Nikon Digital Photography Talk

New pictures with Olympus EP-1 4:3 Camera

We’ll, where is our new Nikon 4:3 system? Not much buzz lately and Nikon has been very quiet developing their new flagship Coolpix ‘P’ series. The Nikon P6000 got some initial bad press and wow, although I jumped onto the P6000 wagon as soon as it was announced, underwater housing accessories were either discontinued or never made it out the drawing board. Far from a perfect camera, the Nikon P6000 was and is a good option for those who actually had the patience to work around it and read the manual a few times.

I am not (usually) the kind of guy who jump onto the first generation of anything. Especially with Olympus, back in the day I’ve made a substantial investment with the Olympus E-10, Flash FL-40 and vertical grip to be replaced in a matter of months by the Olympus E-20 where it got 1 more mega pixel and a revised auto focus system which was very unpredictive on the E-10. For the last 2 weeks I’ve been snapping pictures with the new Olympus PEN EP-1 and the results are very good. Thanks to a mirror less with a larger sensor, the results are substantially better than those files from the P6000 -or P5000 for that matter- that are coming from a tiny sensor. Up to ISO 1600, the EP-1 is visibly better than the P6000. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, but at $599, that’s just $99 more than what I paid for the P6000, the choice is clear.   The Olympus EPL-1 behaves like a point and shoot camera, it is slightly larger than my P6000 and sports a Zuiko 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 Lens which in size is almost as big as our Nikon 35mm F/1.8 lens when collapsed into the body.

Canon G10, G11 or our Nikon flagship P series? IMHO, the size of the 4:3 sensor has the edge in image quality, especially when Nikon and Canon insist on cramming so many mega pixels on those pin head sized sensors;  at the moment there is a kit 14-42 lens but seeing some potential on this format, third party lens manufacturer like Sigma is adding them to their lens line. Even Olympus has other options in the pipeline including a nice Zuiko prime 17mm F/2.8. For what I want this camera, -point and shoot-, I’m not really after a vast catalog of lenses, other fellows might. Out of the box I was able to snap these sample pictures with the Olympus PEN EP-1 and I don’t complain at all. A polarizer filter was added for some of the pictures, so if you want to do the same, make sure to visit the video camera dpt in your store as this lens wears a tiny 40.5mm thread for filters. The Olympus EPL-1 has the heck of a JPEG engine, first 2 dozen shots were taken in RAW mode and edited with the cumbersome software included with the camera. After deciding to switch to JPEG fine, the camera gives great results with a  ”3D-esque” picture quality.  We get a more flexible Manual mode because we can go up to F/22 compared to F/8 on the Nikon P6000 -or Canon G series for that matter. The magnification without attachments is very, very good on the Zuiko lens. I haven’t tried the HD video mode, but I will soon.

Other folks might differ, but in my opinion, Nikon shout stay with L & S series as it is with mild improvements and trash the P series and replace it for a 4:3 mini system. I believe is doable from the folks who have given us almost a dozen kit lenses 18-xx. I don’t think it could be that hard to make another kit lens for the 4:3 format, split those wafers into larger chunks and with a line of superb flashes, voila! I’ll be a happy camper.

Get your Olympus PEN EPL-1 at B&H Photo Video

Sample pictures with the new Nikon D5000

Here I want to share a few sample pictures with my wife’s Nikon D5000. I couldn’t resist taking this camera to snap a few pictures with it. I felt tempted to use my Nikon 17-55 AF-S F/2.8, but I wanted to see what most people could get out of this camera with a 18-55 AF-S F/3.5-5.6 kit lens. I also used a Nikon 55-200 VR, a Nikon SB-600 flash and to complement this kit, my wife also got the new compact Nikon 35mm F/1.8 DX lens. This is in my humble opinion a very powerful and capable camera kit for anyone entering the digital DSLR world. We’ve got the D5000 body only from our affiliate B&H Photo Video and it was matched to a 18-55 first generation kit lens. Enjoy!

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Nikon D90, a year and half later and knock on wood

I came back a few weeks ago from native island Puerto Rico. It was more a recreational trip and to spend some leisure and quality time with my mother. Something I wasn’t able during my trip back in December, 2009. This time my photo back pack was lighter carrying only my beloved and trusted Nikon D90 which I knock on wood a year and half later, my inseparable Nikkor 17-55 AF-S F/2.8, Nikon 80-200mm F/2.8 2 rings version lens, the Nikkor 10.5mm F/2.8 fisheye lens and my trusty Nikon SB-900 Flash. To avoid having to switch filters often, I also took two 77mm polarizer filters from TIFFEN to boost up those caribbean colors. Here I share some of my snap shots taken with the gear above, some of them are from places you probably have seen featured here. More pictures will be added soon after I finish with their post processing with Nikon Capture NX2. Enjoy and as always, your visit to All Digital Nikon.com and your comments are very welcome and appreciated.

Foggy morning pictures with a D90

The Nikon D90 will never have the same robustness as my old but good Nikon D200 but it sure handled this foggy morning’s msit and humidity. All pictures were taken with the 17-55 AF-S F/2.8 and Nikkor 80-200 F/2.8. It is one of those winter’s morning that either you stay in bed sleeping, or get your butt out and shoot because this is a scene that shows up at least in my area every once a year if I’m lucky.

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CUPERTINO, California—February 9, 2010—Apple® today introduced Aperture™ 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features including Faces, Places and Brushes. Building on the innovative Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto® ’09, Aperture 3 makes it even easier and faster to organize large photo libraries. Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine your photos including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. Stunning new slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.

“Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets.”

“Aperture 3 gets it right,” said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. “The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they’re so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible.”

“I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it’s now an unbelievable imaging tool as well,” said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. “I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3.”

Aperture 3 allows you to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize your photos by the people in them. You can view faces across your entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven’t yet been named. Places lets you explore your photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, you can assign locations by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or your iPhone® photos.

The new Brushes feature allows you to add professional touches to your photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in your images to let you apply or remove effects exactly where you want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. You can create your own custom presets or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.

Aperture 3 makes it easy to share your work with stunning slideshows that weave together photos, audio, text and HD video. You can select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add your own soundtrack. You can export your slideshows directly to iTunes® to take with you on your iPhone or iPod touch®. You can also share photographs as beautiful prints, create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from Aperture 3.

Pricing & Availability
Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $99 (US). A downloadable 30-day trial version is available at www.apple.com/aperture/trial. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS® X Snow Leopard® on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Full system requirements, online tutorials and more information on Aperture 3 can be found at www.apple.com/aperture.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.