Happy New Year

To put is simply, I wish you all the best in 2008, may all your wishes and dreams come true!

In the spirit of this time of year, I went around town yesterday, with D300, Nikkor 14-24 and a tripod to do some shots. I have mixed feeling about it - concerning lights in town. There were a lot less then previous years and even if this makes a bit smaller lighting effect, power consumption and energy saving is a lot better due to this. Not to mention light pollution. So it's all good :)
Have a great one!

Nikkor 14-24 AF-S 2.8 N

WOW! That's the first thing that comes to mind with this lense. WOW!
I received the Nikkor 14-24 2.8 AF-S N lens along with my demo model of D300 and I just can't stop thinking about it. It's amazingly sharp even when fully open at both ends. It gets you into really cramp spaces, handles low light really well and could be used as a weapon if needed as well. It's makes D3 look small (look image above), not to mention D300. It's HUGE. Weight in at 1kg (35oz) and 131mm (5 inches) length. It's about 98mm (4 inches)in diameter so forget any kind of filter on this one. Lens hood is fixed on. Doesn't work on manual cams, has no aperture ring. But does handle DX and FX sensors.
If you're looking for a sharp and fast wide lens, you can just stop searching. It doesn't get much better then this.
I'd get mine here.
Here are some first test shots. All done in NEF, imported into Lightroom, default settings, no additional adjustments, whole images resized down, details in 1:1.
Nikon D300 + Nikkor 14-24 @ 14mm, 1/50, f2.8, ISO400

Nikon D300 + Nikkor 14-24 @ 14mm, 1/40, f16, ISO200

Edge detail:

Nikon D300 + Nikkor 14-24 @ 24mm, 1/640, f2,8, ISO200

Edge detail:

Nikon D300 + Nikkor 14-24 @ 16mm, 1/100, f10, ISO200

Edge detail:

Nikon D300 and D70s noise comparison

So I finally got the smaller brother, D300 for a test. Came in a nice bag from Nikon office, with a lovely surprise as well: Nikkor 14-24 2.8 AF-S N. I'll talk more about the lens later, the first thing I wanted to do with D300 were some homemade ISO tests. I've done a bunch of them: NR off, low, normal and high, with ambient light and with flash. Overall I'm quite impressed with noise levels. I'll post some shots after I sort everything out.
The next thing I was curious about, was the noise comparison with my trusty D70s. I just can't seem to get away from this cam. Was set to trade it for D200 a year ago, but it always keeps surprising me.. in a positive way.
So, here are some shots. Same setup: one flash, iso 1600, all NR off, nef, normal import into Lightroom, default LR settings, no pp of any kind, screenprint..
Of course sensors are different so you can't really compare them, but you get the overall impression. I was surprised.. again..

Setup (focus was on the smiley face):



D70s on the right (which is clear by it's "famous" underexposing), D300 on the left.

Nikon D3/D300 event..

Yesterday Slovenian Nikon office held their... 6th?.. D3/D300 preview with a local photo store & lab Fotograd. The thing was held in a coffee house accompanied by short movie (history of Nikon), presentation about basic color management (was no way near enough time for anything more advanced) and a test shot with both cams and all the latest lenses. I probably don't need to tell you, working with D3 and pro lenses is simply amazing. The sharpness and color reproduction of D3 and D300 are as good as they get. Strangely, most people preferred chatting with each other, then making shots. So I took A LOT of shots (and this has absolutely nothing to do with the lovely model available; she was great btw), with both cams all 5 lenses and have to admit, have been thinking what to sell to get D3, since then.
I won't post any pictures, since the shots weren't consistent and done under "lab" conditions. That'll come later.

Nikon D300 Exposure and Active D-Lighting

I've been reading a lot about Nikon D300 under/over exposed problem online, but so far, I can't agree with that. I've tested the cam twice now and it works perfectly. The one thing I can think of is the Active D-lighting. People aren't familiarized with this function and how it works yet. When on, ADL will alter the exposure and underexpose the image to retain more details in shadow and highlight areas. So if someone has this function ON and doesn't know about it, he/she could say the cam underexpose.
D70s did have this exposure "problem", but under is always better then over. And if you shoot in raw, it's no problem.
I'm sure owners of Nikon D300 have already found and tested the ADL and know how it works, for the rest of you, D300 doesn't have exposure problems.

D300

Nikon D300.. if you're into photography in any way, I'm sure you've heard/read about this cam (and it's older brother D3 as well probably). D300 finally became available to our market a week ago and I don't need to tell you, sellers are out of stock already. And they didn't import single digits either, I hear they were in triple digits (you have to understand one thing, Slovenia has around 2m population, so that's a lot).
Since I write for two magazines here in Slovenia, I got a change to preview and play with both cameras a few months ago. I'm also scheduled to get D300 for a full test this week, so consider this post as a preview.
I personally own D70s which I love. It's a great and light camera, fits my needs perfectly. I've been thinking to upgrade to D200 a year ago, but (and here's why I won't upgrade to D300 either) to get *any* improvement on the picture quality over D70s, I need to go full frame or FX as Nikon calls it. The ONLY advantage to get a 10 or 12Mpix sensor over the 6M in D70s in the crop capabilities. Overall image quality between D70s and D200 is practically identical. And I've been using D200 for months as well. Sometimes D70s produces even better images then D200, due to less pixels on same sensor size. Pixels are just a marketing trick people, get over it. There's a reason why D3 with FF/FX sensor has "only" 12Mpx and not more.. and thank you Nikon for that! No wonder high ISO is AMAZING!
I might get tempted to get a used D200 now, as you can imagine, there are loads on ebay and out local "flea markets".
Photokina is next year, I bet Nikon will come out with FX sensor in D300 body.
It's going to be a busy year 2008..
I'd get mine D300 here.