Can we have a quick discussion about the Nikon announcement?

I had a chance to read all the promotional stuff from Nikon this morning, as well as the mindless chatter of articles on DPReview. My take is that Nikon produced a very nice first try of a mirrorless camera. They got some stuff right and then swung and missed on some other stuff. If I was a Nikon shooter I'd think about adding one of the two bodies to my inventory for things like those times when you really do need a silent shutter or when you really need to have autofocus that works well in video. I think their choice of sensors is perfect; one for ultimate image quality and one for great overall quality and speed (24 and 45 megapixels). 

I haven't handled one but it looks like they got the grip right. I'm pretty sure the lens mount will end up being a good decision down the road although I hate the idea of having to buy new lenses when the old Nikon F lenses still work so well. An interesting possible benefit to the people who aren't thinking of making the switch from Nikon F to Nikon Z any time in the near future might be that with other people switching the used market will be flooded with excellent F glass (and bodies) at ever lowering prices. I'm still looking for that perfect D810 but at a $1200 price point. It will happen, it might just take a bit more time.

I'm also happy with the overall styling of the camera but time will tell if it's too small to handle well or if it is too light to provide a solid and vibration resistant platform. By popular demand (and marketing necessity) the cameras feature five axis image stabilization with the Z lenses and three axis stabilization with older AFS lenses. People will love that the AF points in the flagship camera occupy the majority of the frame. 

Videographers will scratch their collective heads, wondering why some video features were not improved vis-a-vis the D850 but most will take a wait and see position pending actually shooting some files and looking at them. Nikon seems to view suppliers like Atomos as a natural ally and feature supplimenter for video in that high quality codecs (the sort of which can be handled in camera by GH5 cameras) are only available when using an external video recorder. If you want anything more than 100 Mbs 8 bit files you'll need to use the HDMI port to export into a digital recorder to unlock the good stuff. In a certain way it makes sense but when a two year old camera can suck up faster bit rate files with much more information and then write them in camera you have to wonder how serious Nikon is about the video market....

So, good feature sets, nice new lens mount, in body image stabilization, some backward compatibility with F lenses, a pretty body design, and full frame UHD video are all really nice and useful. We like to think about having these things. But where has the ball been dropped? Where was there potential that remains unrealized? Let's see.

I'll start with the battery. It's a variant of the EL-EN 15 and it's only rated at 330 shots. I know that the camera has continuous live view and those faster processors suck up juice like crazy but I also know that if the marketing team hadn't badgered the designers to try and get close to Sony's dwarfish camera body size they could have made the camera a bit bigger, easier to handle, a more stable platform for handholding, and a home for a bigger and more enduring battery. I think a battery grip will help but one will still get about half the battery mileage one gets with an off the shelf, traditionally mirrored DSLR.

The video specs are nothing to write home about. The 8 bit, 4:2:0 in-camera codec seems underpowered when Panasonic GH5 and GH5s cameras can write up to 400 Mbs in camera and offer a wide variety of 10 bit, 422 files that can be recorded in-camera onto a standard V90 SD card. The GH5S can also offer codecs that allow you to shoot 4K at 60p while the Nikon is restricted to 30p in 4K. According to pundits, who may or may not have actually shot any real video with the new Nikons, the rolling shutter at the full frame, 4K setting is nothing to write home about. 

Finally, even though Panasonic showed the way into the hearts and minds of serious filmmakers with in camera tools such as a vector scope and a wave form monitor Nikon chose to stick to the hobbyist route and leave these valuable features out. If you are a serious video shooter and you are using an Atomos Ninja Something or Other you'll be able to take advantage of those advanced features and also "false color" in spite of these features not being offered on the camera. 

From what I'm reading they did get the EVF just about right. Very high res and very nice eyepiece optics but they wimped out in the engineering a bit and stuck with a 60 fps refresh rate instead of pushing the envelope and implementing a 120 fps lens rate as debuted in the Panasonic GH5S.

To sum up: I think Nikon put some good thought and design skills into making a better body design than Fuji or Sony have been able to do. Unlike some naysayers I think the bigger lens mount will lead to more interesting and higher performances lenses (if Nikon rises to the challenge). For most social media and web-based video, corporate or otherwise, I think the video specs are quite usable and you could consider this a true, hybrid video camera (thought not as well provisioned as at least two of the less expensive cameras from Panasonic). 

People will bitch and whine, mostly for no good reason, about things like the single card slot for memory cards, or the fact that the camera just takes QXD cards. People will always bitch about price. But the majority of camera buyers will be satisfied that these will be  great work and play cameras; especially for people who have long used Nikon and are bored with their current cameras and ready to see just how good photography can be with a well designed mirrorless camera with a nice EVF. 

It really doesn't matter who was first to market. Panasonic rolled out a full on mirrorless concept ten years ago and the innovation alone certainly didn't rocket them to the top of the market. In many ways I think Nikon was smart to let everyone else grapple with the complexity of innovation and to come along and leverage all the engineering work and the heavy lifting of marketing ground work, done by others, in making mirrorless a successful concept on the eyes of consumers. Nikon was able to continue to sell millions of more traditional cameras while Olympus, Panasonic, Sony and Fuji worked hard at selling the "concept" of a new kind of camera to somewhat wary consumers. Now that the concept has been driven home the vast majority of the worldwide market now feel comfortable in making the transition and Nikon has swooped in with no legacy baggage in the space and should be able to grab a great R.O.I. because both they and Canon still own most of the mindshare among photographers who spend and upgrade. A nice strategy. The Zune was one of the first MPEG portable music players but it is now buried in a shallow grave in the tech history grave yard while late arrival, Apple, cleaned up in the space and then used their iPod product as the technical launching pad for the insanely successful iPhone. 

Will I buy one of these new cameras? Sure. I'll make construct a rationalization around the idea of just getting the 24 meg version and the 50mm lens and becoming a "one camera and one lens" purist. But you know me. By the end of the year I'll have most of the inventory squirreled away in my bag. 

At this point though I'm finding a lot more to like about the GH5S. It's not just a video camera. But more on that later.

What are your thoughts on Nikon's announcement? Will they be able to deliver in bulk? Will they kick Sony's butt? Are still cameras just a dead end? Comment?   

Those days when you think of selling a couple thousand pounds of cameras, lights and stuff, buying an old M4 and a 50mm Summicron and walking away from the routine. Where did I put that brick of Kodachrome?

I thought you might like to see what a video frame from a GH5S, shooting in L. Monochrome with an Olympus 12-100mm f4.0 Pro, looks like when we pull a still frame.

A frame from a 4K video clip shot at Esther's Follies on a Panasonic GH5S.

The cast is doing a script rehearsal. Fascinating to me. 

(Below: my edited version. The target I'll aim for in the promotional video)

(Maybe with a bit less added noise the next time around.....). 

I've read over the last few years that we will soon be able to pull still frames from our videos. I decided this afternoon to see what a 4K still frame, taken directly from a handheld video clip shot at 30 fps (1/60th of a second shutter) with the lens set at f4.0.

Well, this is what mine looks like. I would guess that by using a tripod I could have made the frame even sharper. I would also add a bit more midrange contrast to the image but wanted to present the file the way it was shot for video.

It's interesting to me to see just how nice the frame looks prior to grading or post processing.

My GH5S gets more interesting every day that I shoot with it.

As I think about the new Nikon mirrorless cameras I find myself looking back at work done on a wide range of Nikon cameras. From the D100 through the D850, and lots of stops in between.

from a rehearsal of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" circa 2006.

If you want to figure out what kind of camera (and what brand of camera) you really like to shoot with it may be instructional for you to go back and look at which cameras (and brands) have cycled through your hands with the greatest frequency. What did you like about them and what led you to change into other systems. 

One of the system I seem to gravitate toward most often is Nikon. Specifically, traditional Nikon DSLR cameras. I can generally pick up any of the cameras they've made in the past two decades and figure them out in minutes. They feel good. And, with hindsight being better than presbyopia, I can see that even the older models were, in fact, good performers. By that I mean the images you could create with them were excellent. Some I would rate as excellent in their time but some were just flat out excellent, even when compared to today's cameras. 

I looking through the files I came across a set of images that I shot for the theater production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Some were done with with one of my least favorite cameras, the D200 and some were taken with one of my favorite Nikon cameras, the D2X (see image at the top of the article). 

There is an undercurrent of thought, becoming more prevalent among photographers, which posits that the camera industries much touted advancements in the last ten years have been less spectacular than marketing and industry reporting would have us believe. As I look through various files I've come across material we shot with a 2002 Kodak DCS 760 which our clients used as 4x6 foot point of purchase displays; and marveled at how good it looks. Ditto for the much underrated (image quality wise) Kodak DCS SLR/n. We shot a series of images that became large wall graphics using the low ISO settings on that camera and the files seemed better than some of the images I've pulled off much more recent and higher res cameras. (The SLR/n had an ISO 25 setting that worked by making multiple exposures into one file while reducing noise via anomaly cancellation processing. The end result was files of incredible detail and sharpness with no discernible noise. The trade off was the need to shoot with continuous light and the long shooting a processing times...). 

Even the files from the early D100 were good. The sensor in that camera was a 6 megapixel one in an APS-C size. That camera's biggest fault was a tiny raw buffer. You got four shots and then the camera went dormant for while in order to process them....

I have several favorites from the middle years of Nikon digital cameras, including: The D2XS. It was prone to noise at any ISO setting above 640 but the files in the sweet range (200-400) were/are competitive with anything on the market today, when comparing like sizes. It was a rock solid camera that nailed focus without much fuss and yielded great color without much sweat in post. 

The D700 deserves to be considered as one of the legendary cameras of the digital age. And the next big step up was the D800/D800e. It's six years on since the D800e and yet, when I compare files with a D810 at ISO 100 I'm sure not seeing six years of quality increase or magic. A bit more dynamic range for people destined to shoot outside in the sun but for most people either camera is so capable of delivering amazing files that the recurrent limitation will be that of most people's technical skills or the quality of their lens collection.

I sold my mid-term Nikons and jumped to Canon at a time when Nikon didn't have any full frame cameras with a resolution over 12 megapixels. Canon had come out with the 5D2 and it was a pretty amazing camera in it's time. I was personally happy with the D700 but I had a few clients who were clearly mesmerized by the marketing hype of high resolution and I felt like I needed to keep up with the Joneses. We weren't nearly as smart back then. I bought the technical enticements hook, line and sinker.

When Nikon launched the D3X and I looked at the price tag I felt entirely vindicated for choosing the Canon and it took a while for Nikon to step up and match. The Canons were great cameras but after Nikon got up to speed with the D750 I switched back again (and there were "sub-systems" in between). 

Now I am actually waiting with a bit of excitement to see what Nikon presents us at tomorrow's launch. I can get all lofty and say that I don't need anything beyond what I have today but I'll just repeat a quote from the character of Mr. Burns on "The Simpsons" when Lisa Simpson asks him (paraphrasing here): 'You are one of the richest men in the world why keep chasing stuff?' and he responds that while he is quite rich  ----- "I would gladly trade it all for just a little more!"

I'm by no means rich but, where cameras are concerned I often have the feeling that I too would, "Gladly trade them all for some just a little newer..."

Currently working through the obvious logic dysfunction I've describe here....

Looking back I am amazed at how much I disliked the D200 and how much I enjoyed making photographs with the D2xs. Perhaps one of the new mirrorless models will raise the bar in some noticeable way which will make it easier for me to rationalize yet another unnecessary expense. 

When a camera has certain performance parameters that exceed your expectations. By a lot. Today it was the GH5S shooting black and white video.

I recently acquired a Panasonic GH5S and I hadn't had the opportunity to give it a thorough test until this week. While I've shot some RAW stills with the camera one doesn't really buy a $2500, 10 megapixel hybrid camera unless one is looking for some specialized performance, and, in this case that performance is all about the video. I have an original GH5 but when the S version came out I read up and realized that the dual ISO feature and the improvements (though subtle) in video image quality and overall color science would be a plus for any projects I might consider.

When the opportunity came along to trade one of the two GH5 originals for an almost new GH5S I came up with a check for the difference (fair is fair) and didn't hesitate.

I spent part of last week and any spare moment during last weekend familiarizing myself with the video menus and the handling feel of the camera when used as a video camera (as opposed to how one handles the camera when shooting stills...). I also tested the codecs to find the right balance between creating files that would work in our typical end media and not getting lost in

Robin Wong discovers that older cameras can be very good photography making machines.

https://blog.mingthein.com/2018/08/20/digital-classic-robin-reviews-the-original-canon-5d/#more-17429

I guess a lot of us are wrapped up in a mid-first-decade of the new century reappraisal/re-appreciation of just how good the camera tech was for the third generation of full frame gear.

Would be interested to hear back from the newest D700 users to see what they think. Chime in!

I spent $17 on a total "piece of crap" lens and I had a fun time shooting with it yesterday. Hello "Holga for Nikon." Can't wait to use this "glass" on a new Nikon Z with an adapter......hmmm.

I had a serious purpose for being nose deep in Amazon.com on Thursday. We'd just gotten the "thumbs up" on fun video projects from three different clients and I wanted to buy a Thunderbolt SSD drive to put all my footage on for faster editing. I found what I hope will be a good drive but when I was on the site I made the mistake of looking around at the Nikon lenses to see if there was any particular focal length I had missed and needed more than oxygen....

Nothing from Nikon bubbled up but when I started looking at third party lenses I came across the most counter-intuitive lens I could possible imagine. The Holga people have begun packaging the famous(?) Holga 60mm f8.0 lens that has been "featured" on their cameras for decades for various other brands of camera. You can now buy a 60mm Holga f8.0 for your Nikon, Canon and micro four thirds cameras. The lenses come with the appropriate mount for each brand. The build quality is utter crap and focusing is strictly by zone. There is no way to change apertures and even the smartest cameras with the best Auto-ISO will be mystified by exposure with this "gem." 

I should mention that there is one decent feature set: The Holga lens comes complete with front and rear caps.

The vignetting is so strong that the lens acts like a t16 instead of an f8.0. The edges are monstrously dark and I found that the highest precision approach to both focus and exposure was ---- trial and error. Much error, even more trial. 

I should mention that the lens (which I assume is a one element lens design) is not sharp anywhere in the frame. The one benefit for all you people obsessed with camera weight and size is that the all-plastic lens body construction probably weighs in at about 2 ounces and it will fit in the front pocket of your most hipster trousers.

Here (above and below) is my gallery from Saturday's Holga Photo Safari in downtown Austin. See the attack of the electric scooters!!!! See the dark edges!!! No Instagram filters were used in the degradation of these images!!! See flare an anamorphic lens lover could be proud of!!!!

Why did I buy it? Why do I do anything? Lack of impulse control and a credit card balance that the issuing bank seems to be ignoring.... Will I keep it? Well, of course. How else will I be able to invent a whole new style for myself for the future?

Can't wait slap an adapter on the lens and mount it on the GH5S. With the vignetting and distortion of the lens coupled with some V-Log and beginner color grading I think I'll have the kind of winning new "authentic" vibe I need to reach a whole new generation of photo buyers. Cheers!