price the D2X offers a heck of a lot and therefore it’s not a surprise seeing the D2X regularly in the field. It’s a special professional reflex!

Lonestar Digital

A CMOS sensor uses less electric power than a CCD sensor. This has a couple of major benefits. First, longer battery life. Second, less static buildup, which means less dirt & dust attracted to the sensor’s cover glass surface. Many experienced D2X users report that they seldom or never need to clean their camera’s sensor.

Throughout my testing, the Nikon D2X delivered excellent color, hue-accurate, and with appropriate saturation.

Nikonians

If your present camera does what you need it to do then you may not need a Nikon D2X. There is no need for a D3 in my future. It will take many years and many venues to test all of the D2X’s benefits and features. This one does what I need it to do, now. The future is here for me, and it is … the Nikon D2X.

Digital Outback Photo

The cameras overall feel is quite powerful and ”tank” like which I prefer, The high speed crop mode is a one button push and a turn of the command dial, Sports guys are gonna love this as a 300 lens becomes a 600 lens and is clearly defined in the viewfinder with a highlighted grid. Also Very cool! The monitor is huge and extremely good, just remove the monitor protector and get those Hoodman stick-ons, they are great.

Where to Buy

First off, consider going to your local camera store (and I don’t necessarily mean Wolf Camera at the mall). By going to your local camera store, you’re supporting your community and you just might build a lasting relationship with people you can rely on when you need some help or answers. If you’re buying online, I recommend sticking with Amazon, B&H Photo or Adorama. These three vendors are reliable, trustworthy and generally have the best (legitimate) prices. Additionally, purchasing your camera through these links helps support this site.
[tags]nikon, d2x, review, dslr, test, digital camera[/tags]

Nikon D70s Reviews and Resources

January 20, 2007 By Eric Reagan

The Nikon D70s, introduced in early 2005, is 6.1MP DSLR and essentially an update of the D70, adding a larger LCD screen 2″ instead of 1.8”. The D70s also comes with the newer EN-EL3a battery with slightly higher capacity.

Reviews

Digital Camera Resource Page

Same as D70, which is excellent. Sorry, no surprises. This is great, since I love how my D70 operates.

In terms of features, the D70s has plenty. Full manual controls? Check. White balance fine-tuning? Yep. Bracketing of all types? That’s here too. Some things like white balance controls aren’t quite as nice as what Canon is doing these days, but most people will be satisfied with what the D70s offers. The playback mode doesn’t do anything fancy but the important features are all there and everything is responsive.

DC Views

Seeing that Nikon already had a very good DSLR in the D70, it is interesting to see that they still managed to improve the camera with a number of welcome features. Among these is the new 1500mAh battery with a capacity of up to 2500 images per charge. Flash angle coverage has been improved to cover lenses up to 18mm and a comfortable rubber eye cup is now supplied as standard.

With the introduction of the D70s, Nikon has refined its most popular dSLR. There is no increase in resolution or responsiveness, usually hallmarks of new models, over the D70 we reviewed in 2004, but you’ll find several improvements that add to its appeal, including a larger 2-inch LCD monitor, a higher capacity battery, faster image recording, improved autofocus system and the ability to attach a remote shutter release; while not revolutionary, Nikon’s efforts have made an already good camera even better.

With its dead-simple “green zone” operation and host of helpful scene modes, the D70S is also a very approachable camera for novice users. This is an important consideration, given how well a d-SLR matches the needs of typical family shooting, an application where less-sophisticated users really need the things that d-SLRs do so well. (Fast shutter response, good high-ISO performance.)

Let’s Go Digital

The Nikon D70s is fully packed with intelligent software and with the knowledge that this model got the intelligence of the Nikon D2X camera….

Cnet

Versatile drive mode; excellent dynamic range, noise levels, and color rendition; full feature set with lots of customization options; responsive operation; solid battery life.

DP Review Comparison Table

If you’ve handled a D100, you can pick up a D70 or D70s and start shooting. A few subtle twists will show up (and I’ll get to those), but Nikon didn’t bother to try to fix things that weren’t broken. Better still, they did fix things that were broken.

Photography BLOG

The Nikon D70s offers a wealth of features, fast and accurate operation and solid build quality at a price point that would have been difficult to believe only a couple of years ago. Negative points are few – it “only” has 6 megapixels (although this is more of a marketing thing than anything else), the Multi Selector arrow-pad is spongy and unresponsive, and the shutter release mechanism is on the noisy side.

Where to Buy

[tags]nikon, d70s, review, dslr, digital camera[/tags]

Nikon D70 Reviews and Resources

January 18, 2007 By Eric Reagan

The Nikon D70, which is a 6.1 MP DSLR introduced at PMA in 2004, was Nikon’s first consumer-friendly camera. At an initial price point of $1299, it was aimed to directly compete with Canon’s $999 Digital Rebel (aka 300D). Even with the consumer-level price tag, the camera could hold its own at the time against stiffer, pro-level gear – including Nikon’s own D100.

Reviews

A little publicized feature is that the D70 has the most accurate exposure metering system I’ve ever used. It gives me the correct exposure in almost every bizarre situation I throw at it, including fill flash and mixed light. Yes, the published meter hardware specifications are the same as the F5 and D1X, however the firmware that makes it work has clearly advanced so I almost never have to compensate the meter.

DP Review

They have improved the performance of the camera, with its instant on availability, very fast shutter release, superb continuous shooting and image processing speed and smart use of its buffer.

Photo.net

The Nikon D70 is an excellent camera, built on their experience with the D100. It appears that many of the suggestions for improvement around the software, features and user interface with the D100 have been incorporated into the D70. Leaving a relatively short wish list of remaining improvements.

The D70 takes beautiful photos when used well, and can give almost any digital SLR on the market a run for the money in image quality. We may quibble about slight differences in color, or noise, or aliasing between different models, but these discussions are no different than the Provia versus Ektachrome type of debate. In short, expect to produce darn good results out of this camera.

Digital Camera Resource Page

It offers excellent shooting performance and image quality, while providing the photographer with fully-functional auto exposure and auto focusing controls. Users of consumer digicams will find that the D70’s responsiveness, viewfinder clarity, and image quality at high ISO settings overcome the limitations of their current equipment.

In terms of performance, the D70 is truly amazing. It starts up instantly, focus quickly (even in low light), has no shutter lag, and an impressive 3 frames/second burst mode. Even playback mode is fast. The camera has more manual controls than the Canon Digital Rebel, including a bunch of custom options that let you choose how your camera functions.

DC Views

The Nikon D70 is a terrific camera with excellent build quality that delivers near perfect images at a price that is superb value for money. Its specifications and performance are much more advanced than Canon’s EOS 300D and even Nikon’s own D100 will have a hard time competing against the Nikon D70.