Monday, January 21, 2008

The Nikon Side of things. What started off as an unabashed Camera Cock Block on my part ended up in a multi-team trade. T.Licious was upgrading his Camera Body and things ended up bloody past there. I traded him my Sony Alpha setup (A100, Sony 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens, Minolta 50mm f/1.7 and 28mm f/2.8) for his Nikon D200. This all wouldn't have really happened had I not been looking at 35mm Film Adapters for video cameras. You see, Em and I are looking to have little Em and I's this year and video cameras are a must; from documenting the miracles (and fluid dynamics) of birth to the first goofy steps of childhood, having a high-definition camera up in your grill can only be called parental love.

Having said that, the Nikon F-Mount is the de-jour of the 35mm Lens Adapters for Video Cameras (to get that 35mm film look and DOF) because of it's longevity and the plethora of old Nikon AI, AIS lenses in the marketplace. Besides, I've always wanted a Nikon deep down inside (don't tell my Canon buddies this or I'll get pillowcase full of soap pounded on my not so rock hard abs).

Here, replete with Gear P0rnography and a quick picture:


Packed with the bread and butter Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.


"Show me your blue steel."


This gorgeous model was not only nice on the eyes, she had book/street smarts. Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D

What I like about the Nikon System:

• Packed with features that I don't understand why Canon doesn't implement in the same manner, such as: Auto ISO (The 40D has this apparently, but nearly all current Nikons have this feature). I still set my ISO manually, but it's nice not having to worry about it and just concentrating on what the camera is calculating for the shutter speed. Of course, if you care about noise, etc. this can actually be a detriment.


• Camera layout that's really, as good as Canon's. I've used three different brands of DSLR's over the last year, not including Canon (Olympus, Sony/Minolta and now Nikon) and there seems to be a lot of thought put into the placement of certain buttons. I still don't like how the playback buttons work, and it seems like they've chimped Canon's (and everybody else) style of playback with a two button +/- zoom in their current DSLRs (from what I saw of T's D300).


• Viewfinder gridlines! You have to pay for accumatte screens in the Canon world for these and Nikon gives them to you for free.


• Dedicated Mirror Lockup, instead of going the Cfn. in the Canon World. But to be honest, the last time I used MLU was back in 2004, so it's not that big of a deal.

Things that are kind of annoying in the Nikon System:

• Autofocus. Yes, it's great, second to only the Canon AF-Systems, but it still feels a little laggy. I'm sure any Nikonians reading this will argue with me on this point, but I can attest that my old Canon 10D with an AF system from 2002-2003 era, is surprisingly more agile feeling than the D200's. I didn't say accurate (they're both pretty damn accurate), but I find that Canon's tends to focus more on what I think I want to focus than the Nikon's. This is was in the same manner as the Sony Alpha's AF system, where focus/recompose was regularly used as well.


• Mechanically linked AF-S,AF-C,AF-M button on the bottom left of the camera. I've hit this switch many times and accidentally changed the focus drive. Mildly annoying.

Anyways, loving my time in Nikon-Land. For more pictures, check out my small picasa-gallery: http://www.picasaweb.com/haifidelity
posted by HZA | 9:24 PM | email | archive