From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/
I should have done it sooner - I knew both my main cameras were acting up a little and had focus problems. Over the last few years I have sent in every camera I've owned except the Fuji S5 (D200 with different guts/sensor)- probably because I don't have a lot of wear on it.
My D300s is a year old (I think) and was doing ok but then started to focus hunt and then stop - and had trouble being "Accurate". Having had trouble in the past, I tried the same lens on my D300 and had somewhat better luck (but a different problem). So I began to use my D300 for action / birds in flight. I sent in the D300s to be tuned, cleaned, and calibrated - and they did just that and it works much better now. Nikon service fixed it for free, doing the work under warranty.
The D300s was still functional but didn't perform well. So I found myself juggling bodies for action and then video - because the D300s does video and the D300 doesn't. That finally got old, and with the summer wrapping up, and fall just around the corner I got the D300s fixed. It has about 48,000 shots on it now.
Now the D300.
This camera has been in for service now 3 times. It has over 120,000 shots on it and I've used it for around 3 years. The first time I sent it in was for the same type of focus trouble that the D300s had - hunting, bad performance, and giving up trying to focus without having gained focus. The second time was when a sensor for the mirror went bad - the mirror would bounce during the shutter/exposure, and would then stay UP, not down. The camera was a couple years old and I think I had to pay for the repair. But when I got it back the focus points didn't line up with the actual focus.
It was strange, if you selected the center focus point it would often appear to be ok, but in fact it was getting focus from just to the left and down about a sensor's width and height over. There were two very specific hints that something was very wrong with the camera when I got it back. The screen cover for the back of the camera was cracked.
Then about 2 weeks later I noticed that the hotshoe wouldn't accept a flash - it was bent a bit and the flash didn't fit. It was then I knew the camera had been dropped. I didn't drop it, and I doubt HIGHLY that Nikon Service would drop it and wrap it up and send it back. So, since it was boxed and in bubble wrap, the only way it could have happened during the repair process - was if the store I sent it back via had done it. They must have got the camera back, and during the unboxing processes dropped it, it bounced, cracked the screen, bent the hot shoe, and what took the most time to discover - WHACKED the focus alignments/calibration.
I won't name the store, but they've got a history of being jerks in my local community - and they won't be getting any of my business any more.
So, when I sent it in asking for cleaning and adjustments, and calibration to fix focus, and the misaligned focus points, nearly a year later, I expected Nikon Service to charge me. But THEY are good. Unlike the store that broke stuff and pretended nothing happened - Nikon Service just fixed it under the old repair warranty. Now that's nice, not to have to complain, or beg, or pay for it to be made right.
I shot this with the repaired D300s - it's at 400mm and 1/160th of a second.
One big thing to consider is that focus is a fickle thing - and it impacts how VR performs. VR uses focus as part of its math (from what I've heard) - so having a poorly performing focus system may make VR less effective. Before I had the camera recently repaired getting a good infocus, sharp shot like the above was very hard. They all seemed to just be off a little.
I don't know if it will be very noticeable in this osprey photo taken with the broken camera months ago - because it is one of the better ones, but the focus is just behind the head, more towards the body. What I found, probably the hardest case for a camera to focus well in, is that for birds in flight, where the distance is changing, ie toward the camera, a poorly performing camera will not do well. I think it lags behind, and might seem to be "back-focus" but it is more likely "lag-focus" where the camera is just behind in its calculations, and can't get it right / or perfect, and the movement makes it visible.
This spring and summer I literally took thousands of birds in flight shots that left me wanting more, better focus, sharper detail... Having been out shooting now just a couple weeks with the repaired D300s - I found it much better at doing a good job. And even in the hardest cases - like seeing a flying bird and wipping up the camera/lens and trying to get focus before it vanishes from view - it did ok, fast, and accurately. The repaired D300s even did ok on far off moving birds in FOG! Fog is rough, and it did ok.
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~4 years ago I broke my D70s with about 45,000 shots on it - breaking the shutter! Nikon fixed it for free. Since then the card reader/writer died, and it randomly takes a shot and turns the card in to jibberish and writes random stuff to it. I haven't had it fixed, but I still have it. The electronic shutter (aka strobist hackable) makes it worth it - some day I will pursue getting that repaired.
~1 year ago I had my D200 refurbished - cleaned, tuned, adjusted, and had the rubber-grip replaced so it looked like new! And they only charged me around ~240 if I recall correctly. That camera had around 160,000 shots on it at the time.
I am pretty ready for fall now. The D300 will be back in my hands probably in a week. All I need to get tuned up is my 80-400mm which probably needs gears replaced because I have really beaten it up over the years and it doesn't focus well, and no where near as cleanly as a new 80-400mm (I've borrowed a friends).
The Take Away - get your gear (mainly body) tuned, cleaned, and focus-adjusted every year if you shoot a lot, and every couple years if you shoot some. And if you think your camera isn't performing, focus, metering, etc, properly, SEND IT IN right away.
Sending stuff to Nikon now - I use UPS and insure for the replacement cost, and Nikon Service in Melville NY is very fair and does a great job.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Gear Tune Up - Success
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Gear - multiple bodies
From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/
I try not to write about gear too much. Gear should work, not be the focus of major thought or discussion, and be the tools used to do something - take images.
There's a funny reply to the comment "wow great photo, what kind of camera do you have?" - something like "would you ask Shakespeare what of kind of pen he had?" The tools play a part, but they don't do the thing, they don't automate the making of great images.
Time and effort is best spent focusing on learning about subjects, locations, photographic techniques. Time should be spent researching, appreciating the work of others, and trying to grow as a photographer.
All that said, I just read a very good review by Thom on the 200-400mm VR lens. And then just a day later I read the very brief (too brief in my mind to really count for a review) of the new 200-400mm VR2 lens by Trey.
read more...
I agree with pretty much everything Thom said about the lens in his review. Great lens, and have issues, and struggles at 400mm for long distance shooting, and struggles even more with converters. But close up to medium distances it is great. Thom also noted much of the time he used the lens he used different bodies, as new ones became available, and very often got varying results.
Having Multiple Bodies
There are multiple benefits to having more than one Digital SLR. The most obvious of which is that you can be out shooting and have two lenses mounted and ready to go. One might have a short zoom, and the other a long telephoto. Like I said, that's the most obvious of reasons to have 2 cameras.
Assuming the cameras are from the same manufacturers (same lens mount), and might share the same batteries (like many Nikons) - there's the benefit of swappable batteries, multiple chargers, similarities in menu systems and controls, etc.
A second body is also great as a backup. Most of the time you can only shoot with one camera at a time, so, you only really NEED one camera, which makes the second camera often best thought of as a standby in case the first camera breaks, fails, dies, etc. I've bought 5 digital SLRs and more than a couple times I've had to send one in to be repaired. Actually, I never send the D70s in to be fixed. It has trouble writing to the memory card, and some times writes jibberish. The D200, D300 both went in for focus issues, and the D300 more than once. The D300 actually also had a sensor die that detects the state of the mirror (it would stick UP).
In reading Thom's review, and remembering some of the problems I've had with gear, it reminded how good it can be to have a second body. Focus performance can be a very frustrating thing to investigate. Thom said that for his 200-400mm lens the major thing regarding focus was the body, not the lens. I agree.
Last year I wondered and worried about my D300 and 200-400mm VR and the focus or lack of focus performance I was getting. As part of that I wound up going back to shoot with my old D200 and was shocked to discover that the D200 was working better for fast focus tracking.
I sent the D300 in to be "fixed" and they tuned it, cleaned it, and also set everything to the opposite of how I had it (release priority, small jpg, 9-point, blah blah).
Recently I've been using my D300s and have had some strange focus problems. With the 200-400mm I've had it hunt briefly for focus, and then give up. I scratched my head for a while, and then tried the D300 and the problem went away, it was working properly. Most likely for my issues with focus it is my gear and it is that I let my gear get dirty and I push my expectations to where I should probably get a pro level body like a D3...
So, my post was motivated by this discovery, and I finally got to the point. Having more than one camera to use allows for an entirely different set of tests you can try to see if it is you, or the lens, or the camera, or the conditions you're shooting in, or maybe nothing is wrong and everything is behaving as best as can be expected. With one camera and a problem, you might never be able to figure it out, because you have no other camera body to make a comparison to.
Focus problems with a pro-sumer level dSLR is a very common thing. I've had questions and some times actual focus problems with all my gear - as early as with the D70s and Tamron 18-200mm. Back then it was me, and my novice ways. I didn't understand focus, auto-focus, and it works be "Seeing" contrast. Try focusing on the sky or a brightly lit white wall without features - there no contrast and the camera will hunt and find nothing. Auto-focus works by seeing a change in brightness levels (contrast) and adjusting the focus until there is a sharp or distinct transition (my un-technical description). Cameras use two type of focus sensor, straight-line sensors and 2 perpendicular straight-line sensors grouped together as one.
That's auto-focus 101. When things start to get complicated is for moving subjects, placement in the frame, the direction of the movement, the speed of the movement, and the settings and horsepower of the camera itself. Trying to figure those things out and what works best and when isn't easy.
Being able to rule out a faulty or dirty or mis-configured or mishandled camera and lens is a huge thing. Not everyone will push their gear to the limits. I don't travel to Alaska or Africa, or other exotic places, but I do seem to push things.
Birds in flight or sports are probably a couple of the most demanding focus situations to shoot in. And birds are probably harder since they are small and can move in all directions while for most sports the subjects remain on or close to the ground.
If you are upgrading to a newer camera, keep the old one. If you have a good camera now, consider buying another lesser one, used, and keep it around as second to shoot with or test things out when you run in to problems.
5 years ago I felt I really spend a lot and was done buying gear when I bought my first dSLR, a D70s and a single lens. That was 2005, now it is 2010 and I shoot with 3 bodies often taking 2 out on a day. The Fuji S5 is great for high dynamic range shooting and makes a nice landscape camera. For everything else I use either a D300 or D300s, and usually it's the D300s since I can switch to video.
Monday, July 5, 2010
DC Fireworks July 4th 2010
From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/
Yesterday was the 4th of July and I made my second serious attempt to shoot the DC fireworks.
Like any major event downtown or nearby Washington DC it takes the right mindset and a plan to avoid unplanned pitfalls or something which might make the night a bust. For the 4th of July the things to plan for are the spot to shoot from, transportation to and from there, and having the right gear and supplies to make it somewhat comfortable.
I was leaning towards trying to shoot from near the Iwo Jima Memorial and did just that. I started surveying the area, road closures, access to various places around 1PM - a full 8 hours before the fireworks. I parked in a grassy area setup by the park police near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery when heading north on the George Washington Parkway. By 2:30 or so I had walked to the Iwo Jima Memorial and picked a spot in the shade to wait and finalize my plans from. By around 7PM the area started to get fairly busy and I picked my final spot - where I took this shot looking back up the hill from.
For supplies I packed a Gatorade, 4 frozen waters, a soda and some trail-mix.
read more...
For gear I packed my D300 and D300s, 80-400mmVR and 18-200mmVR and my two tripods. I also had a cable release and stereo microphone. Last fall I got a VariND, a variable Neutral Density filter and I brought that, and a circular polarizer too. I also brought a bag chair, and a couple of camera bags to carry the stuff in. In all I probably had like 30 pounds of stuff, maybe more.
I posted this one last night right after I got home. It might be the best of the night I got.
What Worked Well
The gear I picked was enough. Lol, I brought a ton, but I did leave another camera home (Fuji S5) and a video camera. Since I knew I'd be walking a lot and heading back to my car in the dark, I didn't bring my 200-400mm. It is a great somewhat fast lens but is huge and weighs a lot. The 80-400mm worked better because I had a ND filter for it, and could shoot long exposures without having to stop down to f/18 or more and go past the sharp range of the lens (and avoid highlighting dust spots on my sensor).
Part way in to shooting I had to adjust my exposures a bit and remembered something from a podcast I had just listened to regarding low ISO. Nikon makes the ISOs below 200 low-1, 2 and 3. The reason these are low is that below ISO 200 the camera doesn't perform as well, possibly with more noise than at ISO 200. So I adjusted my ISO up to ISO 200.
The VariND on the 80-400mm lens also worked well. I wound up using it to adjust my exposure once I was setup and rolling. I chimped some shots, and increased the ND a bit.
While reviewing last year's images I realized I was not zoomed in nearly enough. This year I made sure to try to get tighter shots, more full frame. Part of my thinking was that fireworks are set off all over the country, but the thing that makes seeing them in Washington DC so special is the surroundings / the monuments, the Capital Building, etc. I did way better than last year, but it wasn't until almost the end that I zoomed in on the 80-400 past around 250 or 300mm.
What Didn't Work Well
Operating two cameras led to many more shots than what I could have done with just one camera. However I think I did two things wrong. I had the tripods very close and touching eachother, or at least the stuff I had hanging from the tripods (to add weight) were touching. This led to shooting with one camera and adjust the other and moving that first camera a bit. I have some images that show movement in the camera.
I shot in manual focus on both cameras. This speeds things up, prevents focusing on close trees and makes for consistency. However, I didn't pay close enough attention on the 18-200mm and D300s and a large group of early shots are out of focus, focused closer than what I wanted.
Shooting two cameras at the same time isn't something I've ever done like this, so all in all I did ok.
What I Might Try Differently Next Year
Shooting from near the Iwo Jima Memorial was pretty cool. I got the shots I wanted and had planned for. Getting all 3 Washington icons in tight formation was what I'd seen in my minds eye.
Next year I might see about shooting from downtown DC or somewhere else. I've seen some shots from behind the Capital building looking west that were very good, and made the Capital build the major "dc" element...
Friday, January 22, 2010
Great Blue Heron Video
I just figured out why previous videos weren't filling the frame when I did the edit (adding images auto selected 4:3 aspect ratio even when video was 16:9, and then when the two were mixed neither filled the frame.).... Edit done in Windows Movie Maker, captured with D300s.
I tried to change the aspect ratio on an existing Movie Maker project's images and it hung the app. So, the below video is a re-do on a movie I was trying to make. It actually took me a few tries to make a project from scratch that behaved correctly, in the end I made a new project, changed the image aspect ratio without any files or clips added, saved that, then closed MM and opened my project fresh and it worked.
One of the things mentioned in a recent This Week in Photography podcast episode was when shooting video not to pan around and chase the action like you might for still images. But instead setup the video camera and let the action happen inside the frame.
For this footage that's just what I'd done, setup the camera and let stuff happen without moving around.
-50-
-Jon
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Nikon d300s Movie mode and settings
I decided to do something silly, and downloaded the manual for the D300s.
Having read through just the part for Movie starting at page 57, I think I've already learned a few important things.
I'm planning to shoot from a tripod with a long lens, so I have the camera setup in tripod mode for movies... (A couple things are different in handheld mode.)
Here are my the highlight as I see them so far. I will add to this post as I learn new things.
1) play button (hold) plus the up and down on the multiselector to adjust the screen brightness (not the exposure!)
2) play button (hold) plus the left button on the multiselector switches to adjusting the audio level/mode.
3) When in A or M mode, the current value for aperture will be the setting for aperture during movie capture. Shutter values will be set automatically.
4) When in other modes (S or P) the camera selects both aperture and shutter values will be set automatically by the camera.
5) I'm not sure about ISO in movie mode because I didn't find that section for movies in the manual yet, but I suspect it automatically switches to auto-iso, otherwise in low light it could never to 24fps since it would need to be at a minumum of 1/24th shutter speed.
6) To adjust exposure compensation for movies, use the exposure compensation setting, the same one used for still images! Someone told me about adjusting exposure by the method in above #1, but that's just the screen brightness as far as I can tell. Actual adjustment of brightness and darkness of is set the same as for photos. This is much better than what I initially thought, because it makes the exposure adjustment 'sticky' so that it survives clips, and changing modes in and out of live view / movie mode.
7) There is autofocus in movie mode, but you HAVE to use the AF-ON button while in tripod mode. I had been trying to use the shutter button, and didn't have any luck, because that doesn't work. (In handheld mode it appears the shutter button engages autofocus in live view prior to starting to record.) The way I was doing it was to focus in still image mode first, then switch to live view and then start recording.
This new information to me makes a lot of sense. I was shooting snow geese at sunrise and kept mistakenly trying to adjust the exposure but in fact I wasn't. When I got home and reviewed the movies they all seemed too bright, and I thought I had adjusted things properly...
I've only had the camera a few weeks, and I think I've only shot in manual mode for still images, and had not adjust the EV comp.
-50-
-Jon
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Sunday, December 13, 2009
Some D300s Bald Eagle Videos
I've had the camera a few weeks now, the Nikon D300s, and I think it is very similar to the D300 for still images, and that's fine. I haven't noticed any big differences, and just remembered one thing I want to do is take another custom white balance reading with an expo disc, and then set my normal fine tune to that. I do shoot RAW, but often still set the WB to custom because it looks closer to accurate color on the back of the camera.
The 2nd memory card slot is neat, I've got a 16GB compact flash card, and an 8GB SD card with the video going to the SD card and still images to the CF card.
Read on for more and for the 2 new videos.
One thing I am not immediately happy about is the format (720p AVI) is not recognized properly by my normal (old) fav video edit app (Video Vegas). These are edited in Windows Live Movie Maker.
I'm going to try to convert in movie maker to WMV and then use Video Vegas. So far that appears to be working, but I've yet to view the output video. I suspect it is going to be lower quality/ smaller video.
I do have Nero from my DVD player and will try that, but in the past I've found VV to be the most intuitive app to use, and it has some nice overlay features for text, images, and the transitions are easy to do. Nero has seemed pretty clunky or required multiple isolated areas of work to put something together.
By comparison, the Canon HD video camera I have produces some strange format for the video, and the version of Nero that came with it crashes not just the app, but reboots my computer completely. And the update/uninstall and reinstall process is horrible. If only that camera came with a simple tool to convert the video to something standard, doing just that, I'd be much happier with the camera.
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Back to the D300s's video, I don't see how it can be very useful for moving scenes/subjects without autofocus that works well.
One plus about the size of the D300s's sensor and the resulting video is that teleconverters really don't degrade the video quality as far as I can tell. I've been setting focus in still image mode, turning on live view, then adjusting exposure (play button held down + multi-selector UP or DOWN), and then hitting record (center button of multi-selector).
Also, I use the Azden SMX-10 mic for stereo audio. In windy conditions it still picks up a LOT of wind noise, so I need to add a sock or two or something...
-Jon
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Monday, December 7, 2009
Shooting from a Blind
I started to shoot from a blind a month or two ago. It's been an interesting and sometimes funny addition to my shooting style.
The blind I got is the Kwik Blind from naturescapes.net's store. It was not much money, especially when you consider the time and effort and camera gear involved... I've spent twice as much on a single memory card!
The good thing about a blind like the one I got is that it is small and light and comes with pouch on a belt so it is easy to carry around.
read on for more.
The down side to using a blind and setting up while there's light out is that (at least when I did it) the birds saw me and flew off a bit. And then it becomes a waiting game. I waited a bunch and was nearly ready to move on (40 minutes in to waiting one time) but I stuck it out. It turns in to a bet on the odds and I kept doubling down.
I had my ipod and was passing the time, and was beginning to learn the ins and outs of using a blind.
Along with the blind I got a Walkstool, the XXL one, but it turned out to be way too high to be comfortable on non-level ground. I used my LLBean low-chair instead, it has legs that are about 4 inches high and was great for getting low and sitting above the muck.
Eventually the Snowy Egret I was hoping to shoot from close up came back. It took a while, during which time he would look towards me and shake his head like he wasn't believing his eyes because part of him knew I was still there. Lol. Anyway he did come back, and then all that grass was in the way. I learned from that setup that I needed to plan the spot just a little better. Get closer to the grass to shoot through it, not from behind it so much or something like that.
For the shots in this post I was at Chincoteague along the Wildlife Drive. I'd only shot here, well, almost never. It was new to me mostly. I focused on the area where there are pipes that allow water to flow from one pond to another, where the egrets and herons spent a lot of time fishing in that concentrated flow of water.
The funny incident was when an older fella went by on a bike and circled back around to ask me what I saw with my MICROSCOPE, and kept shouting at me to get a response. I pretended, and ignored him, I was HIDING! But I learned I need to hide not just from the birds, but the people too.
And for that matter, people in cars didn't help much either. Often they'd see me or my blind and pull up right behind me or next to me and want to see what I was seeing. Some time people would get out of their car too. That was a learning experience for me no doubt. I later positioned my own car so that it was between me and the road, so there was not a spot for someone to stop DIRECTLY behind me. And with the car angled just a little it would make it harder to see my spot when they approached but easier once they were past me...
At least one time someone said from their car 'oh sorry, didn't see you there' which I believed. They were either paying little attention to my spot or the camo was working or who knows.
I've only posted a few photos to my flickr where I used the blind, since results have not been amazing yet, but I've been encouraged none the less... Here are some shots taken from the new blind:
The above was taken from the setup as seen in the first photo above. It worked pretty well, but that was also the spot where people saw me too easily.
(A person got out of their car to shoot the bird after seeing me I guess, and the bird immediately flew off, before they had the camera and tripod out.......)
(they weren't all that close but I was in the blind)
This fall I've tried a few new things, gone to a few new places, and indeed gotten some new results.
This winter and spring I will be using the blind more, shooting some video with my new D300s (and 1.7x TC), and continuing to try to push myself past my comfort zone. Photography is 'just' my hobby, but I like to take it pretty seriously and work hard to get improving results.
Happy Shooting.
-Jon
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