alittlenews

ISO 3200 with a dark skinned person in a burned out mobile home.

I got the D3s Thursday this week and all I can say is “WOW!”  I shot some photos in such bad light in just a couple of days and it blew me away.  The table tennis photos are shot in a gymnasium that is so dark I have never felt good about anything I have shot in that room and this tournament is there every year.  I shot at ISO 6400 and ISO 12800 and the quality is amazing.  It is actually better than ISO 800 on a D2h from just a few years ago.  Stunning is an understatement for the high ISO performance.

The other thing I noticed almost immediately is how well the camera handles high contrast light.  The shot of the lady sheltering under the magazine and fanning herself is an excellent example.  Her face was up-toned just a bit in Photoshop and painted in using history brush but the ability to hold that level of tonal quality is very impressive.

The first image in this post is one of the first images I shot with the camera.  It is inside a still smoldering mobile home where the home owner is inside trying to salvage some of her personal belongings.  A dark skinned African-American in a burned out mobile home with nothing but the light coming in through windows and doors would have been something I would not have tried with anything before the D3.  In this case the D3s really handles the situation very nicely.  When I checked my images I was so pleased and so impressed with the camera performance. This was shot at ISO 3200.

I know I am going on here after only shooting a couple of days but this is a truly impressive camera.  By the way, here is an instructive note for young photojournalists.  I got to this fire way too late to make a fire fighting picture.  I almost left.  Even went to my car with the intention of leaving.  I put my 80-200 in the car and then I admonished myself about not being a professional and turned around and walked back up to the fire scene.  I waited around shooting absolutely nothing.  I just chatted with a couple of firemen and waited.  I noticed someone inside the mobile home with no fire gear on and decided to see what was going on.  I went around back and met the lady just as she was coming out with some stuff.  I asked her if she was able to salvage anything and she said she didn’t think so.  When she went back in I followed her.  I made a few frames while she rummaged around the kitchen and living room and got this frame as she came away with some shoes.  Lesson learned, you never know what you will get by just hanging around and doing your job even when there appears literally nothing to be had.  Now, back to our regularly scheduled post.

I have included a frame grab from video in this post too.  It is the photo of the No Trespassing sign.  The D3s has a 1080 x 720 HD video mode and this is a grab from my first video attempt.  I was just playing around trying to get familiar with what the camera does with video so it is no great shakes but I had some fun.  Man, that is unexpected.  I have always hated on video  but now I can hardly wait to start.  The frame grab is adequate to publish in a newspaper but I wouldn’t want to try it on anything like slick paper.

I threw in the photo of the little girl having watermelon and the kids running a three legged race as examples of performance in shady situations.  The race has a strong backlight which I hate shooting into but this one works out nicely.  The little hispanic girl has such beautiful skin tone it just floored me.  And finally, I shot a really serious wreck on the Interstate and included this frame from the take.  It is nothing to write home about but I was impressed with the image because it was shot with a really and truly worn out 400mm lens.  Most of the coating is gone on the front element so it has little contrast and will flare at the drop of a hat.  This image turned out very nice with good tones and contrast.

For a first few days of shooting I couldn’t be more impressed with the camera.  I am really looking forward to doing some video work and I will share some of that when I get a chance.  All I can say is if you have a spare five grand laying around and wondering what to do with it you could do a lot worse than buying yourself a D3s.  One final note.  These images are toned exactly as I toned them for output to our newspaper’s production system and they were toned in a hurry.  There may have been some sharpening applied to one or two of them but I honestly don’t remember now which ones.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

I have just finished a full year of shooting with the Nikon D3.  Please allow a disclaimer.  I am not pushing one camera over another.  I really don’t care and if I did I would be promoting Canon because I am a Canon guy at my core.  I use Nikon at work and have done so for most of my 20 year photojournalism career.  I use Canon for my freelance jobs and personal work.  Now you know where I am coming from.

I can say without hesitation the D3 is the finest photojournalism tool I have used since the inception of digital photography.  The D3 returns available light photography to the photojournalist and that is a great thing.  All previous entries into the pro market by Nikon have been, at best, a test of ones skills and patience in order to produce acceptable images.  I have fought through the D1, D2H and D2Hs before arriving at the D3.  There is no comparison.  It is like the D3 came from a different company, maybe even a different planet. It is really a quantum leap for Nikon.

As I mentioned, the greatest thing about this camera is its ability to perform under available light.  Almost any light really even if any light is basically no light at all.  This thing sees in the dark.  In fact, the high ISO performance is so good I think it is better than any high speed film I ever used.  When the lights go down it is like this camera kicks it into a higher performance mode.  I can’t say enough about its low light performance.  It is just excellent.  I have shot stellar images all the way up through ISO 5000 which is about as high as I have used it on anything like a consistent basis.

If the D3 has a weakness it is auto-focus performance in bright, contrasty light.  By weakness I mean that it has some trouble finding a solid focus point at certain times on really bright, sunny days.  I have never had any problems with AF in any other light but this one is consistent enough to note.  Otherwise the AF is excellent.  Like every digital camera I have ever used it does have an imaging weakness in one particular lighting condition.  I wish I could describe it accurately but it is just this Alabama thing that happens sometimes and the imaging performance falls off sharply.  It is kind of a flat light situation on medium overcast days that seem to really baffle it.  I have never found a digital camera that handled this well.  My Canon EOS 5D acts pretty much the same way in that circumstance.

In terms of image quality, this camera has some of the cleanest whites coming out of the box I have ever seen.  In fact, the whites are so clean they are almost blue.  I could stand just a touch of warmth in some of the images because it is corrected a bit to the blue side for my taste.  You can deal with this in your sub-menus that allow fine tuning of each color mode giving you the option of warming things up.  I have yet to hit on one that strikes me just right but the ability to set colors to my preference is nice.

I have had only one performance problem with the camera.   When shooting in RAW mode and shooting a sequence the camera begins acting like it has a full buffer and slows down the frame capture rate significantly after about five sequential frames.  It does this in jpeg fine mode once in a while.  I have talked to a Nikon rep about the problem and he didn’t know what was going on and has been unable to find anyone at Nikon who does.  It is probably some quirk in this particular body that does that.  It certainly is not a universal problem.

The other thing I really like about this camera is I can shoot in jpeg mode rather than RAW.  This saves both card space and archiving space.  In previous Nikon bodies I had to shoot RAW to be able to make the images look right.  The jpegs that come out the camera are very nearly as good as the ones produced by my EOS 5D and that is a huge leap forward for Nikon.  The jpeg files that have in-camera noise management applied also look very good.  In fact, noise is just not a problem with this camera.  It looks great.

I am as completely satisfied with this camera as I have ever been with a digital body.  It has a place in my heart right next to the Nikon F3 which is in my humble opinion the best Nikon I ever used prior to this one.  The D3 has restored my faith in Nikon after years of the company producing products that made me scratch my head.  Now I am looking forward to the D3s which is on order.  Video anyone?

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Austin's Jamael Johnson leaves the field during one of the periods of heavy rain as Austin battled Cullman Friday night in Ogle Stadium. Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. 10/30/09

The little kids rhyme, “Rain, rain go away, come again another day,” seems to be the thing that Alabamians are saying these days.  There have been few weeks this fall without rain and I mean a lot of rain.  That has made Friday night football a bit damp this year and has caused my kids soccer schedules to be shredded.  I know, soccer usually doesn’t care about the weather but the city of Hartselle is really fond of their new soccer fields and they are very protective.

What this means for photographers on the sidelines is we have to continually fight the moisture wars.  At the big venues like the college games I get to cover from time to time I see the big boys from Sports Illustrated and other fine organizations rolling out with those high tech rain covers with eye pieces that fit their cameras precisely.  Yeah, that would be nice.  Since The Daily has not seen fit to spend a few hundred dollars on rain covers my approach is decidedly low tech.  Lets just say that my rain covers would do the Beverly Hillbillies proud.

I usually pay a visit to the local Wal-Mart or grocery store and pick a box of trash bags.  Yep, you heard me right.  I am covering a $5,000 camera and $5,000 lens with a bag that can’t possibly cost even 50 cents.  I know what you are thinking so stow it!  (GRIN)  Really, the everyday trash bag has some decided advantages over the hundred dollar high tech fabric weather shield.

First of all, it is downright cheap.  Secondly, but more importantly, the things are completely impervious to water.  For those of you who don’t have a dictionary handy that means they keep the water out.  Thirdly, they can be easily manipulated to fit whatever lens-camera combo you are using, kind of the ultimate in one size fits all.  Fourthly, (is that even a word) they are cheap so if I lose one I don’t have to worry about going back to the boss and trying to explain how I lost a hundred dollar rain coat for the camera.  Fifthly, (now I am pretty sure I have gone beyond the bounds of English) MacGyver is my hero and I want to do him proud so a trash bag and a roll of gaffers tape would get a thumbs up.  Heck, he would probably fashion a parachute out of that much hardware!  Or a hang glider.  Finally, did I mention they come in black and white, and sometimes brown?  Fashionable and cheap, now there is a dynamic duo.

Cullman's Connor Adams evades a diving Austin kick off team player as Austin battled Cullman Friday night during a heavy rain storm in Ogle Stadium. Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. 10/30/09

Now there are some problems with the trash bag turned rain coat.  First of all you kind of look like a hick.  Secondly, you get a bit of an inferiority complex standing next to someone with that nice Aquatech with fitted eyepiece.  Thirdly, the thing flaps around a lot in a high wind.  Fourthly, (here I go again) it can be a little difficult to keep the little opening you have to tear for the eye piece actually over the camera’s eyepiece.  Fifthly, (did you know that when doing point and counter point that if you have a fifthly in your points you need a fifthly in your counter points even if you are not sure that fifthly is an actual word?) if water does get inside your bag it can really make a mess.  Finally, did I mention that you look a bit like a hick?

For you big spenders, there is an alternative to the garbage bag if that is just a little to ghetto for you.  You can buy a really cheap rain suit and then cut off the leg to the appropriate length using the gathered end over the lens and the open end over the camera.  I think you can buy those near disposable suits for a couple of bucks and they actually raise your status from ghetto to simply wrong side of the tracks.  You might even fool the unsuspecting newbie into asking where you got your slick rain cover.  Then you will really make MacGyver happy.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

This page from a Canon products brochure shows the dizzying array of cameras from just one manufacturer.

What kind of camera are you using?  Hey buddy, how much did that thing cost?  Wow, look at the size of that lens!  I hear that stuff all the time and if you shoot for a living you know what I am talking about.  I guess if I get around a cabinet shop I am just as curious about the saws and lathes and drill presses and nail guns they are using so I tolerate it pretty well.  What I have to remember, using my cabinet shop analogy, is that some of the finest furniture ever built was competed without a single power tool of any kind.  The lesson here for you and me is that the camera does not make the photographer.  You can pay the outrageous sum of $7,999 for the Nikon D3X and stink just as bad as if you paid a few hundred and shot with a D50.

That said, equipment does facilitate us and make us able to do different things.  Right now, we are trying to push through an equipment purchase at the newspaper.  Our gear is wearing out and is definitely dated.  Technology marches on and as it takes each step it creates a perceived need for a product in its wake.  For instance, a number of new cameras are incorporating HD video as well as still capture.  I haven’t the slightest interest in video, as a general rule, but when I saw what the EOS 5D Mark II can do in HD I was absolutely stunned and began to see how I could actually use it in my storytelling model.

Equipment purchasing always comes down to a balancing act between what you need and what you can afford.  If you are in business and the camera is your primary money making tool you will spend far more on it than if you are simply a hobby shooter or an aspiring amateur.  I know that many readers of this site are not professional photographers and you guys may not even want an SLR camera.  A point and shoot may suit your needs perfectly.  I am continually consulted upon which camera  a person should buy and I usually ask how much they want to spend as a jumping off point.  So lets take a walk through my camera buying advice and see what you think.

The first question to answer is what will you be doing with the camera.  If you plan to shoot your family functions and vacations your needs will probably be met by purchasing a point and shoot camera that costs less than $500.  If you plan on doing a bit more extensive shooting, say your kids playing sports, a point and shoot camera will drive you crazy and a lower priced SLR will more appropriately suit your needs.  You will also want to buy a longer zoom lens so your budget will need to be between $1,000 and $1,500.

Maybe you are serious about your photography and you want to start shooting weddings.  You will need at least an advanced amateur camera body that will probably cost you somewhere above the $2,000 range and you will need at least two pro series zoom lenses which will add another $2,500 to your bill and you haven’t gotten to strobes and light modifiers such as umbrellas.  You are going to drop a small fortune before you are finished and you need to make sure that you can get enough jobs to get a return on your investment.  If you are a pro, God bless you.  I hope you are really making money because you are about to need a second mortgage to purchase all the gear you are going to need.

This Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W220 packs a 12.1 megapixel sensor, a Carl Zeiss lens and a $179 price tag

Lets start with the most basic camera type, the point and shoot.  You can buy these things in the almost disposable range of slightly more than about $50 bucks.  I wouldn’t even touch one of these.  Poor image quality and even poorer construction.  You will not be happy at all.  Walk into your favorite big box retailer and pick up the cameras and get a feel for what they are like in your hand.  Within your price range, which camera feels the most comfortable to your eye, hand and style of shooting.  There is very little real difference between model A and model Z.  Many seem to be manufactured by the same company and simply resold under a different logo.  My only advice here is to pick a brand that you are familiar with such as Kodak, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc.  The only thing you might really look for is what camera places the flash the longest distance from the lens.  The further away the better.  That is about it.  This is pretty much a one size fits all category in my opinion.

Moving up the ladder just a bit you will begin seeing point and shoot cameras that have some pretty nice features and lenses and can shoot decent video.  In this range you will find cameras like the Canon G10, a truly marvelous little machine that can do everything but sing and dance and it could sing I suppose if you were to record the sound and can at least shoot video of dance.  The G10 is the best of the mid to high range point and shoot type cameras.  I just don’t think there are other cameras close but you can read online and see some other opinions from people who actually shoot these things all the time.  Cameras in this price range will set you back $350 and higher.

If you like the convenience of the small, lightweight camera, you might even consider a Leica rangefinder but if you do, I hope you are a doctor or a lawyer or something like that.  Those babies are really, really expensive to the point that I would not even consider them for my type of work.

The Nikon D5000 provides an entry level camera with HD video capabilities for about $750.

Moving into the SLR category, on the lower end of the financial spectrum you find cameras such as the Nikon D series cameras beginning with the D40 and going up to the higher end of the scale with the D90.  Canon enters the category with the Rebel series and they have lots of xsi type designations.  I don’t personally see a lot of difference between the two companies except that the lower in Nikons are a bit less expensive than the Rebels but with less features.  I would say that in this category you should look for the best bang for the buck and go there because most people buying in this camera type are first time buyers so you have no lens loyalty yet.  Since you don’t have a major investment in previously compatible gear I would just look to see what best fits your budget and go there.  Both systems offer excellent image quality with huge file sizes and some very nice video capabilities as well.  One thing I always admired about Canon, and Nikon is doing this more now too, is that they allowed some really nice features from their pro systems to filter down to the amateur line.

The Rebe T1i from Canon incorporates HD video in a body costing approximately $800 without a lens.

There are some great newcomers in this SLR category now too.   Sony has a very excellent series of cameras with some models in the entry level and Fuji has a very affordable line of SLR cameras.  As the digital age has opened more and more, new competitors have entered the SLR market which broadens your choices and lowers your prices.  A win-win situation for the consumer.  I am actually reading product information on the Sony digital cameras and they have both of the big boys shaking a bit in their shoes.  The A900 has a 24 mega-pixel, full-frame sensor and a relatively miniscule price tag. Another win for the consumer.  There are also traditional camera makers in this category such as Pentax and Minolta who are not big players in the SLR market anymore but still offer some cameras worth your attention.

Moving to the final group, the big spending pros, the cameras have never been better.  For most of the digital era, Canon has been the hands down, not even close winner in the digital image quality wars with Nikon.  I don’t know if Canon and Nikon decided to exchange managers and product developers for a while but over the last couple of years, Nikon has finally done digital right.  It took far too long but when they finally arrived with the D3, D300, D700 and a new set of lenses and strobes they truly arrived with a bang and began reversing a steady migration of pro shooters who had moved or were moving to Canon.  Combined with the flawed launch of the Canon 1D Mark III which had persistent AF issues and the migration was completely reversed.

The Nikon flagship D3 will run you a bit over $4,000 with no lens and will give you supremely good image quality and performance.

The big win for Nikon came with the D3 and its high ISO performance which is truly breath taking.  You can get absolutely beautiful files from a D3 at 6400 that make the D2 series look like it was made by another camera company.  There is that much difference.  The D700 is equally stunning but does have a bit of an upper limit on its ISO performance relative to the D3 but it still produces smashing images under low light.  The other major win for Nikon image quality is in the cleanliness of its files straight out of the camera.  This was always a strength in the Canon line, and still is, but Nikon images always had nasty whites and color cast issues.  Not so with the D3 and subsequent models.  They have the cleanest whites I have ever seen and the images are really easy to tone out requiring very little work in Photoshop.  I am basically a Canon guy at heart but the new Nikons are wonderful cameras.

The Canon 1D series is still a very excellent line and I love the image quality.  The files actually have better color than Nikon files even if the whites are not quite as clean.  The color saturation is still superior to Nikon but that is now more a matter of personal taste than of indisputable visual difference.  Canon seems to have finally fixed their AF problem after many tries and that combined with the amazing image quality makes the Mark III a very excellent choice.  The Mark III does not have the high end image performance that Nikon has and this could be the tipping point for some pros.  I personally don’t need much ISO performance about 3200 but having the ability to bounce up to 6400 in some high school lighting situations keeps the flash in the bag and that is always nice.

The Sony A900 is a beast with a 24 mega-pixel full-frame sensor with a modest price tag of approximately $2,700 or about 1/3rd of what Nikon and Canon get for that resolution.

In my opinion, it still comes down to personal preference between Canon and Nikon.  Sony does have a very nice entrant in the pro market and they have an excellent series of lenses, many of which are built for them by Carl Zeiss, but I have no knowledge of it other than product reviews which have been very good.  Combine the reviews with Sony’s lower price and you may have a camera system you need to investigate.  Keep in mind, nobody has a stockpile of glass for Sony.  Newspapers and magazines where you might work could have a pool of long lenses and specialty gear but it will almost certainly be either Nikon or Canon so keep that in mind as you make purchasing choices.

The one thing about purchasing a pro camera in particular is that the technology is changing so rapidly that whatever you buy is as dated as last year’s PC.  There is just too much going on for you to try and keep pace with technology unless you just have a stockpile of available cash.  If you do, please contact me and I will happily take some of that troublesome money off your hands because I am drooling over some gear myself.  Technology is marching on.  Just keep in mind what is important to you and make your choices accordingly.  Then quit reading articles like this so you don’t get yourself all fired up for gear again.

The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

alittlenewsphoto.com video blog post. Covering the Inauguration from Jonathan Palmer on Vimeo.

I have a special treat for you guys today from my friend and former Decatur Daily co-worker Jonathan Palmer.  JP is now living in Louisville and doing freelance work.  He was working for the McClatchey newspaper group for this assignment covering the inauguration of Barak Obama.  Having a front seat to history is a very cool thing and I think you will enjoy Jonathan’s post.  He also brings a first to Alittlenews with this video presentation so sit back and make sure you click to view it full screen.

You can see more of Jonathan’s work on his blog and on his web site and it will be well worth your time.

Photos and video copyright Jonathan Palmer.  The opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Jonathan Palmer, his employers or The Decatur Daily.

Bounce flash in a very small gym with lots of white surfaces to bounce light from.

Did I fail to mention that it is basketball season again?  This is my least favorite sport to shoot and I guess I am lucky that I don’t cover too much of it any more since I am working mostly day shifts now but over the years I have covered hundreds, if not thousands, of basketball games.  It seems to be the season that never ends.  It does have its moments though and you get some of the best, funniest and even ugliest faces in photos during basketball games.  Way more than in other sports where faces are often obscured and you are very close to the action which increases your chances of good facial expression.  On top of that, if you shoot a lot of high school hoops like I have always done, you are most likely strobing the gym so you have great light on those expressions.

Well, you  have great light assuming that you can position your strobes in good locations and not end up with garish shadows crossing those great facial expressions.  So maybe now is the time for a little lighting primer.  Back in the day I used to always shoot with on camera direct flash which partially explains why I never really liked shooting high school hoops.  No amount of Photoshop can cure on camera flash in a dark gym.  It just is what it is.  Then one day my friend Corey Wilson came to work for The Decatur Daily.  He owned his own set of White Lightning strobes and he used them for every basketball game.  His stuff looked great and my stuff looked like I didn’t care.  I bummed strobes off of Corey every chance I got but that was not a good solution.  I finally convinced the boss to buy us a set of mono-lights we could use and then Corey left us to go to Green Bay and he took his lights with him.  I spent the next season and a half lugging in those AC powered mono-lights, stands and endless extension cords climbing all over the patrons trying to get everything hooked up, taped down and out of the way.

Finally one day, the light came on.  My boss bought me an SB800 to go with the SB28DX I was already carrying and just like that my shoulder began to recover from heavy mono-light syndrome.  Never heard of it?  That is an obvious deformity of the left shoulder leaving a deep indentation between the neck and shoulder joint which results from carrying that ever loving heavy bag in and out of crowded gymnasiums all winter long.  About that same time I discovered Strobist, God bless David Hobby, and my life was transformed.  Now I was going into those same gyms with about forty pounds less gear and getting essentially the same results.

I have made one more evolution in my lighting gear.  Now I am using a pair of Lumedynes I picked up used and they are wonderful.  They have more power than the SBs and are less bulky than the mono-lights.  A great compromise and they work wonderfully.  So how do you position the lights and yourself to make the most out of those small, dark high school gymnasiums.  I am so glad you asked.  Tonight, for instance, I worked in one of the two or three smallest gymnasiums in our area and it is not well lit either.  What it does have is that white padded insulation stuff all over the place in the ceiling and even on the walls above the concrete blocks.  So I could bounce my strobes into the ceiling and shoot basketball in a giant softbox.  Nice!  And it is almost compensation for shooting in a “cracker box” gymnasium.

Normally I have to use direct flash.  Most gymnasiums are a bit larger and less accommodating of bounce flash with ceilings that are either too high or simply not white.  Most high school gyms use the same basic layout.  They have bleacher seating down the sides and open ends with varying amounts of space between the baseline and the wall.  Some gymns have balconies or even tracks around the court area.  Some have full balconies running all the way around the gym and others have balconies just on the sides.  There is even one gym with balconies behind each basket, no baseline area at all and stands down both sides right up to the court.  Setting up strobes then becomes a work in gymnastics.  (Yeah, I planned that one.  Did you enjoy that little pun?)

The basic lighting scheme I use in almost every case where there are no balconies is two lights on light stands in the corners of the gym on either side of the basket I am shooting under.  I place them as high as I can get them and aim them to cross in the lane or at the top of the key.  It depends on how far back I can get the strobes.  The more distance behind the basket I can get the strobes the further up the court I aim them.  In those gyms where there is only a few feet between the basket and the back wall I cross the lights more toward the center of the lane to prevent light loss under the basket.

If there are balconies then I am very happy.  I can get my strobes much higher and I can get them out of the way of the majority of the foot traffic in the gym.  It is a constant worry that someone will trip over the light stands and knock them over or even hurt themselves.  I usually secure my light stands to something stationary with ball bungee cords or even tape.  An alternative to light stands are super clamps that allow you to physically clamp your strobe to something like a rail or a bar.  The gym usually dictates what you can do.  Nine times out of ten I have to shoot my strobes direct but every now and then I get to use bounce and it is really nice light.  Since I will never have the luxury of really setting a lighting scheme like you see in the big arenas I am not worried about darkening down my backgrounds so the bounce light is really nice.

I do not try and totally kill the ambient light in the gym.  A lot of people do and that is fine.  I like to have my ISO up around 800 and in most of our places this gives me a bit of illumination in the background to balance the lighting from the strobes.  I usually aim for an exposure of 1/250 at f2.8 ISO 800.  About 90 percent of all my high school hoops is done this way.  It is my preference and not any rule.  When I began shooting SBs in gyms this worked really well and I have continued it using my Lumedynes.  It all comes down to whatever works for you.  I just don’t like my backgrounds to be real dark because then it looks like photos are over strobed.

The photos with this post area combination of shots done with both bounce and direct flash.  Strobe positions are very similar with the difference being the size of the gyms and the ability or lack of ability to bounce.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Nikon Professional Services loaned me a D700 a few weeks ago to go along with the 4oomm f2.8 which was stolen (I am coming for you dude, but enough of that!) and it is a really nice camera.  It is the little brother both literally and figuratively to the D3.  It is somewhat ironic that I began and ended my college football season in the Georgia Dome covering Alabama.  I used the D3 in the first game and the D700 in the second.

First of all, the D700 is a remarkable camera.  It can do 5 fps in the configuration I had from Nikon and 8 fps with the appropriate grip attached which is, I think, the Mbd10.  The camera is set up in the FX format giving you the heaven sent full frame sensor.  The camera is much lighter than the D3 and much smaller.  The down side of the construction is that the camera includes one of those irritating pop-up flashes that scream, “I am an amateur!”  I hate those things.  Why anyone would build a camera that costs basically $3,000 and put one of those cheap things on it is beyond me.  Anyone spending three grand on a camera might splurge for an add on flash.  Whatever.  It is a minor flaw in an otherwise nice camera.

The image quality is very similar to the D3.  I found the higher ISO images very clean.  The images I shot at ISO 4000 were just as clean as those I shot with the D3.  I can’t quantify this, it is only an impression, but the images from the D3 look marginally better than those from the D700 at high ISO.  It is a slight difference and not one that would cause me to spend $2,000 more for the D3.  That said, the D3 is a big boy camera and if I were choosing between the two with no regard for that extra money the D3 is the hands down choice.

The control setup is similar to that of the D3 or the D2H for that matter but not the same.  Because the motor drive is not integral the controls for white balance, ISO and image quality are moved to the top of the camera.  It is not a big deal just something I was not used to.  I have also become addicted to the vertical grip.  Man, it is tough to shoot verticals without that grip.  Back in the early days before I owned a camera with a motor drive I never even thought about it but once I had a vertical shutter release it is something I don’t want to do without.

The auto focus performance on this camera is truly remarkable.  I am not nearly as picky about AF as some folks evaluating cameras on the internet seem to be but no matter how picky you want to get this is a remarkable performer.  I actually like the AF performance on the D700 better than I like the AF performance on the D3.  No doubt the AF sensor is a little less sensitive on the D700 which suits my shooting style better.  The D3 was so touchy that any slip off that center AF sensor produced an immediate out of focus response.  The D700 gave me just a slight delay, nothing you would notice, but just enough so I had time to readjust my camera and catch some of those shots I might have missed.  That said, I like using the center AF sensor only.  I am not a big fan of all the focus tracking sensor arrays that allegedly track moving subjects when they leave your primary AF area.  Maybe it is that I have grown up on cameras where the AF sensors not in the center position are worthless so I learned early not to trust any AF sensor except that middle one.  This caused me to develop a shooting style that relies heavily on the center AF sensor to the complete disregard for all others.  Your shooting style may be different and you will get different results so this is just me.  Suffice it to say this is an amazing AF camera.

I referred to the D3 as My New Mistress in an earlier post.  While I like the D700 it wouldn’t make it to that level.  I like the camera but it left me a bit unmoved.  Maybe if I had shot it before the D3 I would have been more impressed.  It is not that there is a world of difference between the images the two bodies produce.  It is not really that there is a big difference in construction or quality.  Really, I can’t put my finger on it at all.  It is just a bad feeling about spending $3,000 for the camera.  I think that is it.  My feeling is the camera is over priced by about a thousand dollars.  For this camera with no vertical grip attached I would not personally be willing to drop three big bills on it.  Last time I checked, that is a bunch of money and if I were going to spend that much on a body I would just go ahead and bite the bullet and get a D3.  I guess that is the bottom line.  Drop the price to around $2,000 and I would jump on it.

Would I recommend the body?  Oh yeah!  This is a fantastic camera.  The money is a complaint I have about pretty much all photo gear but especially Nikon’s gear.  It has always been overpriced and it probably will always be overpriced.  What I do in most purchasing decisions is to do a cost/benefit analysis.  I try to determine if spending the money on a camera or lens or any piece of gear is going to yield an appreciably better result than I could get without that piece of equipment.  I was doing this long before the national economy got into a funk.  When you have a big family and not so big an income you learn early to evaluate all your purchasing decisions this way.  Is the camera worth the money?  For me as a member of a newspaper photo staff, the camera would be a great camera for our newspaper to buy because it is an excellent compromise between the price and image quality.  For me personally, this camera is a bit out of my range for the benefit it would produce.

The images in the gallery below are from the D3 and the D700.  Both images were shot at ISO 3200 and the D3 image was shot at 1/1250th at 2.8 while the D700 images was done at 1/1000th at f2.8.  The images were shot in NEF which is the Nikon Raw format and they were just opened directly in Photoshop with no image adjustments.  The JPG images were toned like they were when I sent them to our paper for publication.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Here is a bit more detail about setting up your camera as a remote with an eye to the tight wad in all of us. My set up is as basic as it gets. As I mentioned in the first post, I obtained a shutter release cable from Ebay. The important part is the ten pin connector on the camera end. Cut the wire leaving plenty to use for splicing then tie it in to a mini phono jack from Radio Shack. The Mini phono jack plugs into your Pocket Wizard. You can set the PW in your camera’s hot shoe or use velcro to mount it somewhere else or simply bungee it to your support. Whatever works best for you. The final step is to set your camera on the infinity setting on the setup menu for the auto meter shut off. This keeps the camera awake and ready to fire at all times. Mount your camera using your Variable Friction Arm (I erroneously called it a Magic Arm in my first post) and lock it down with cables to make sure it doesn’t fall and you are ready to shoot. You must make absolutely sure of your focus before you walk away. If the camera is mounted anywhere that there are people, you should probably use a little bit of gaffers tape to cover the focus ring so no curious folk adjust your focus for you. ALWAYS secure the camera in such a way that it cannot fall and injure anyone. ALWAYS ALWAYS TEST YOUR SETUP before you walk away. You will never know frustration like remote frustration if you think you are shooting and you come back at the end of the event to find not one single frame fired. Below are some detail shots to give you a better idea of how to set up your rig. As I mentioned in my earlier post, kudos and thanks to Jonathan Palmer for setting me up with this really cheap way to do remotes. Without his assistance I would still be remoteless.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

This is my favorite sports season. Spring in Alabama is anything but dull. Baseball, softball, soccer, tennis and crazy weather come together in a medley you simply couldn’t pay to get anywhere else. Literally, I shot snow Saturday morning and kids playing soccer in the park Sunday afternoon. They were wearing shorts enjoying the 60 degree weather. All within about 30 hours. Ahh, Spring.

Baseball, softball and soccer all present an opportunity to use a remote camera. Now, I know what you are thinking, only dudes with deep pockets can afford a remote setup. I used to think the same way you are plus I only had one camera. That kind of puts a crimp in the whole remote shooting thing. Let us assume that you either have a second body or can beg, borrow or steal one for an afternoon sporting event. One hurdle down. Second hurdle. Do you have a set of Pocket Wizards? Yes!? Wow, now we are really cooking. How about a remote cord that will keep your camera awake? Oops! Don’t have a couple hundred bones to lay down on that one. Don’t worry. I have really good news.

My coworker Jonathan Palmer let me in on a little secret. You can build your own cable for about twenty bucks. I ordered a really cheap electronic cable release that cost about $13 from Ebay. It came from Hong Kong and didn’t look like much. I brought it to Jonathan and he got out the surgical tools first cutting off the switch end and keeping about three inches of the cable and the end that connects to the camera. We then used some inexpensive connectors from Radio Shack and soldered the whole deal up and Shazam!, I now have a remote cord. My D2h is a very accommodating piece of equipment and comes with a setting that allows me to leave the meter on at all times which keeps the camera awake so it is ready to shoot.

Have a hot battery because the camera will consume an entire battery during the course of a game. Now all that remains is a way to mount the camera securely. This need is met by a Magic Arm from Manfrotto. I got the Magic Arm and a camera platform new for just a bit over $100 dollars. This allows me to clamp the camera somewhere and just walk away. I carry a Pocket Wizard and fire manually from anywhere within PW range which is enough to shoot from anywhere around a baseball field.

The key to using a remote camera is that you have to prefocus on specific location and wait for the action to go there. I use the remote on a base where action happens frequently. Second base or home plate are both good choices. That allows me to use my other camera with the long glass to follow the play around the field and my remote camera then picks up my security shots. I use the 80-200 on the remote. Another note. Make sure you secure the camera if it is mounted in any location where it could fall on a person or into the field of play. There are a variety of cables that can be used to do this. ALWAYS make sure the camera cannot fall and injure some! After that is done, you are ready for some action. My only real challenge is to not get so caught up in shooting that I forget to fire the remote.

For the next post, I bet you would really like some detail on how to do this remote cord so I will give some detail.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr and The Decatur Daily. The opinions in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

My friend Corey Wilson seems to have attracted a lot of attention since his post on shooting in the Deep Freeze in Green Bay during the NFC Championship game. On the Fred Miranda Forum there is a great debate raging over the competence of the camera and the photographer. For any of you guys coming in from that forum or the several other interested parties, let me fill in some blanks for you. Corey has been working in the cold conditions with Nikon gear exclusively for the last five years. His paper has talked about changing over to Canon as some other Gannett papers have done but they have not taken the plunge.

There was some speculation the Corey took the cameras straight from the locker room to the field but as I understand it, he was in a photo workroom prior to the game. While I am sure it was heated, I do not think it was a situation where it was humid nor do I think the Packer’s locker room would have been excessively humid prior to the game for the simple reason that it would have made the players that much colder upon entering the stadium to play football. Since other cameras coming from the same workroom as Corey’s did not fail, I can only assume that the workroom was not the source of the problem.

Corey states in the earlier post where he detailed his personal preparation that there was not much to do for the camera to prep it for the cold. One of the comments posted indicated that some photographers will tape hand warmers to their camera battery compartments in cold weather to help the battery from becoming sluggish in the cold weather. To my knowledge, none of the shooters from the Press Gazette did that. From what Corey describes in his post about the blank frames, I would diagnose a battery problem rather than a camera problem. I know I used to have the same problem shooting with the D1 cameras when the battery would drop below as certain ampere rating. This usually happened after about a year of use and the battery would not fully recharge. My guess is, and it is only a guess, is the batteries were falling victim to the cold and causing the cameras to fail.

Some speculated on Fred Miranda that the problem may lie with condensation in the camera. This could also be a problem, particularly if the condensation were in the battery compartment. In that kind of weather, the only source of condensation would be the photographer’s breath. There is some possibility that Corey’s breathing with face pressed to the camera back as a sports photojournalist is constantly doing could have introduced some moisture into the system causing the freeze ups. This is only speculation but if you think about it, you will remember seeing guys with facial hair with frozen mustaches or beards solely from the condensation caused by their breathing. Who knows, maybe my man is a heavy breather.

What I really think is that Press Gazette guys just ran into some bad luck whatever the source might be. I know Corey personally to be very attentive to his gear and a complete professional so I am pretty sure his competence does not come into play. Personally, I don’t think that a poor performance demonstrates an inherent flaws int he D3; although, I am not likely to have an opportunity to test that theory in balmy North Alabama.