Poppi

After spending many hours doing an initial cull on the images I took on our four week trip to Europe, I thought I'd better post one on this blog. During the trip we spent nine days in Tuscany close to a place called Poppi hence the spelling. The image below was taken in the Roman Forum in Rome which is a long way from Poppi but serves as a nice reminder of the trip. The technical guff for the image is F/5.6, 1/500sec, IS200 –0.7EV using a D80 18-200mmVR (@135mm).



What to buy? Nikon D800, D700 or D400 or D7000.

The time has come to replace my camera body. The D80, my first DSLR has served me well since 2006. The current purchasing decision is however more complex. Until quite recently I had my head set on whatever the D300S replacement turns out to be. This has now become less clear with the introduction of the D800 ahead of the D300S update (D400). Although the D800 is in a different class to the D400, FX versus DX, it has made the availability of lightly used D700's a reality. The pragmatic reader could also ask "what is wrong with a D7000?" Fair comment!
Back in 2006 when I bought the D80, I had actually decided to go for a D200 but there wasn't one available for some time so I settled for the D80. It is fair to say that as far as I'm aware the only area where I regret this is in the inferior frame rate when taking sports images.
So, how to make a decision? A list of bullet points for each body is a good start:

D800

• Current state of the art.
• Expensive.
• Enormous files.
• Some current lenses rendered redundant.
• Only 4 fps.
• Excellent high ISO image quality.

D700

• Last generation model.
• Becoming available second hand.
• Sensible size files.
• Some lenses also rendered redundant.
• 5 fps (8 with MB-D10 grip).
• Excellent high ISO image quality.

D400

• State of the art DX.
• Use existing lenses.
• ?
• ?

D7000

• Good frame rate.
• Relatively inexpensive.
• Sensible file sizes.

If the critical constraint is budget then I should get a D7000 and get on with it. The thought of the D400 appearing shortly after with major improvements is holding me back. I cannot see any way that I will pay the price of a D800 when the frame rate is lower than I require and the file sizes are enormous. They are seven times bigger than what I handle at the moment. Just offloading the camera would take too long. A tempting D700 bargain could however sway me to full frame.
The conclusion at this point is that I will wait a bit longer to hear about the D400 specifications. The announcement is so far overdue it must be coming soon.

Tuscan Rainbow.

The following image was taken over the village of Bibbiena in Tuscany. Galen Rowell took a very famous image of a rainbow over the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. I recall from his book "Mountains of the Middle Kingdom" that he had to drive a long way to get the rainbow in the right place. I only had to dash outside the house.

Although not in the same league as Galen's image (see http://mountainlight.com/gallery.tibet/images.html ) it still created a moment of excitement. Technical details are Nikon D80, 18-200mm (75mm), f6.3, 1/125sec, ISO200.

Roundabout.

This image has caught the action on the carousel quite nicely and was taken at 1/30th second and f/4.5. I tried panning with the movement which has helped to freeze Lucy but the relative motion and possibly a contribution from the aperture has left the background unsharp. This gives an impression of the speed.

The Need for Speed.

I simply had to grab a shot of my daughter playing with my old motorbike helmet. It was also another good candidate to play with black and white conversion. Exposure 1/80sec, f/5.6, ISO 200

Self Portrait.

This is not terribly flattering but I actually like it. Looking a bit rough round the edges after a few days camping. The image was taken by simply holding the camera out in front of me. Monochrome never fails to add a bit of character. Nikon D80, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens, 1/640 sec, f/2.5, -0.7EV, ISO 200.

Golden Hour.

When this blog was started it was as an incentive to complete and report upon the assignments in the Strobist "Lighting 101" course. There is still an intention to keep a high proportion of lit images in the blog so I'll kick off again with this one.



The idea here was to recreate golden hour type light without any such light present. There is an SB800 with 1/2 CTO gel at 45 degrees camera right through a translucent umbrella. To add a bit of light to the hair I placed an SB26 with 1/4 CTO gel at subject left. The power on the SB800 was double that on the SB26 (1/8th and 1/16th). the camera settings were 1/200th second, F/5.6, ISO200m Nikon 18-200mm VR at 80mm.