New technology releases

[Garth Herrick]

As near as is possible, here is a side by side comparison of the Nikon D100 and it's replacement, the D200:

I took these test shots and details in a halogen light. Same settings throughout between the cameras:

f/3.5
ISO 200
1/40 second shutter
Adobe 1998 color space
neutral "incandescent" white-balance preset.

same lens/ focal setting setting (24mm)
tripod
media card

I scaled up the D100 image to the same file size for comparison. The two crop details are at the D200's 100% therefore.

The D100 is inherently more conservative and greenish in it's color rendering in this white balance setting compared to the D200.

So, which is better?

again (age before beauty)
D100 top.
D200 bottom.

Garth

[Julie Deane]

Those pix look great, Garth! I definitely like the second shots better.

I just got my camera, but haven't really had time to play with it yet. And I'm just not that good at the technical stuff like Garth, but when I get a chance and know my way around may camera better, I'll post a few shots.

[Garth Herrick]

Thank you Julie for validating the shots from the new camera. I feel better now. It makes the color from the old camera look dirty and tired by comparison! I am personally impressed how the yellow flowers are so much more deftly rendered by the D200. The D100 lost control on those high value and chroma yellows; they're completely blown out. This is a measureable improvement!

To be sure, your new camera has virtually the same horsepower as mine, so I can't wait to see your first shots. Fire away!

Garth

[Garth Herrick]

I am so impressed with the new Nikon D200. It makes the old D100 look pretty crummy by comparison. Here's a big plus:

I am delighted to find there is terriffic exposure latitude, allowing for great highlight recovery when an image has been mildly overexposed. The image as shot has losses in the highlights, as all digital cameras are prone to. On my old D100, I might have to kiss an image goodbye if it was even a little overexposed. But the D200 has a great deal of highlight data retained in the RAW file. Thank goodness!

Yesterday we had a spontaneous street fair, including the world's first organic pie eating competition! It made for some great shooting opportunities to try out the camera, and I took full advantage. Along the way i got thirsty and made a donation for a glass of lemonade, which resulted in this shot of the little vendor, below.

The color rendering is just superb with this camera! The exposure is a little brighter than I am accustomed to (at 0 EV), so sometimes like this time, I seemingly lost some highlights critical to the image. However my fears were allayed upon the discovery of tremendous latitude latent in the image file, as I adjusted the exposure in Aperture (a RAW file photography application utility for the Mac, only). All the "lost" highlight information was in there!

Taking the original file and a mildly darkened exposure adjustment from Aperture into Photoshop, I overlayed the images to come up with an acceptable compromise and image recovery. This overlay adjustment can be manipulated any way to one's own liking and preference; and I was trying to retain the freshness and brightness of the original exposure as closely as possible, in my adjustment.

For comparison, below are the original exposure, te maximum exposure adjustment (2 stops) in Aperture, an adjustment of about minus 2/3 of a stop used with the overlay in Photoshop, and the result in Photoshop of the original at 50% in the overlay.

This is an example of how one can recover a paintable image from one that was overexposed. Very important in our business!

By the way, I just noticed I shot this at ISO 320. It would be even cleaner at the best setting of ISO 100 (still, it looks pretty good to me).

Garth

[Garth Herrick]

Here are 100% enlargement details of the same:

[Mike McCarty]

For those who lean toward the Pentax brand:

Pentax has announced its new ten megapixel K10D digital SLR. A long list of features include a '22 bit' analog to digital converter, CCD-shift type Shake Reduction, dust reduction, environment sealing, eleven point auto focus, sixteen segment metering, selectable program lines and some unique exposure modes including Sensitivity and combined Shutter/Aperture priority. The K10D also provides both Pentax PEF and DNG RAW format options.

Also, Pentax has today announced the DA 70 mm F2.4 Limited "pancake design"' lens. This new lens measures just 26 mm (1 inch) in length and weighs 130 g (4.6 oz). Its DA prefix indicating this is a digital-only lens and on a Pentax Digital SLR would produce an equivalent field of view of approximately 107 mm (in 35 mm format).

[Mike McCarty]

COLOGNE, GERMANY, Sep. 26, 2006