Wildlife Photography across the Water: New Camera histeria

Saturday, 6 November 2010

New Camera histeria

It doesn't matter if its Nikon, Canon or Pentax, As soon as a new product comes out there are a mass of new buyers who seem to have problems with it and within a short time the camera,lens or whatever is complete crap across the entire internet, I have been watching comments on various forums on the new Nikon D7000, Its been out about 3 weeks and now it seems that it has focusing problems, Hot pixels, Soft images blah blah blah, Some people saying it has problems within the first hour of every owning one and condemning it without reading the manual,What people seem to forget is that this is a totally new camera-not an upgrade of an older model, It has a new AF module, New sensor, New video etc etc, Now i am not saying that there are not real problems, its one of the joys of buying the latest and greatest and both myself and Martin have advised against buying a new product until its a few months old so that any teething problems are ironed out with firmware updates, The D7000 is the first camera i have bought in the initial batch since the Canon 1D MK3 and we all know how that turned out, Any new camera will take some time to get used to and the set up will need to be fine tuned over a period of some weeks, It seems that the more pixels that your camera has the more care that need to be taken when pressing the shutter button, The formula of camera length to be the same as shutter speed i.e 200mm lens needs 1/250 plus 1.5x is you have a Nikon cropped sensor may still not be enough and the tiny pixels being used will also need to be taken into account, so faster shutter speeds will equal a sharper images, If you cant get a decent shutter speed then use flash as it will help 'freeze' the subject, Don't forget that you may have to adjust your normal processing to get the best from the images with your new camera, I remember seeing some horrible images when the Canon 1D MK4 came out but as soon as Adobe bought out the ACR to cover that camera images instantly improved, Give it a couple of weeks and all will calm down until the next new product hits the market, So where does that leave me with the D7000-its a keeper for me, ISO 800 is very clean and allows a good fast shutter speed in normal use i.e daylight and a long lens and a touch extra sharpening helps bring out some more detail, I feel the detail is there but needs some extra coaxing to bring it out as opposed to the D300 and D3s and lets not forget who this camera is aimed at-amateurs and by that i mean its not a pro camera but the specs have allowed to look good as a back up in the pro sector, 99% of users with the D7000 will be taking images of their kids,pets and holidays and for that they will be very happy and for those who are more demanding in their images the IQ is up there and images will be saleable

Here are a few images taken with the D7000 and 600VR from my back door step-all are full frame except the first image which i have cropped the post out of the RH side

100% crop

All images taken using a tripod, ISO 800-no NR used
The Mocking bird image i used off camera flash
Click on images to make them larger then use your 'back' button

Dave

1 comment:

WPATW6 November 2010 at 17:57
If you care to repost your comment with a name, we will publish it

Thanks in advance

Martin
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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.