Nikon's New Mirrorless ILC Cameras

There has been considerable buzz and blog traffic about when Nikon would release a Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens "Point & Shoot" camera.  I think it was a foregone conclusion and more "when" than "if".   Similar cameras have been making noise in the photo community so I figured Nikon would come up with one of their own.  They now have.

Nikon just announced the release of their first mirrorless ILC, the Nikon 1 System.  The V1 and its little brother the J1.

Nikon J1

Nikon V1

These cameras haven't been released to the public yet, but there are YouTube videos of demos & reviews and lots of information in blogs.  The main specs are:

• 10.1 MP CMOS sensor which is 13.3-by-8.8mm sensor, delivering a 2.7x crop (this seems strange and smaller than I thought)
• High-speed image processing engine, EXPEED 3
• 1080 HD video capable
• 73 focal points (this is going to be sweet)
• RAW & JPEG file formats
• ISO range between 100-6400
• 3" LCD
• SD card storage

The J1 is the smaller of the 2 cameras and publications show it will be sold at the $650-900 range (1 lens versus 2 lens price), and the V1 coming in at the $900-1,150 range (1 lens or 2 lens pricing)

The shape at first looks pretty basic and rounded.  Pretty plain, but maybe they are trying for the Apple cool effect, just simple styling.  But then WHY do they have them available in colors? I actually saw a J1 in red.  Sorry, I digress.  It will be interesting to see how it feels in your hand.  There appears to be no area to naturally grip like a DSLR.  More like your standard point and shoot.  Burst rate listed at 5fps, so I suspect the buffer is reasonable.  They are coming out with 3 available lenses: 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6, 10mm f/2.8, and 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6.  The 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 will likely be the kit lens.  Remember that crop factor! 

The cameras will be available to the general public in October.  When these cameras arrive locally I'll probably see if I can rent or borrow one so I can give it a go.   Not sure I really need this type of "point and shoot", but I'd like to see how it's designed.  Personally, I'm more interested in the Nikon CoolPix P7100 as a "throw in your pocket camera.  The P7100 is an upgrade from the P7000 which I've tried.  Honestly, if I want a camera with interchangeable lenses I'll stick with my DSLR.  Anyway, it's good to see Nikon coming out with something new.

Now if only Nikon would spend it's time and energy on coming out with a replacement to the D700 and the D300s.  Please

Vincent Laforet is Uber

I've started to follow Vincent Laforet after I saw his interview on Twit Photo podcast.  I'm hooked.  Even though he got his start as a photographer he's migrated to video.  He has 2 videos I really am amazed with.  The first is Reverie, and this one, Nocturne.  And to think these are shot with a DSLR, OK it's a Canon, but still a DSLR.

This stuff is uber.  I know what I'm going to try for my next project!!



Nikon 40mm f/2.8 AF-S Micro-Nikkor Review

Another fun lens review from DigitalRev TV from Hong Kong.  The announcer is a bit quirky, but actually good stuff, and fun to watch  Also, since I used to live in Hong Kong I love seeing areas I used to walk around with camera in hand.

If you were thinking about a DX 40mm speedy macro lens for your Nikon kit, this may be your ticket.  Forget about the pink Nikon D7000 in the video.  This is their thing, just focus on the lens.  Anyway who in their right mind would paint a nice camera like a D7000??

I would only recommend getting this lens if you want the macro feature.  If all you are looking for is a 40mm prime range and macro isn't important then I would highly recommend sticking with the AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G or the AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G or the newer f/1.8G.  Sure it's not 40mm or 60mm equivalent, but it's a great compromise.

Oranje, Now That's a Party

A big party thrown every year in Indianapolis is called Oranje.  This is the 10^th year and it’s going strong.  Oranje describes itself as “an interactive experience of art and music.  All I can say is that it’s a fusion of rock, hip hop, dance, trance, art, colors, pretty people, sights and sounds.  A photo rich environment.

I went last night for the 3^rd year in a row.  I go with the intent of taking lots of low light photographs of the music venues, the people and the general vibe of the place.  It’s amazing.  This year I showed up at 9pm and stayed until about 1am.  Since there are so many people in the venue, an abandoned warehouse, and the action is constantly moving it is not a place to bring a tripod.  Therefore, it’s a night of my fastest lenses, wide open apertures, and very high ISO.  Also, for good measure I brought one of my speedlights, and I’m glad I did.

I started off outside in 2 of the music tents, the IndyMojo Electronic Music Tent and the Nuvo Main Stage.  The Nuvo stage was a bit easier to shoot because it had reasonable lighting that reflected off the white tent.  The Mojo tent was pitch black to go along with the pulsing electronic dance and trance music.  It was lasers and smoke machines.  Loved it.  The absolute best piece of kit I brought was ear plugs.  Believe me the music was so loud even with ear plugs I had no problems hearing it.  I spent about 1 hour shooting in those 2 tents, and of course listening to the music.

To minimize the amount of equipment I carried, since I didn’t want to bring a backpack, was my trusty Nikon D300s, my AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 G, and a Nikon SB-600 speedlight.  I brought extra rechargeable batteries and memory cards, and that was it.  I shot the entire event with that kit.  I could have brought my faster prime lenses, but again I wanted to somewhat blend in, and lugging a camera backpack defeats the purpose.

I later moved into the main building and walked around for about an hour looking at all the local artists’ work.  Good stuff, and I would love to pick up a few pieces, but wow the prices…Anyway, I really enjoy looking at other’s people’s creativity.  There were paintings, photography, sculptures, interactive art, body painting exhibits, hair and design work, etc. etc. It gave me plenty of opportunities to photograph the environment.

Next, I spent a couple of hours listening to music, watching dancers, and photographing in the Ketel One Lounge, Old Soul Stage & the MOKB Presents Stage.  For my $20 entry fee not only did I get to take lots of photographs but I got to listen to some really good musicians and DJs.  Man, I'm a cheap date.  I hung around the Ketel One Lounge for a good chunk of the time simply because there were so many people dancing.  I was able to get right up to the DJ’s and photograph them and also several times get to the front of several dance circles and watch the dancers do their thing. 

Most of the night was a real challenge balancing shutter speed, aperture and ISO.  Most of my shots were taken with ISO 3200, or 2000.  When I did use the flash I cranked my ISO down to 400.  I “tried” to keep the speed up to 1/50 of a second most of the night, but that was often hard.  Therefore, I came back with lots of motion blur, but in many shots that worked.  In this type of setting the speedlight helps but the stopped action really doesn’t work.  I also spent lots of time trying to get my white balance right.  I am proud to say I didn’t take a single shot in auto white-balance.  I found the cooler settings worked the best.  The lighting was REALLY mixed every few feet.

Bottomline, a really fun time AND a great opportunity to shoot.

Tips & After Action Thoughts:

·         I really need to purchase or rent a full frame Nikon for this type of event.  In post processing I have used the noise reduction slider in Lightroom 3 extensively, but I would like to minimize it with a bigger sensor.

·         In hindsight I should have brought in my AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 or AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 to get a wider aperture.  Again to lower noise and the speed up the shutter speed.  I actually brought both, but left them in my car.  I REALLY didn’t want to carry around a bunch of kit

·         A wider zoom might have been good in this setting.  I have a 12-24mm Tokina, but its f/4.  I had stopped into Roberts Camera earlier to see about renting a Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8, but it wasn’t available.  I complain, but honestly my 24-70 worked really well.

·         Note to self, remember to ALWAYS bring ear plugs to an event such as this.  I did, and my ears are thanking me.  I saw almost no-one with ear plugs and I bet they are regretting it today.

·         Don’t be afraid to mix in with the setting.  At first I shot standing back, but after about an hour you could tell the alcohol was starting to loosen people up.  After about an hour no one cared that I was shooting photographs of them or getting up close to the action.  This is a lesson I learned from my San Francisco workshop.  Get close, not the part about photographing lubricated people.

·         Bring business cards.  Argh, I forgot them and several people asked me for my contact information. 

·         Take video.  I took possibly 20 segments throughout the night.  If I have time I’m going to put a short video together of the party. 

Red Bull Indianapolis GP Shoot

It's crowded downtown

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosts the annual Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.  This is a multi-day motorcycle-a-rama concluding with the Indianapolis GP race.  What I enjoy and have done for the past 2 years is head down to downtown Indianapolis the Saturday night before the race.  It’s crazy downtown.  The city streets around the Monument Circle are PACKED with every type of motorcycle imaginable from all over the USA. 

It’s an opportunity for the motorcyclist to show off and take in all the sights.  Many of the city streets are blocked off and downtown becomes a big party.  Indianapolis does these types of things really well.  All the clubs were hopping & open spaces turned into open air clubs / venues.  Needless to say a photographer’s dream.  The challenge is that most activities really start hopping after dark. 

The setting calls for lightning fast glass, high ISO & regularly changing white balance.  It’s a real balance to get enough speed to minimize motion blur, unless of course if that’s what the scene calls for.

Is the the proper way to ride a crotch rocket?

One wheeled wonder

Also, this year I went to the XDL Championship Series to start off my photoshoot.  This is a series of extreme motorcycle tricks / maneuvers on a very short stretch of road.  In Indianapolis they block off Walnut Street between Meridian and Pennsylvania and line the side of the street with bleachers.  On a very short stretch of road highly qualified riders do their timed series of maneuvers.  Amazing.

All shots were taken with a Nikon D300s and either my AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED or AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G.  I chose the 35mm over my f/1.4 50mm prime simply because I wanted a smaller focal length for my DX sensor.  In hindsight I probably should have used the f/1.4 in some settings.  All WB was preset using a grey card, which became a bit of a pain with all the changing lighting, so I switched to shade or cloud preset.  Speeds were normally in the 1/50 or faster.  Basically the fastest I could get.  I sacrificed ISO for speed.  All shots were at ISO 1600 or higher.  I did get away with ISO 400 during most of the XDL Championship shoot because it was still somewhat bright outside.  F-stop was almost always at the widest aperture, so I did sacrifice some deep DOF.  Again, a trade-off. 

Checking out the sights

Getting quite a few stares

Once again I find shooting at night tons of fun.  Although it’s technically more challenging it creates a mood and color range you simply don’t get during the day.  Especially when you have something as exciting as the pre-race downtown party for the Red Bull GP.

AdoramaTV Tips

I watch the AdoramaTV videos regularly.  Pretty good tips.  This video covers basic light effects and setups.  I've been doing studio lighting off and on in the field and in studio for about 1/2 year.  Really enjoying it.
Enjoy

San Francisco Fire & Night Workshop with Chris Marquardt

San Francisco skyline from Treasure Island at sunset

I just completed a photo workshop and series of photowalks with photographer, Chris Marquardt.  The workshop was in San Francisco and focused on street photography, after dark fire dancing photography and after dark city scenes around San Francisco.  I’ve followed Chris’s work, website & podcasts and learned about the workshop from one of his podcasts.  Since the focus of the workshop was photography after dark and street scenes I thought it would be enjoyable and a great learning opportunity. 

Chris Marquardt interacting with street art

I was right about the workshop.  It covered several areas I enjoy shooting, but I have to admit it was humbling. Chris knows his stuff and it highlights how much I have to learn and develop my photographic eye.

I arrived late on Thursday and met up with the workshop participants at the end of their introductory get together dinner.  I’d say over ¾ of the 12 participants had either worked with or been on a previous Marquardt workshop.  Therefore, a number of participants already knew each other.  I figured that would make for a very interactive experience.  Most people were starting to call it an evening, but I got to meet most of the photographers, and chat them up a bit.

The workshop started officially at noon on Friday so I got up early and walked around San Francisco for about 4 hours during rush hour shooting the day unfolding.  Got lots of the standard SF tourist shots of cable cars, city scenes, Chinatown, etc.  The shooting conditions were great since the light was muted by the typical SF weather. 

We then met up and headed to Oakland for start the workshop at the Oakland Warehouse base for the Department of Spontaneous Combustion.  This is a live-in artist colony focusing on industrial metal sculptures along with sculptures that spew fire.  A very unusual mix.  The location is a non-descript warehouse in a rundown part of Oakland.  Lots of really cool equipment and sculptures in the warehouse to shoot.  We spent about 5 hours talking about all things photography focusing on the technical side of photography (versus composition).  The key learning experience for me was to use a grey card to check and set exposure.  In the past I used a grey card only to set white balance.  Also, Chris is big into manual shooting so the grey card is very important.

Stop action fire dancing

Double loops of fire

Grinding away

Playing with fire

When the night came we spent about 2 hours shooting 2 fire dancers.  For those who are uninformed, like me, a fire dancer uses various props that are lit on fire, i.e. a long staff with material (Teflon) on the end that is lit on fire.  The staff is spun around in various ways to produce a really interesting light show.  The equivalent of a ball and chain where the ball was on fire was also used.  The artists were quite skilled, and after with long exposures the images are amazing.  When the exposure is set correctly the fire looks like it’s alive.  I’ve never photographed fire before, so it was a challenge.  Luckily, Chris was there to lend advice.  All my images were shot with either an AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G or my AF-SNikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED.  Even with my fastest glass I used my tripod, ISO at 1600-3200, and most shots were in the 1 second range.  Lots of tasty motion blur with the fire dancers, which is what we wanted.

Day 2 started at 1pm, so once again I had a chance to go out before the workshop.  I walked down to the Ferry Building about 20 minutes from the hotel.  There was a huge street fair and farmers market going on.  It was a people-a-rama.  A photo rich environment from the homeless, beggars, artist, pretty people, and just folk.  Great fun.  I shot everything.  I then made my way back to the hotel to change my kit and then headed to the Embarcadero YMCA for a workshop on both street photography and after dark shooting.  I have done lots night photography so it was nice to hear that I wasn’t a complete idiot.  However, I still wanted to practice my skills.  The street photography part is something I want to do more of.  The key for street photography is either to blend in and capture the scene or get REAL close and shoot people.  We went for the close portrait work on the street. 

The key in late night photography is to take your time, adjust your ISO last and experiment / adjust your white balance.  Chris stressed you should focus on setting your WB to the temperature setting and adjust Kelvin.  As you might suspect even when shooting in RAW, NEVER use the automatic white balance setting.  The key on street scenes is placement, and capture the environment.  If you are going to shoot people then interact and get close.  Ask your subject if you can shoot their picture and then take shots from multiple angles.  Think of the person on the street that you are shooting as your model and watch for lighting, shadows and expression.  Getting a complete stranger to let you take their image is challenging.  Some of our workshop members were amazing at it.  I’m a noobie. 

After the workshop portion of the day we boarded a bus and hit a number of city locations.   For the street photography component of the night we paired off.  We visited a food festival in the Mission District.  Tons of people and lots to shoot.  After shooting street scenes for about 2 hours, we reboarded the bus and went across to Treasury Island and shot the skyline and Bay Bridge.  It was foggy, windy and cold.  It really was a challenging shooting environment.  I brought a Silk UFS-F740 Lightweight Tripod which was needed due to low light, but I still had lots of camera shake due to the wind.  After about an hour we boarded the bus and headed for a spot across from the Golden Gate Bridge to try our hand at a typical tourist image.  The first of the two locations to view the Golden Gate Bridge was a bust due to fog, but the second was amazing because the fog was moving out and it gave us some amazing scenes of the bridge and city.

Mexican heritage at the food festival in the Mission District

Street portrait at first reluctant to get photographed

Street portrait in the Mission District

All shots in the Mission District were with an AF-S DX Nikkor18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II lens, ISO at 400-800, speed 1/100 - 1/250 second and white balance set at cloudy.  All of the shots after dark were with my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, camera set to manual, White Balance varied throughout the evening to get different temperature effects, ISO was ranged based upon the shutter speed I wanted varying from 200 to 1600.  I also adjusted my speed through the shoot.  Basically I was experimenting.   

Golden Gate Bridge in the fog

We got back to the hotel really late, but it was great.  I contemplated going back out on the streets, but decided to crash.

Day 3 was earlier, so I didn’t go out before the workshop.  We met up at the Women’s Building in the Mission District.  We talked primarily about composition of street photography and several technical aspects.  It was amazing to see some of the images Chris had brought to discuss composition of the street, primarily Vivian Maier and Henri Bresson.  If you don’t know the story of Vivian Maier then I would encourage you to check her out…amazing.

Watching life go by

During the 3^rd day we went out on the street and shot people again.  Also we had a chance to shoot each other in both a comical and a serious setting.  It was fun to see how everyone captured each other.  I rarely see myself on the other side of the camera so it was fun.  After the workshop was over we took a group photo, exchanged emails and wished each other good luck.  Lots of really great photographers all of who I would enjoy going back out with again.

Finally, after the day’s workshop was over I got back to my hotel, again changed out my kit for another romp on the streets and headed back out.  I walked down Market Street and then back to the Mission District.  There I got lots of shots of graffiti, people interacting with others, tourist, homeless, you name it.  Life in the big city.  I ended out being out for about 5 hours and got back at my hotel well after dark, finally calling it a day.

Street Rapper along Market Street

Mission District graffiti

Mission District graffiti

Bottomline, I had a great time.  I learned a great deal and met some good photographers.  Chris was an excellent workshop leader and host and he was able to impart a good deal of photographic wisdom on his charges.  I will definitely do something like this again.

A few tips / comments:

·         When traveling plan your camera kit carefully.  This time I packed just right primarily because I wanted to get everything in one bag.  I brought my 35mm f/1.8G prime, a 24-70mm f/2.8G, an 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6G, and finally a Tokina 12-24mm f/4 wide angle.  Also, 1 SB-600 speedlight (which I probably could have left behind), one camera body, plenty of CF & SD cards and the Silk tripod mentioned earlier.  I really didn’t want to take too much or leave something important at home.  I planned my kit specifically for what I was going to shoot.

·         One tip Chris shared with me on the bus, “don’t use clear filters on your lens”.  This is another piece of glass that light needs to go through and even high end filters can impact the amount of light going through your lens.  The only time to use clear filters is in dusty, sandy or salt water environments.   Also, always use your lens hood.  This provides lots of protection to your lens, and much more than a clear filter.

·       When shooting people in the street, be brave and ask if you can photograph them.  I was amazed that almost everyone agreed.  OK, a few thought it was weird and said no, but more than 50% said “sure”.  Talk to them, and shoot from various angles.  Get their contact information and remember to send them copies.

·       If you are doing a workshop especially in a different city, then spend every waking hour talking about or taking photographs.  I could have slept in or hit some of the tourist sites during non-workshop times, but I was there to take photos, so every waking our I was either working on the photos or taking photos.

·         Bring a backup hard drive.  I did this and every night I loaded my images onto my computer and also onto the backup hard drive.  I didn’t want to lose any of my shots.