This Old Blog

Top view: Nikon Df vs. Nikon FM3a (via TheOnlinePhotographer ) I came across this scale comparison on the Internet's today. In one simple picture it summed up why the Nikon Df isn't the digital FM3a so many want it to be. It also illustrates in part why (outside of the price) I won't purchase the Df. If you look at the top plates of both cameras, you can see the top plate outline of the FM3a literally sticking up from the Df body. The Nikon Df is much deeper than the FM3a from the front (the lens mount) to back (the LCD). What we have here is an odd-ball digital camera design that appears to have bits and pieces of the FM3a stuck on it like a collection of spare parts someone had lying around at the time. When old people like me say they want a digital Nikon FM3a (or in my particular case, a digital Olympus OM-1), we want the film sized body with a same-sized digital sensor replacing 35mm film. And as the Nikon Df illustrates so eloquently, that won't happen...

Olympus E-P5 with M.Zuiko 1.8/17mm lens, all in black It's now official. Olympus has released the next true Pen, the E-P5. I say the next "true Pen" because the E-M5, which I own, is a different model line altogether, and doesn't have the word "Pen" anywhere on it, not the body nor the box it was shipped in. This Pen is a far better camera than the two-year-old E-P3, which I was not at all happy with when it was introduced. Olympus took all that is good about the E-M5, especially the sensor, mixed in the best bits from the Pen line (both the old film Pens as well as the newer digital lines), fixed what needed fixing and produced this current iteration. And from what I can tell so far it's a pretty decent iteration of the Pen side of the Olympus camera lines. The only problem is the cost. The body alone is $1,000. You can pick up the still-excellent E-M5 for about $100 less. If you buy the "super kit", which includes the new black 1.8/1...

Nikon D600 with 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR zoom  Olympus OM-D E-M5 with M.Zuiko 12-50mm zoom and HLD-6 grip system I have been holding back purchasing replacement equipment for my stolen 4:3rds gear for quite some time. I wanted to wait as long as possible before making any kind of commitment to any camera, let alone a given vendor or product line. I wanted to be sure I was making the right purchase. To that end I've gone through a considerable amount of foot work and research, pinging a number of knowledgeable folks, at times pushing the limits of friendship with endless questions (sorry, Matthew). I have yet to make the purchase, but I've narrowed my choices down to just two cameras, the Nikon D600 and the Olympus OM-D E-M5. Nikon For some really odd reasons, Nikon sellers (B&H and Adorama, just to name two) have been selling the D600 body with the 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR zoom for a smidge less than $2,000, the same price the D600 body only was first introdu...

Sony α65 with 18-55mm SAM kit zoom I'm writing this post for two reasons: (1) because 47 minutes into the first presidential debate I got so sick of Romney's smug smile and babbling answers (as well as his flip-flops on a number of key issues) that I turned off the tube panel, and (2) earlier in the evening I'd stopped by the Best Buy at the Mall at Millenia to handle a Nikon D600, and came away totally turned off to the camera. The Nikon D600 is not worth $2,100. It is the most poorly made camera in that price bracket that I believe I have ever held. The plastic coating is thin and chintzy looking. The pop-up flash should never have been added to the body, as it's thin and flimsy. While I was standing there gently toying with the battery cover it popped off the body into my hand. When I looked at the overall battery compartment I was appalled at the cheesy all-plastic design and construction. I know what some marketing droid at Nikon probably thought: they'r...

Nikon D600 I've been taking a break from writing through the month of September, an extended vacation to make up for all the posting I was doing while on the Big Road Trip the first two weeks in September. I even stopped thinking about camera gear (or as much as someone like me can ever stop thinking about it), trying to get some time between the events of Photokina and now to build up a bit of perspective. There's nothing worse for me than to be hit with exciting equipment introduction (as, for example, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 earlier this year), to get me all excited and in the process making a fool out of myself by professing how, right then and there , I'm going to get a copy of my very own. So I gave it all a rest and just let it percolate in the back of my mind. Today, as I was working through my infinite to-do list, I began to put together a series of price lists of basic camera gear, consisting of a body and one lens from Olympus (what I had before it was stole...

E-PL5 with M.Zuiko 1:2.8/17mm prime Photokina 2012 is finished, as is most of the punditry for now. There are still reviews to be written and published on the web, but for the most part I think the majority who've been paying attention learned what was necessary to begin a new cycle of gear acquisition, which is what shows like Photokina are all about: stoking gear lust. Regardless of the brand or the camera model, one theme came through loud and clear: it's all about the money. With very few exceptions, everything introduced this year is anywhere from the very high hundreds to the mid-thousands. The one Olympus camera that I actually took a liking to, the E-PL5, is currently on pre-order for $700, body only. The "entry level" Nikon D600 (and Canon 6D) are $2,100, body only. The ridiculous Hasselblad Lunar (Loonie, Lunacy, I've read so many catty renames) is $5,000 (and up). Perpetually expensive Leica is still way too much money for me. Serious lenses from ...

Nikon D600 I was at the end of the second week of my road trip when the Photokina 2012 official release floodgates really opened up. In particular came the formal announcement of the Nikon D600. I've written twice already about the D600, going so far as to speak of it along with another rumored Nikon camera, the D400 (the followup to the Nikon D300s). One of the key rumors was the D600's price of around $1,500, body only. I was somewhat annoyed when Nikon announced the official price of $2,100, body only. I'm not going to go through all the D600 features, as that's already been done to death all over the net. The only feature that matters to me at the moment is the price. If a $2,100 camera is considered an "entry level" camera, then I'm in the wrong dimension, probably in the wrong time. How I miss the days when 35mm reigned supreme and bodies from all manufacturers were considerably less expensive... Yes, I know that the D700, the camera it all...

Hypothetical Nikon D600 In part 1 of this series Wolfgang Lonien asked if perhaps the mythical Nikon D600 might be the camera I would eventually get. The Nikon D600 looks to be another one of those worst kept secrets, what with all the leaks and alleged photos of the beast all over the Internets. The photo at the top of this post may, or may not, be a photo of the D600. Wolfgang's question started me googling for the D600, which also swept up leaks and speculation about the D400. The D400 is allegedly the replacement for the Nikon D300/D300s APS-C DX pro-class camera. The D300 series has a weather sealed all-magnesium body with grips and similar goodies like the higher end FX series of cameras have. So while I was looking at the rumors, I built myself a little table (below) to kind of rank up a few of the body features of these unreleased and heavily rumored Nikon cameras. Mythical Nikon D400 and D600 Comparison Feature D400 D600 Price $1,800 $1,500 or $2,400[1] Sensor s...

Read all about it! Looks like there's some photos of the rumored Nikon D600 in a Chinese forum linked to by 1001 Noisy Cameras. The posting, here , looks to be of a fairly cheaply built camera. I say cheap because when you look at the full sized image you should note what seems to be a mold line down the right side of the left hand grip. Of course this could be an artifact produced by the camera that took this image, or perhaps due to some not-quite-fancy Photoshopping. The overall body looks to be a lot simpler, with none of the ports and covers that cover the front and sides of the Nikon D700, or any other FX class camera before the D600. From what I can tell it looks like nothing that Nikon currently sells, from the D90 through the D7000, D300, and D700. Lower-end Nikons (D5100 and lower) don't have the two buttons on the front near the grip, nor the manual/auto focus switch on the lower right mirror box. If this is a Photoshop fake, then it's a very believable Photosho...

I'm going to pretend like I'm Thom Hogan and speculate about the rumored Nikon D600 that will allegedly be released sometime this summer. I don't currently own any digital Nikon kit, only Olympus. The only Nikon camera I've ever owned was the film-era N90. It was an OK camera, a camera I purchased in a fit of passion that slowly faded over the 15 years I had it in my possession. I don't know if it was the N90's fault, mine, or some combination of the two, but my passion for it and photography in general had nearly withered away before the little Canon PowerShot A300 arrived and began to re-kindle a passion for photography. With the purchase of the Olympus E-300 my passion for photography came roaring back. Somewhere in that sad tale is a lesson, I'm sure. Yet, in spite of my mistakes of history, I refuse to learn from them. So here I am getting all excited like I was a real Nikon fanboy about a rumored Nikon digital camera, as if I were going to rush rig...

In a word, Nikon . Nikon rumors have been thick for some time about the release of the follow-on to the D700, the D800. And it's supposed to be released Tuesday, 7 February. That's tomorrow. So it would have behooved someone in Olympus marketing to get ahead of the Nikon story before the Nikon story broke like a tsunami and washed all over anything that Olympus had to say. Especially if the Olympus announcement was the day after the big Nikon announcement. It looks like somebody in Olympus marketing might be picking up their game a bit. If this is truly the case, then this makes the second decent marketing effort by Olympus. The first decent marketing effort was the The Pen Ready marketing project and the slogan "Pack Small. Shoot Big." back in September 2011. The careful leaking release of information about the E-M5 has stoked considerable interest in the E-M5, at least within the Olympus faithful. Whether it will extend into the greater marketplace only ti...

It's 2am in the morning, and I can't sleep. My mind keeps moving 'round all over. Nine hours before I went to a local Best Buy to purchase a micro-USB car charger for my cell phone. While I was there I played with all the cameras they had on hand. Of the DSLRs, the Sony's and the Nikons looked and felt the best. The Canons did not fair as well (5D MkII, 7D, 60D, T2i). The Canon 60D looked the worse for wear; the rubber coating on the grip was coming off, and the articulated screen looked poorer than the Olympus' E-620's. The Sony α55's articulated was a bit odd in comparison, but seemed of better build quality. They had a Nikon D300s and a D700 side-by-side. I loved the heft and feel of the D700, far better than the Canon 5D MkII. The Nikon D300s was a sweet little body as well. Then I went over and played with the mirrorless cameras. They had the Nikon 1 J1, the Panasonic GF3, and the Olympus E-PM1. They were pretty evenly matched. The J1 had the 10...

People keep saying that the best photos should tell a story. OK. Here's a collection you can follow from top to bottom, that shows little vignettes as I was heading home from the office. I won't add words. You can imagine what it might all mean. Or not. P.S. Yes, that is Milla Jovovich looking up at you, the way she looked up at me while she was shilling for some beauty product in a bottle. Everything taken with my Android-based smartphone. Five tiny megapixels. Everything post-processed on the smarphone. I found this via TOP , and for some odd reason it fits into my attitude towards overly expensive camera gear. From anybody. And you thought the Nikon 1 was a joke. At least it doesn't cost $8,000. I need to call Ken Rockwell. I think he's on to something...

Samsung NX11 with 18-55 standard zoom lens. Just a few days ago Bill wrote down his thoughts on the future of photography , and in one of those quirks of timing, we now know more about what the market will look like in a few years. What changed is the " Nikon 1 ". Nikon calls their new mirrorless camera system revolutionary, and while they may be right it's far too soon to believe them. Steve Jobs, who's certainly no dummy, called both the iPad and the Segway revolutionary, and he was only right about one of them. The biggest noise about the new Nikon format is the smaller sensor. I'm reserving judgement about what the image quality will be, because photosite size really isn't everything – the Olympus E-1 has bigger pixels than the Canon 5DmkII. While the magnification factor and deep depth of field of the 1.16 cm 2 sensor won't disappoint the hypothetical purchaser who's looking to upgrade from a compact camera, it's something that enth...

Nikon 1 Pepto-Bismol Pink J1 w/10mm 1:2.8 1 Nikkor The last 48 hours have been remarkable to watch in the MILF world. I had a ring-side seat as one of the behemoths of the the contemporary camera market released a new camera to near universal scorn. Or at least that's what many pontificating internet paperback intellectuals would have you believe. I'm speaking, of course, of Nikon and its Nikon 1 Camera System, "built from the ground up." The Nikon 1 Camera System, "built from the ground up," consists of two bodies (the V1 and the J1) and four lenses and is delivered in a variety of colors, one of which, a nausea-inducing eye-blinding Pepto-Bismol Pink, you can see even with your eyes closed to your immediate right. As an owner of perennial whipping boy 4/3rds and µ4/3rds, I stood in silent solidarity with Nikon over what Nikon has wrought, and at the same time in utter disbelief at the howls of rage and indignation rising up from the roaming intern...

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 24-120mm 1:3.5-5.6 VR AF-S I don't own a D700 - yet. But I'm budgeting for one that I hope to purchase by December of this year. Why the shift away from Olympus, and why specifically towards Nikon? The shift away from Olympus isn't because the Olympus gear I own has suddenly stopped working. Far from it. My Olympus gear, especially my regular FourThirds gear (E-1, E-3, and all the native lenses) continues to work just fine, thank you very much. If anything, I intend to keep them and use them along with the D700. The problem isn't with FourThirds. The problem is with µFourThirds. Combined with Olympus' so-called road maps for both regular and µFourThirds. I know I've written glowingly of the E-P2 , the µFourThirds body I purchased December 2009. I still think highly of the E-P2 body . But the lenses that Olympus sells specifically for this camera are not living up to the same standards that the FourThirds lenses have set for years...