Here is a tip. On my D700, there are two buttons on the front, which can be assigned to different tasks depending on your preference. One thing I was happy to see was this setting.

(Disclaimer: this is a horrible pic. I apologize for that, I was using my iphone and couldn’t seem to focus and meter correctly. It’s no D700)

D700 Preview Button Press Control Settings

Because the picture is so bad, I will read it to you. “Access Top Item in My Menu”

My Menu, if you haven’t used it before, is like a bookmark list of your favorite settings, so that you can find them easily. Nikon has now taken this a step further by allowing you to access your top choice just by pressing the button on the front of the camera.

I set my top item to Auto ISO Sensitivity (on/off) This way, I can now enable or disable Auto ISO quickly without using menus.

Why would you turn Auto ISO off when the D700 has such great noise handling characteristics?

• Long exposures such as landscapes
• Using flash manually or in the studio
• Using manual mode and getting reliable results
• Panning or invoking intentional blur

It’s old news by new that full frame sensor cameras like the new Nikon D700, the slightly new D3 and the aging Canon 5D have shallower depth of field and allow for better isolation of the subject than crop (APS, DX, Digital Only) cameras. But why? Why would making the sensor larger create a shallower depth of field?

There is certainly no question that it happens. Behold, more of my quick and dirty “let’s shoot everything with the new camera” shots:

Shallow DOF

More Shallow DOF

Other than the better noise performance, this is one of the biggest reasons people sometimes prefer a full frame camera. I can certainly agree. I really like the new creative possibilities afforded by the larger sensor size.

But why does it happen? I felt the need to get a better answer than “because the sensor is larger.” These are my findings, and could be totally off base.

Following a lead I got on flickr, I set out to read Wikipedia’s articles about DOF and the Circle of Confusion.

“1. To calculate a camera’s depth of field (“DoF”), one needs to know how large a circle of confusion can be considered to be an acceptable focus. The maximum acceptable diameter of such a circle of confusion is known as the maximum permissible circle of confusion, the circle of confusion diameter limit, or the circle of confusion criterion, but is often incorrectly called simply the circle of confusion.

2. Recognizing that real lenses do not focus all rays perfectly under even the best of conditions, the circle of confusion of a lens is a characterization of its optical spot. The term circle of least confusion is often used for the smallest optical spot a lens can make, for example by picking a best focus position that makes a good compromise between the varying effective focal lengths of different lens zones due to spherical or other aberrations. Diffraction effects from wave optics and the finite aperture of a lens can be included in the circle of least confusion, or the term can be applied in pure ray (geometric) optics.”

A circle of confusion, indeed. I guess we can assume that this is the circle of light that hits the sensor. For full frame sensors, this circle is larger than on cropped digital cameras. Easy enough. But it still doesn’t answer the question.

Well, I do know one thing for sure. Longer telephoto focal lengths produce shallower DOF than wide focal lengths. I then found this lovely article.

“As sensor size increases, the depth of field will decrease for a given aperture (when filling the frame with a subject of the same size and distance). This is because larger sensors require one to get closer to their subject, or to use a longer focal length in order to fill the frame with that subject. This means that one has to use progressively smaller aperture sizes in order to maintain the same depth of field on larger sensors.”

So I think what we have here is that the circle of light hitting the sensor is larger, which removes the crop factor that used to make a 100mm lens into a 150mm lens. So, we have less length and we need to get closer or zoom in more to create the same picture we had in mind. Since we are closer or shooting longer, the effects of shallow DOF start to appear more. I guess. I still feel a bit confused by the whole thing.

On to something I DO understand:

Editability to the Max!

Better noise performance and cleaner images from the D700 don’t just mean that images look better straight out of the camera (they do, but that’s not the point of this post). It also means that editing photos just opened up quite a bit. In the photo above, for example, I was able to process in lightroom so that both the sky and the buildings were clear, exposed properly and noise free. Similar to an HDR or even grad ND filter technique, but without all of the hassle. Since the image has less noise overall and especially in shadows, a lot more can now be done in post without losing image quality. For this image I ended up exposing for the buildings, then applying one of Lightroom 2’s new “fake” Graduated Neutral Density filters and tweaking some other settings. It’s not a very artistic photograph, but it sure shows a lot of potential for D700 RAW image editing.

I had been curious about 2 main things regarding the Nikon D700. One, the low noise performance which I have heard so much about (starting with the D3 coverage) and two, the change from a 1.5 DX crop factor to a full frame sensor.

I decided to make a series of test images with both cameras while I still have the D300 and thought I would share them here. I know these photos are not great art but they serve the purpose of demonstration.

D300 vs D700 ISO 1600 Noise (click to enlarge)

First I wanted to check noise levels. I knew when I took some of the first D700 test shots that noise performance was good, but I wanted to see a direct side-by-side with my old camera, the D300. Above is a side-by-side comparison. This is just one example, but the rest of my shots proved similar. The D700 has far, far less noise than the D300 at high ISO speeds. I have shot 2000 and above with no noticeable noise.

Second, I wanted to see the difference in focal length / field of view on the new full frame sensor vs the old DX way of doing things.

D300 (DX) 50mm

D700 (FX) 50mm

D300 (DX) 200mm

D700 (FX) 200mm

Both of these pairs were shot from the same distance to the subject and the same lenses. So here we can see the crop difference is very real. It’s give and take. I definitely prefer the wider view out of my 50mm lens. I felt the 50mm range was very awkward on the D300. My 70-200mm lens does not go as far with the new sensor, but I also enjoy getting wider usage out of the 70mm end. I felt it was helpful to see these concrete examples of the field of view changing.

I hope some of you found these examples interesting. It’s nothing that hasn’t been said or proven before, but having access to both cameras, I wanted to be sure to post these comparisons before it’s all D700 from here on out!

The gift of love, of course!

But a D700 doesn’t hurt…

Today, to my utter shock, my wife and the love of my life presented me with a brand new D700. I can’t really say enough about it… it’s an incredible gift and I’m glad to have a wife that supports me and my photography habits!

Every photographer does this. You get a new camera, unwrap it from the box and quickly shoot everything in sight. Testing is important, right? So without further ado… my first few “test” subjects:

ISO 2000. Handheld in bedroom light. (click to enlarge and see zero noise)

It’s Not Art, But It’s A Clean Shot

Stopping In at 1 AM

Okay… I did take a couple of “artistic” photos as well…

Lights

A Farewell to DX

The D700 is one of Nikon’s two “FX” cameras which are the relatively new full-frame digitals. This means the camera sensor is the same size as 35mm film and therefore shoots like film in terms of focal length and field of view. Lenses marked “DX” or “Digital Only” can still be used, but half the resolution is lost. Luckily, my favorite lens (70-200 2.8 VR) is “normal” or “FX” sized, as is my 50mm prime. The 12-24 pictured above, however, will be hitting the auction block.

The real strength of the camera is the quality of lower light photography.  As you can see in some of the examples above, the D700 is capable of very fine detail and low noise in poor light.  I shoot a lot of photos in available light and this is an absolute killer upgrade.

Overall I’m absolutely shocked and thrilled to be holding a D700 in my hands so soon. Thanks, Teresa!

Luigi’s Alley

I was looking around near where I work in D.C. recently when I happened upon this alley.  Not just any alley, but Luigi’s alley.  I like the way the light was that day, and I like the glow on the pipe to the left of the frame.  In general, I just enjoyed shooting this photo.  I did bring up some of the shadow detail in Lightroom and work with the contrast just a little bit.

Wordpress has released an app for iPhone which allows full posting capability including categories and tags from anywhere. Pretty neat. I’m posting from it now so we will see how this goes.