The future is megapixelsPERMALINK

Just as with point and shoot cameras, the future of digital SLRs points to more and more megapixels. Will the thrilling per-pixel quality of the Nikon D3 be forgotten in the haze of megapixel envy in the full-frame DSLR wars? Time will tell, but this photographer often picks up the 12.2-megapixel Nikon D3 in preference to the 21.1-megapixel Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III for all-around shooting, a personal preference which will be explained in the near future in more detail.

Sony’s announcement of its full-frame 24.7-megapixel-image CMOS sensor suggests that full-frame DSLRs are headed for the mainstream within a year or so, with competition likely to drive full-frame camera pricing into the sub-$2000 range. That’s wonderful, but it should not be forgotten that key features like durability/weather sealing and bright high-magnification viewfinders don’t get any cheaper—there will still be reasons to go with “pro” bodies.

With 12-bit imaging (vs the 14-bit seen with the latest Canon and Nikon DSLRs), Sony’s sensor does not seem destined for the high end. However, pixel quality depends on more than just 12 vs 14 bits, so we all must keep an open mind until real cameras appear utilizing the Sony sensor. And who wouldn’t be thrilled with the option of an $1800 full-frame Nikon D400, even if it were “only” 12-bit? Certainly that would be a nice option for an infrared conversion. For that matter, a compact point and shoot with a full-frame Live View sensor and fixed 35/1.4 lens would be tasty indeed.

This photographer hopes that Nikon will offer breakthrough 16-bit imaging for its speculated D3x, especially given the outstanding per-pixel quality of the 14-bit 12.2MP Nikon D3.

One downside of 25 megapixels is the small pixel size of 5.9 microns. While the Nikon D2x uses even smaller 5.5 micron pixels, those are all inside the “sweet spot”—the central 2/3 area of the frame. Testing in D2x vs EOS shows that optical quality is hit-and-miss at that pixel size, with technical excellence required to exploit the sensor and diffraction a constant threat. Mitigating that are new lens designs, such as Nikon’s 24-70/2.8 and 14-24/2.8, both designed for high performance across a full frame. And of course the Zeiss ZF series should perform well to even 30 megapixels, as previous prediction that should be testable in a few years.

New Mac Pro? Why you should be using DiskTesterPERMALINK

Getting a new Mac Pro for photography? You might want to install additional hard disks for storage, especially in a RAID for speed or reliability. DiskTester is a standard testing tool used at barefeats.com and amug.org for testing Mac RAID setups. But DiskTester is for more than for drive performance, reliability is critical and DiskTester can ferret out any problems with its test-reliability command, whether it’s a single drive, a RAID, or even a network drive.

Nikon PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ED Tilt/Shift lensPERMALINK

UPDATE from yesterday: Nikon has the 24/3.5 on its web site now, along with the press release. Bjørn Rørslett of naturfotograf.com has some comments on the new lenses (“New Lenses from Nikon”). And if you haven’t read his Nikon D3 review, it’s well worth reading.

See also my Jan 20 comments on 28mm shift lenses.

Nikon PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ED Tilt/Shift lensPERMALINK

Exciting news for those of us interested in stitching, architectural photography, etc. No official announcement just yet, but a dpreview.com thread is lively. Apparently 45mm and 85mm f/2.8 tilt/shift lenses are also in the works, very exciting news indeed, especially if the optical quality is as impressive as Nikon’s recent 14-24 and 24-70 zooms. Unclear is whether these are “G” lenses lacking an aperture ring, which would be a pity for Canon shooters looking to use them via an adapter. See tomorrow’s update.

See also my Jan 20 comments on 28mm shift lenses.

ISP problems should be resolvedPERMALINK

The ISP (internet service provider) problems should now be resolved, and diglloyd.com should be responsive again.

Clearing snow stormPERMALINK

Today brought one of those rare winter storms to the San Francisco Bay Area that actually left snow standing on the 2000-2500' hills between Silicon Valley and the ocean (eg Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve). I had only 30 minutes to shoot early in the morning, but made the best of it. A 100mm or 180mm is more suited to my vision for what I want to do from this vantage point, but this shot is great fun when all the detail can be seen, and would make a nice 5' wide print. Apparently salt is still harvested across the bay. Click to see a larger size.

I had no cable release and only a diminutive Gitzo 0-series tripod with me, but I shot this 46-megapixel stitched image (8 frames) on the Canon EOS 5D-IR. Infrared often doesn’t cut through many types of atmospheric haze, but it did so reasonably well here. I’m not even sure I had the focus nailed, so I shot at f/8 and it seems pretty good; it’s a bit difficult with the 5D-IR to be sure, and freezing/windy conditions made it challenging.

There is as yet no full-frame camera with Live View at a reasonable price suitable for conversion for IR purposes (though a Nikon D3 would do very nicely!). When converted, my 5D-IR had its focus adjusted for IR; world-class lenses like the Coastal Optics 60/4 don’t need that accommodation, and thus end up front-focusing in IR (most lenses backfocus). The diglloyd Guide to Digital Infrared Photography details such lens characteristics for over 50 lenses.

Sporadic ISP problemsPERMALINK

There have been ISP (internet service provider) problems the past two days making diglloyd.com inaccessible at times. I apologize for the trouble, now only if my ISP could just work 24X7 as they promise!

Coastal Optics 60/4 APO macro in colorPERMALINK

Previous entries address infrared performance with the Coastal 60/4 APO macro. Below are a few color shots on the Nikon D3 from the Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 APO macro. Aperture f/5.6 is near diffraction limited, improving a worthwhile amount over f/4, but f/8 has really nothing more to offer except depth of field, while f/11 does the usual diffraction dance. The foregoing is not a discussion about macro-size subjects, but near-infinity, so all the more impressive.

The Coastal 60/4 is a “weird” lens—showing no color fringing whatsoever, even on very high contrast edges—a sign of its superb “APO” (apochromatic) correction. Its corner-to-corner sharpness fully exploits the Nikon D3’s sensor by f/5.6, and the real (not theoretical) depth of field the lens delivers is not diminished by latent aberrations or chromatic errors.

I’m looking forward to some night-time shooting with it one of these days (!), though the f/4 maximum aperture exacts its toll on flexibility. Still, an f/2 lens with the same unprecedented performance from UV through IR would probably cost $20K, so I’m content with f/4.

28mm shift lensesPERMALINK

Shift lenses are not widely understood or used. In fact, mentioning them draws a blank stare from many photographers, which is unfortunate given their many useful applications. I’d estimate that fewer than 1% of pro or “serious amateur” photographers own a shift lens, and that is unfortunate, because many applications can benefit (stitched high-res images, correction of converging verticals, more flexible camera position, etc). And so my 28mm Shift Lenses review has never been a volume seller. Nonetheless, I’m considering a modest update using the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and Nikon D3 full-frame cameras, so drop me a line if you think you might buy an updated version of this review—I’ll gauge the merits of investing the time and effort based on the response I get.

Flowering manzanitaPERMALINK

Divorced from nature, most of us fail to notice the subtle changes throughout the year that our ancestors had to know to survive, so I’ll make my contribution here today—it’s that time of winter in the San Francisco Bay Area when the elegant Manzanita (“little apple”) Arctostaphylos flowers. Hardly anything else dares to be so bold, though the California Buckeye will produce quite a display in a month or so.

Shape and colorPERMALINK

I’m drawn to interesting shapes and colors. Especially at dusk, oddball lighting from the sky and various artificial lights creates many interesting effects. The Nikon D3 is wonderful for handheld shoot at dusk this way; I used ISO 6400 with the Zeiss ZF 28/2 Distagon. The D3 seems to produce an exceptionally high success rate when handheld at low shutter speeds (1/30, 1/15)—mass and mirror damping must be contributing factors. See the new entry on my Experiments page for more examples from today’s dusk shooting.

Fujifilm IS Pro license odditiesPERMALINK

License agreements are often obtuse and worthy of no more than a yawn and some irritation, if you can stand to read them. But here’s a real doozy from Fujifilm (“Fujifilm USA EULA”)— unless your use of the S5 IS Pro camera falls within their stated requirements, you’re not allowed to use it! So much for the blurring of tangible and intangible property.

You hereby acknowledge and agree that your use of the camera's UV and/or IR light energy sensitive capabilities, as enabled by Fujifilm's camera firmware, will be purely to accomplish a legitimate business purpose in the medical, forensic, fire investigative, law enforcement, scientific, systems integrators, museum/antiquity, aerial photographic survey, astronomy, professional nature and fine art photography, photographic education and local and federal government markets.

In addition, you further agree not to use the camera's hardware and firmware enabled capabilities to engage in unethical photographic conduct involving the violation of personal privacy, child endangerment, lewd photography, and or paparazzi like activities.

For that matter, if it’s for personal use, it’s unclear if all use of the camera is therefore disallowed, since personal use is certainly not a “legitimate business purpose” (emphasis added). And what if my pictures suck, and don’t qualify as “fine art”? The agreement is a “cover your ass” one. Worth reading if you are considering the S5 IS Pro. But at least the agreement will scare off “unethical persons”, right?!

Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 APO macro Ultraviolet (UV)PERMALINK

(See yesterday’s entry also). Using an unmodified Nikon D3 and a two-filter stack (Tiffen Hot Mirror over a B+W 403 Ultraviolet UV black), there does seem to be some response from the Nikon D3, though it might well be something besides UV and/or in addition to UV. Results with the Baader “Venus” filter (original version) are similar (and about two stops faster). The word from UV guru Bjørn Rørslett of naturfotograf.com is that the results are likely due in good part to infrared that has not been adequately suppressed.

And whatever it is, the color variation might be due to the filter stack rather than inherent in the scene. Whatever the spectral band, it’s eye-catching at least.

Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV/VIS/IR APO macro (more)PERMALINK

Following up on Wednesday’s entry, below are some examples taken with the Canon EOS 5D-IR (715nm internal filtration) and the Coastal Optics 60/4 APO macro. Nikon D70-IR examples follow also. I shot for 30 minutes or so today with the 5D-IR and perhaps 20 minutes with the D70-IR, all I could afford.

The stunning sharpness of the Coastal 60/4 in infrared with no hot spots is a refreshing treat. Its performance in color is superb as well. I’m sure I’ll find something to nitpick eventually, and soon I’ll compare it to the Zeiss 50/2 Makro-Planar, which can be quite a good performer in infrared. I’m also planning on adding high-resolution examples to the diglloyd Guide to Digital Infrared Photography.

If you’re interested in the Coastal 60/4, please contact me—I’m interested in hearing about your intended uses for it. The lens is expensive in absolute terms, but compared to buying a used 105/4.5 UV-Nikkor, it seems to be on par with what one can expect for this level of performance. For infrared photography it’s terrific, and for ultraviolet photography it’s the only game in town unless you can find a used and rare 105/4.5 UV-Nikkors.

No hot spots observed in any images so far, including the challenging one below.

The level of detail that the EOS 5D-IR can produce in conjunction with the 60/4 macro is pretty incredible. Click to see a larger size along with an actual pixels crop.

Pixel quality of the Nikon D70-IR is excellent, and can be fully exploited by the Coastal 60/4.

Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV/VIS/IR APO macroPERMALINK

I spend half a day shooting the Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO macro today, which I have on loan for the next three weeks (please see my Nov 8, 2007 entry). The 60/4 is apochromatic from ultraviolet (315nm) to 1100nm, an almost unprecedented capability that allows focusing in visible light for perfect ultraviolet and infrared focus. It actually transmits from 290nm to 1500nm, should you have the specialized equipment to work in that extended range.

Unfortunately, a camera modified for infrared use that that has had its focus adjusted to accommodate everyday banale Canon and/or Nikon lenses will need “unadjustment” to realize the matched focus of the 60/4. That includes my Canon EOS 5D-IR which “front focuses” with the 60/4. (For more on infrared see the diglloyd Guide to Digital Infrared Photography).

Fortunately my D70-IR focuses quite accurately with the 60/4. Those willing to spend US$4495 on the 60/4 might as well consider dedicating a digital SLR to it, modified for ultraviolet and/or infrared such that the remarkable APO focusing can work its convenience. It would certainly be lovely if Coastal considered producing 28mm and 100mm and 200mm alternatives as well. Especially if they could get the price down to about half of where it is now.

Fluorite lens elements and advanced 12-layer coatings contribute to the unique capabilities of the 60/4 (there is simply no other lens available today from Canon or Nikon or Leica or Zeiss that can perform this way). Watch this blog for more in the coming weeks.

Horse playPERMALINK

Sometimes an unusual perspective (camera position or mental) produces a fun image; I follow the convention of not ruling out the conventional or the unconventional. I shoot my share of boring cruft, but I also experiment and shoot for myself. I like this image because it’s fun—good enough for me.

More conventional perhaps, but this beautiful mare was so friendly that I could not resist.

I’ve made good progress on incorporating the Zeiss ZF 28/2 Distagon into Zeiss ZF Lenses. It’s a highly unusual lens and has presented more of a challenge to evaluate than even the ZF 25/2.8 Distagon.

I consider Zeiss ZF Lenses to be one of my best efforts to date. Whether are are a working pro or a budding artist, I urge you to consider Zeiss ZF Lenses purely for the insight into how various lenses perform, even if you have no immediate need or intention of buying a Zeiss ZF lens. It’s a great way to learn, and a great way to support this site.

Canon’s “Lens Work”PERMALINK

Canon has published its “Lens Work” book over the years, detailing design, specification and usage of its entire lens line. It’s well worth reading at least once, and is a good reference. Now Canon has posted updated electronic material (11 PDF files) available in multiple languages, though certain lenses like the EF 14/2.8L II are not covered.

PDFs 3, 4, 5 cover Canon EF primes, zooms and EF-S lenses respectively. This is an excellent way to investigate your next lens choice.

Perhaps most useful to to the widest audience (and not just Canon shooters), is book #7 The Basics of Interchangeable Lenses & Correspondence of EF Lenses to Digital Photography, which offers an excellent explanation (and graphics) of how lenses work on a camera, angle of view, sensor size cropping, depth of field, perspective and digital imaging. Even those with previous experience will find this book interesting. PDF 8 Photo Techniques discusses various types of picture taking (portraits, landscape, etc), and is an excellent introduction for beginning photographers.

PDF 9 EF Lens Technology covers Canon lens design, and PDF 10 Optical Terminology are well worth reading if you want to understand lens performance—design challenges, compromises, MTF, lens aberrations, etc. It also has MTF charts for all Canon lenses. Finally, PDF 11 contains design specifications and tables for Canon lenses and accessories.

Basic needsPERMALINK

Aspirations satisfied.

Lay or bustPERMALINK

Hope springs eternal.

Well, if you don’t get it, that’s fine, this guy didn’t either.

Leica M8—infrared imageryPERMALINK

If you’re a Leica M8 owner (or prospective one), you’ll definitely want to read about how the M8 performs in Leica M8 — Infrared Imaging.

On the agendaPERMALINK

Planned items on the agenda for January are the following:

• addition of the Zeiss ZF 28/2 Distagon to Zeiss ZF Lenses;
• write-up of Leica M8 infrared findings;
• experience report with Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 APO UV-IR;
• more on the Nikon D3 [so far] and Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III [so far].

Stay tuned!

Power restoredPERMALINK

After 16 hours or so, power was restored late Friday night.

On battery powerPERMALINK

22:19 PST—A major storm blew into central California today, and this web site has been running on batteries for over 15 hours (the ISP was also down for 5-6 hours today, though the diglloyd.com server remained up). The site will go down within 10-20 hours if power is not restored; it came on briefly for a few minutes tonight, then quit again. I’m sucking up some “juice” writing this on my MacBook Pro.

I do love a good storm (when the storm was blowing in it was wonderfully warm), but no electricity is a real nuisance. It means no heat (furnace fans need electricity), flashlights and candles, minimizing all use of water (our septic/sewer pump needs electricity), melting ice cream in the freezer. It also means neighbors oblivious to the stink and noise of their diesel generators—it would be nice to hear peace and quiet or better yet the howling of the wind through the trees, and the occasional heavy pelting of rain on the roof. Dang, I wish it were snow—now that would be fun.

Being near the hills, we’ve had 6-8 inches of rain in the past 24 hours (but probably much less in the Silicon Valley area). One of my large recycling bins blew into the open storm gutter as I watched, and made a nice stable boat as disappeared from view—but fortunately the bin had already been emptied of its contents by Sanitary Engineers. A morning walk in the storm did require some care, as many trees have been downed, though mainly ones with inherent structural weakness.

Leica M8 for infraredPERMALINK

Leica USA loaned me an M8 along with the new 35/2.5 Elmarit and the 16/18/21mm f/4 Tri-Elmar. I will be posting a report in the next few weeks, but in brief, the M8 makes a very usable infrared camera without modification, something rarely seen these days. The M8 uses sensor cover glass which blocks infrared weakly, which allows it to be used with reasonable shutter speeds handheld, at least in bright sunlight. Thus its weakness is also its strength (see Infrared Contamination). If you’re interested in infrared photography, why not learn about it the fastest way possible?

The Leica M8 uses the Kodak KAF-10500 sensor; see the datasheet for details on IR transmission.

diglloyd.com site responsePERMALINK

Please let me know if you’re experiencing any problems accessing diglloyd.com. Specific date(s) and time(s) would be helpful—thank you.

Although there were some network problems over the weekend, they should all be resolved at this point.

Nikon D3 review—Bjørn RørslettPERMALINK

For the best review yet of the Nikon D3 (by far), see Bjørn Rørslett’s review of the Nikon D3 at his site naturfotograf.com. His is a real review based on field-shooting the D3 extensively, and he can provide the insights gleaned from many years of shooting Nikon cameras.

I spent a week shooting in Norway with Bjørn in 2006, a beautiful country that should be on your list to visit. The image below shows one of the many beautiful valleys found inland not far from Oslo. Cyclists with a bent towards travel should take not of the beautiful road system.

The fun is in the details; this is one of those images that needs a decent size print. Haze did cut down image contrast somewhat, but it’s still quite nice.