mardi 10 octobre 2006

Nikon D200 review... part 1 Digital... I've dipped my toe in the water... Having been a pro photographer and black-and-white printer since the mid-1970s - and having owned, published and edited a specialist darkroom magazine in the UK throughout the 1990s - I found the very thought of digital a complete anathema. Traditional darkroom work, as well as some alternative printing processes using hand-coated papers, was the be-all-and-end-all with me... like being in the kitchen, the pleasure was/is as much, if not more, in the preparation and cooking rather than the eating. However, when photographers the world over were moving to digital at the turn of the millennium, albeit to quite expensive 1-2 megapixel cameras, I knew the writing was on the wall for my magazine. What I didn't forsee was that selling images would also become largely digital too! And I've been left in the cold... my toes have dipped into the water but I'm unsure how deep it is and whether to plunge in! Once I had made up my mind to try digital, choosing a Nikon D200 DSLR didn't take much consideration. I've used mostly Nikon cameras (all of the professional models except for the latest F6) for the best part of four decades... so I not only know where that particular make of camera's controls are traditionally placed and how they operate, and therefore have a feel for them so that I don't have to think about or look at what I'm doing when taking pictures... but I also have a reasonable stock of manual and auto-focus Nikkor lenses, some manufactured 30 years ago, which all fit the latest Nikon bodies. This was very important for me... old habits die hard, and to have to learn opposite ways of manipulating camera and lens controls didn't interest me at all - the only "automation" I like on cameras is how my hands and fingers work when I'm shooting. Auto-wind is OK I suppose... but I still try to "wind-on" film and cock the shutter as my other preferred cameras are the Nikon F2 and Leica M3 rangefinder... as I said, old habits die hard. Where automation does help me (I think) is that when using my old manual Nikkors I can dial the focal length and maximum aperture data into the D200 menu and fire away knowing that the camera's computer algorithms are honing the exposure for me. The main image of two walnut trees in the field at the bottom of the garden, made early this morning, only needed a quick data change to tell the camera I was using an old 500mm f/8 Nikkor Mirror lens (read my review). I bought the D200 from a professional dealer in Tours, France, where I knew that the staff wouldn't engage me in banal sales patter (I've been behind a shop counter in the past so know the drill... make sure the customer also buys an extra zoom lens, rubber lens hoods, skylight filters, fancy neck strap, light tripod, nylon gadget bag and a couple of films - because the profit margins on the accessories bought in bulk by the dealer are much higher than on the camera itself - and counter staff often receive a bonus when a customer buys all those items as a "kit" with a camera). I also needed a very wide lens for a job that was coming up so inquired about the 12-24mm Nikkor (equating to 18-35mm on the 35mm film format)... but they were back-ordered for a couple of months in France. This is where customer service comes into play... the shop owner, also a Nikon user, had taken personal delivery of that lens the day before, and said that I could borrow his for a few days before making a buying decision. As it was new, and I couldn't accept responsibility for leaving any marks on it, I talked him into selling it instead... I think I got a good deal, but negotiating in my second language was not particularly easy... and the dealer knew I wanted the lens! Five months on and I'm only now finding the opportunity (desire probably) to publish a couple of images made with the Nikon D200... they're not great images, but have actually convinced me - previously a die-hard black-and-white processing and printing enthusiast - that the "immediacy" of digital can an aid to my photography which has been in decline over the past couple of years or so... in that having a different life-style now I choose to do other things instead of going into a darkroom, processing colour transparency film, and then hours later scanning them, etc., etc. With the Nikon D200 I knew moments after I made the exposures I had a couple of images to illustrate my thoughts, or rather experiences of the light this morning. The main image was of trees maybe half a kilometre away (the 500mm Nikkor equates to a 750mm focal length lens on the 35mm film format because of the D200 crop/magnification factor of x1.5)... and the second image made with the 12-24mm zoom (at 18mm) was directly behind me looking across the garden through more tree foliage towards the rising sun... light shimmering off the dew-covered grass. Two completely different contrasting scenes taken within moments of each other and perfectly exposed... a situation that, with film, would have required bracketed exposures to make sure that I had "keepers" when viewing them on a lightbox hours later after the light had changed and gone for another day or so. Out of curiosity, I converted the main image to "sepia effect" using the Nikon Picture Project software included with the camera... a simple mouse click. Hmmm! No bad egg smells associated with that darkroom process... I'm even more convinced now! So, years after digital arrived on the scene, I'm just starting to be convinced of its advantages... but really wish that the apparatus could be simpler. I don't need all of the options built into modern cameras... and am attracted by the new Leica M8 digital rangefinder announced at Photokina recently. But before I tread that expensive path I'll relate more thoughts and experiences with the D200 and see if it gets me back into being a photographer... stay with me on this! 6:26:45 PM    comment []