Canon has announced 3 new lenses; a revised EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II, along with two primes an EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM, and an EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM. And while their press release promises impressive new heights in optical performance, I personally can’t find myself getting past the price tags.

While it’s been clear for the past couple of years, the prices of camera gear coming out of Japan has been going up—in part due to a stronger Yen and a weaker dollar—the prices have been increasingly heading towards the point where I have to question whether the gear is worth that kind of money any more.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II

The 24-70mm focal range has long been the workhorse for photographers. In fact, even though it’s not my favorite lens, it’s almost certainly my most used lens. And it’s hard to argue that while it works, and does a good enough job, the current Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM was somewhat lagging behind Nikon’s in terms of optical quality. So the announcement of the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II isn’t entirely unexpected.

While the old 24-70 f/2.8 has an impressive number of exotic (1 UD and 2 aspherical) elements, the new 24-70 f/2.8L USM II ups the exotic glass game by doubling the number of UD elements and adding a super UD element while keeping the 2 aspherical elements. The changes in exotic glasses promise to reduce aberrations including color fringing.

Moreover, the 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II manages to shed a few ounces, dropping the weight from 33.3oz (950g) to 28.4oz (805g).

Unfortunately this drop in weight comes with the loss of the reverse-extension zoom barrel. If you’re not familiar with this, the way the existing 24-70 works was that it was shortest at 70mm and longest at 24mm; with the hood attaching to the outer fixed barrel instead of the inner moving one. Though it resulted in a huge shade, it meant that the lens was always properly shaded regardless of what focal length you were shooting at.

The new 24-70 II behaves like any other extending zoom does, where it lengthens as focal length increases, and the lens hood is mounted to the front of the moving lens barrel. As a result, the lens hood, really only shades optimally at 24mm, and not at 70mm.

The real jaw dropping feature of the new EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II, however, is the price. And by jaw dropping, I’m talking an estimated street price of $2300 US. This is a full $600 more than Nikon is asking for their 24-70 f/2.8 and a staggering $900 more than the current Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, and almost as much as their 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. To put this another way, if you’re looking to get yourself a photojournalist style kit of f/2.8 glass from 16mm to 200mm you’re now looking at over $6000 in lenses alone.

One other thing the worth a least a mention, the new 24-70 f/2.8L USM II sees some filter bloat, replacing the standard 77mm front filter from it’s pro predecessor with an 82mm front filter. So those of you, like me, who had standardized on 77mm filters and bought a 77mm circular polarizer hoping you wouldn’t need to buy another one. Ya, you’ll be breaking out your wallet for a nice new CPL too.

Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM and Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM

Though not to take away from their uniqueness, I’m combing my comments on these two lenses, as they’re really more similar than they are different. In fact, it raises a question in my mind as to why one of them exists.

Wide angle primes have long been the tools for landscape and street photographers, though typically for slightly different reasons. Being prime lenses, they tend to out perform their zoom counter parts when it comes to image quality. Fewer elements, mean better contrast, and one a single focal length means the lens can be better optimized to be sharp and distortion free. Moreover, they tend to pack considerable punch in a tiny package.

Which brings us to the pair of “slow” primes, the 24mm f/2.8 IS USM and the 28mm f/2.8 IS USM. Canon presently has two non-stabilized primes at the same focal lengths and apertures, though they are both some what dated and the old 28mm f/2.8 isn’t even a USM lens. However, they are cheap, coming in at $375 and $260 respectively. Though there not optical stars, they aren’t priced that way either. What they are, though, is entry level wide angle primes—with the 28mm f/2.8 being a entry level APS-C normal as well.

It’s not all bad however, the new primes feature:

• a 4 stop image stabilizer
• Ring USM auto focus motors with Full Time Manual Focus
• distance information for E-TTL2 flashes
• improved super spectra coatings
• 7-bladed circular apertures
• molded aspherical lenses

Canon also touts a distance scale, which while not completely useless, since it includes f/11 and f/22 DoF marks, is still a mere shadow of a proper manual focus distance scale.

That said, the EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM and EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM should offer an improvement in image quality over their somewhat dated predecessors.

So what confuses my about the new 24mm and 28mm f/2.8 primes?

To start with their price; which Canon is placing at an estimated $850 and $800 respectively. True, that’s a site cheaper than the EF 24mm f/1.4L USM’s $1750 price tag, but that still leaves the 28mm f/2.8 IS USM out there in why land?

On the other hand, consider a fast normal prime for a crop camera, something Canon still doesn’t have. 28mm on an APS-C sensor has a field of view equivalent to 45mm on a 135-format frame, which is arguably more normal than 50mm. However, at f/2.8 and at nearly the same price as the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM, you have to ask yourself what is that lens really buying you? It’s certainly not buying action freezing shutter speeds, even if the IS system is 2 stops better than the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8.

It would seem to me that a full frame 24mm f/2.8 IS USM priced at around $800-850 isn’t completely unreasonable, when the alternative is the 24mm f/1.4L USM at $1750. However, I think a fast crop normal, say a EF-S 28mm f/1.8 USM, at a $500 or so price point would have made more sense than the $800 full frame 28mm f/2.8 IS USM.

While I’m sure all 3 lenses will be stellar performers that at least begin to warrant their prices, it’s really starting to look like Canon photographers need to start fearing for their wallets.

Well they’ve gone and done it again, Nikon’s pushed out another damn impressive still camera for those on a budget. It’s too bad, in my opinion, that Canon won’t take a page out of their playbook and do something similar.

So the brass tacks are as follows

• 36.3 MP effective FX sensor
• Base ISO range of 100-6400, expands to 50-25,600
• 4 FPS without the standard EN-EL15 battery, 6 FPS with the EN-EL18 (D4′s) battery in the MB-D12 grip
• Pentaprism viewfinder with 100% frame coverage at .7x
• 51-point D4 AF system
• Dual Card slots: 1- Compact Flash & 1- SD

Sensor and Frame Rate

The thing I think that impresses me the most is the frame rate at the sensor resolution they’re getting.When it comes to frame rate there are things that can become limiting factors, one is the time it takes for the mirror to cycle back down and the AF and metering systems to collect the data they need, the second is the amount of data that has to be read from the sensor and processed. This has been part of the force behind the megapixel limitations seen in the sports cameras, over their similar but higher resolution “studio” counterparts.

In the case of the D800, 6 FPS is well below the mirror blackout limits which makes the frame rate all that more impressive to me—it’s entirely data processing limited.

Of course, it’s not entirely unexpected that Nikon could pull this off; the Nikon 1 cameras could shoot 60 10MP 12-bit frames per second pushing close to 900MB/s though the processor, at least for short bursts. The D800′s max of six 36.3MP 14-bit frames per second nets a respectable 364 MB/s. For comparison, Canon’s 1Dx can push 14 14-bit 18MP frames a second or about 420MB/s but uses 2 processors to do it.

Secondly Nikon has decided to offer a version with out the anti-aliasing filter, the D800E. Without the AA filter, who’s job is basically to blur incoming light to reduce moire patterns, the D800E will be able to resolve more detail than any other small format SLR on the market. In fact, this is one of the key features that set medium format digital backs apart from their small format cousins when it comes to resolving detail. Unfortunately it’s a binary choice, you either buy a D800 with the AA filter, or a D800E without it.

Storage

Though perhaps not necessary worthy of a section all to it’s self, Nikon has upped the storage game on the D800 over the D700 predecessor. Instead of a single compact flash, the D800/E has a compact flash slot as well as a secure digital slot.

This has always been a baffling move to me, regardless of brand. Having two flash formats ultimately necessitates investing in both if redundancy is important. Moreover, it’s becoming increasingly apparent to me, that if you’re going to roll with multiple card slots they should be designed to be factory interchangeable. That is, I should be able to send the camera off to Nikon and have the SD slot changed out for a CF one.

Auto Focus

The D800 follows the D700′s footsteps in using it’s bigger siblings AF system, that is to say the D800/E has the same expanded 51-point system found in the D4. Including 1 cross and 10 horizontal points sensitive with lenses and lens plus teleconverter combinations of f/8

Personally I’ve always though this was a brilliant play. Differentiating SLRs, especially now when they are so auto focus centric in design, by hamstringing them with a piss poor auto focus system like Canon has, is simply off putting. Moreover, it goes back to cutting costs, in that you’re using one less model specific part across your camera models. Think of it like amortizing the costs of the pro AF system by selling gobs of them at the semi-pro level.

Needless to say I think this is one trait I think Canon should really pick up on.

A Look at Usability

That said, there are a couple of places where Nikon dropped the ball, mostly in terms of usability. There has long been a marked asymmetry when it comes to usability between the normal “landscape” grip and the vertical/portrait/battery grip. Nikon had been ahead in some ways with that on the D300/D700 where the add on battery grip included an AF controller thumb stick, making at lest some headway.

The problem then shifted to the DoF preview and function buttons on the front. The D300 and D700 at least places the DoF preview button fairly close to the bottom, meaning it wasn’t really out of reach regardless of whether you used the grip or not.

The D800 exacerbates the problem to some degree, moving the two front function buttons closer together and closer to the top of the camera. While the lower of the two buttons likely won’t be unreachable from the vertical grip, it will be more of a reach. This whole issue would of course be moot, if those buttons were duplicated on the front of the battery grip, unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Another usability change that’s been made to the D800 is the way the drive mode dial is orientated. On the D300/700 the drive mode dial was clearly visible from the top of the camera, the writing was on a purely vertical surface. The D800 adopts a D4 style drive mode controller, which prints the drive mode on the side instead of the top. As a result when looking down on the camera, the drive mode is harder to see.

Whether or not this is an issue, largely will be a product of habit and whether or not you tend to look down on your camera when you change the drive mode as part of other settings.

Otherwise, the overall usability of the D800/E is somewhat similar to it’s D700 predecessor, and minor annoyances still exist—like keeping the mode button in a prime spot behind the shutter release while the ISO button is relegated to the left shoulder of the camera.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a long time Points in Focus reader, it’s probably obvious I’m a Canon guy, and the D800 yet again has prompted another round of massive Nikon envy from where I’m sitting. I say this doubly so since the D800 keeps a reasonable estimated street price of $3000 US, while Canon has been doing everything in their power to single handly bankrupt photographers.

While I’m not completely thrilled with the 36.3 MP, it’s simply more than I usually need and therefore more disk space used, and I have personal issues with giving up shooting in full resolution RAW just to save a bit of space. While many are quick to tout the mantra that storage is cheap, properly managing, backing up, and maintaining that storage makes it considerably more expensive.

All that said, 6 FPS at 36.3MP with an auto focus system that can seriously rock, and ISO performance that should be every bit as good as the D700′s if not better when you factor in down sampling for smaller prints, the D800 looks like it should be damn impressive. And the D800E, is well, just icing on the cake, want medium format quality in a small format package and price, exactly.

Clouds build in the evening sun.

Forgive me for a moment, I’m going to ramble for a moment about a realization I just had that may be worth thinking about. So here I go…

I’ve long approached my photography in terms of designing an image, perhaps sometimes to the detriment of actually pressing the button and getting an image. Regardless though, what this really means is that I spend a lot of time looking at images, both mine and those taken by other photographers, and trying to figure out what not only makes them tick, but sometimes the thinking that went into getting there. A friend of mine once called this theoretical photography; maybe I shouldn’t, but I like the description.

Which brings me to the theoretical photography moment I want to talk about; how the intended, or at least most common end result can subtly influence the way you actually compose your images—or at least how it affects me.

The impetus of this was this was watching the IMAX movie Blue Planet on the tiny display of my iPad. Having been originally intended to fill a 60 by 80 foot canvas, the composition of the shots was inherently loose. What I mean is, for example, a lioness and her cubs would be bigger than life sized even if they were only say maybe a 1/4 of the frame tall. However, on a tiny display, what amounts to a tiny print, the lioness is little more than an tiny smudge—okay it’s not really that bad.

But that got me thinking about my own work. Most of which is destined, due to printer and camera resolution constraints to be small images, either as a print smaller than say 20×30 or as an image on the web or a computer display. As a result of this, and my increasingly dated 10 MP gear, I find that I heavily bias my own compositions and subject matter in at least two ways.

First, I dramatically favor tight compositions. Not only do they tend to clean up backgrounds, which I think in some ways is a crutch, but they put the most pixels on the subject as possible. Moreover, I’ll take this to the point of doing panos/stitches of things that probably don’t really need to be 100+ MP images, just because to get what I consider acceptable detail and wide angle images.

The second aspect of this is that I tend to also look for and favor images that are more color and geometrical in nature, as opposed to things that rely on being able to resolve detail. So things like twilight light, or the way the atmosphere will affect the color and density of successive tree or ridge lines.

Of course, I would also argue that identifying when you subconsciously do things is the first and most necessary step to addressing those things. Which is really why I’m writing this, no so much to opine on my own flaws, but to perhaps draw light to the need to step back and look at how you may be unexpectedly biasing your own work. I know I probably would have never paid any attention to it, had I not had the right combination of content targeted at immersion and a tiny rendition to notice that even though I try to insure that my gear isn’t dictating my vision, more often than not it really is.

Which brings me to the realization I had the other day. The resolution and format you shoot in and the presentation you’ll be making have and incredibly profound influence on how you compose images to start with.

Today across the internet many major websites, including Reddit, WordPress, and Wikipedia are going dark in protest over some insidious legislation making it’s way though the US Congress; the Protect IP act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

I’d elaborate more, but I think the Electronic Frontier Foundation has done a much better job of it than I could.

The way I see it, the easy piracy genie is out of the bottle. Much like nuclear weapons, there’s virtually no way to put that genie back in the bottle. Draconian legislation won’t stop piracy, it almost certainly won’t even slow it down. What it will do, however, is drive it increasingly underground

However, in the process of trying to do the impossible, these laws will almost certainly take down countless sites that aren’t doing anything illegal at all, quite probably to the determent of many individuals and small businesses struggling to survive as it is.

As an author and photographer, especially now in the digital age, I have to rely on copyright laws to protect my work. However, at the same time I recognize the need for those protections to be reasonable or they risk harming those of us that aren’t multi-billion dollar corporations, and who can’t afford to spends millions on attorneys, more than anyone else.

From where I sit, the SOPA/ProtectIP act certainly aren’t reasonable, especially in the light of the potential to have both my income frozen and my site shutdown by someone acting maliciously with out money or ability to fight that in court. Don’t think it could happen? The DMCA is already been abused that way to temporarily censor non-infringing content, and the DMCA has a extra-judicial counter-notice mechanism that the ProtectIP/SOPA lack.

When I first got my iPhone I was terribly disappointed by the performance of the camera that had been talked up by so many well respected photographers. That said, my iPhone is still an indispensable tool for me as a photographer, and fortunately there are apps that address much of the shortcomings of the native phone.

So with out further adieu, these are (in no particular order) the 5 photography related apps I most frequently use on my iPhone.

Camera+

There’s something to be said about the camera you always have with you, namely the one in your phone. For years they’ve sucked—and in my personal opinion they still do—but starting with the iPhone 4 they’ve reached a point where they’re good enough for many. The only problem is when the built in camera app has a brain dead exposure curve that doesn’t dole out enough shutter speed to stop camera shake.

Enter Camera+, while it’s something of an all-in-one camera app, including the ability to apply post processing filters, the most important to me function is simply the ability to turn on “stabilization” and keep the images sharp. After that, the rest of it’s features are just gravy.

Camera+ in the iTunes Store

The Photographers Ephemeris (TPE)

Knowing where the sun will be, and more importantly when it will be there is close to being vital for for anybody who shoot’s landscapes, and pretty darn handy for everybody else. TPE, originally a desktop app (and still available in that form), the iPhone app packs all the useful information into a mobile package.

This includes information like:

• Twilight times,
• Sunrise and Sunset times, including their azimuth
• Moon phase

Needless to say TPE is one of the first things I check if I’m considering a sunrise or sunset shoot.

The Photographers Ephemeris in the iTunes Store

LongTime Exposure Calculator

In many ways photography is about finding a new way to show the same thing we see every day. One of these ways is though long exposures. By capturing light over seconds or even minutes, we can transform a normal scene into something that’s considerably different.

One of the hardest parts of these long exposures is metering and calculating the actual exposure. Most cameras can’t meter for a scene that requires a shutter speed slower than 30s. However when there’s a will there’s a way. LongTime Exposure Calculator will calculate exposures for extremely long exposures done with high strength ND filters, simply by entering the metered shutter speed and the amount of ND that’s being used.

A couple of quick scrolls and you’re 8s base exposure is 2 hours and 8 minutes with 10 stops of neutral density in front of the lens.

LongTime Exposure Calculator in the iTunes Store

gps4cam

Geotagging is becoming an increasingly popular, if not a requirement. However, even pro level cameras still don’t have built in GPS capabilities, often requiring expensive addons. The second alternative is to carry a stand alone GPS—actually this is your only option if you’re a Canon shooter who doesn’t have the EOS 1Dx—that keeps a log of where it’s been. Then using software to sync the camera time and GPS time insert the location data into the images.

GPS4CAM gives iPhone users a 3rd option, use their phone’s location system to generate your location log. GPS4CAM will perform the same trip logging and export to a .gpx file that many stand alone GPSes will, but it does it with a piece of hardware you’ve already got in your pocket. Moreover, if total location accuracy isn’t critical and power usage is, gps4cam can use GSM tower data to generate location data.

GPS4Cam in the iTunes Store

Strobox

In photography, lighting is key, and if you do a lot of shoots with models or products, being able to keep a record of your setups is definitely handy. Traditionally you might have done this with pen and paper, but not any more.

Enter Storbox, this handy program allows you to build and save top down diagrams of your setups. Moreover, you can export your setups as PNG files making it easy to share them without anyone without them having to have some specific software to view it.

Strobox in the iTunes Store

I’ve been keeping my eye on the compact market for some time. While I’m not about to give up my SLRs, I have been on the look out for something smaller to use when I don’t really need or want to carry around all the major gear—like that will ever happen.

In the last few years the “serious” compact market has been moving increasingly towards compact interchangeable lens cameras, i.e. Sony’s NEX and Olympus’ digital PEN line. I’ve never been a huge fan of that format largely because it eschews an optical viewfinder for compactness, and compactness for interchangeable lenses.  Never mind the platforms are awash in confused design decisions, trying to reach both the P&S user and the serious photographer.

Don’t get me wrong the compact interchangeable lens cameras can be fine cameras for many people, but they compromise in all the wrong ways for what I want in a smaller counterpart to my SLR.

Canon Powershot G1 X – The Huge Sensor Compact

Canon, has so far been pretty hostile to the idea of an compact interchangeable lens camera, at least that’s been my feeling of their comments. I have, so far, agreed with them. So far, many of the mirror-less systems, make tradeoffs in terms of size and controls that leave me wondering what they were thinking.

There was some speculation that Canon would make the next PowerShot G into an EVIL, and while it would be the most “apt” compact camera to re-image, that’s not what they’ve done.

Instead, Canon has elected to continue with the compact camera design, only now they’ve crammed a comparatively huge sensor in it. The G1X’s sensor is it’s only 20% smaller than the APS-C sensor in their SLRs, and considerably bigger than both Olympus’ µ4/3rds or Nikon’s CX format.

Likewise, the G1X has a fixed 28-112mm equivalent (15.1-60.4mm) f/2.8-5.6 image stabilized zoom. The integrated lens gives the camera the ability to fold the lens into the body. The real genius of the design is probably most evident when you look at DPReview’s comparison to the Panasonic GX1 (see here). The Powershot G1X, while slightly bigger than the GX1 packs a lot more into the package.

• The lens covers a wider range (28-112mm equivalent compared to 28-84mm) and does it at a faster aperture on the wide end (f/2.8 v. f/3.5).
• There’s an optical viewfinder
• There are 2 control dials (+ the ev comp dial)
• The G1X has an articulated rear display.

If anything, I kind of wish Canon could have ditched the sub-par OVF. Without it, the G1X would have been nearly the same height as the Panasonic GX1. Which while I like being able to put the camera to my eye and shoot, I can’t say I’ve ever done that a lot with the Canon compacts I’ve had in the past—at least not with any regularity.

The promise is that the G1X should perform about as well as the 7D in low light situations. Couple with the fixed lens, the G1X should be a compact, solidly performing camera on the high end of the compact space.

The only real question left in my mind, is whether the G1X is a stopgap measure in their line until they can roll out a mirror-less interchangeable lens camera, or if it’s really the direction they’ll be taking their high end compact for the future.

Canon PowerShot G1X (Canon USA)

DPReview’s Canon PowerShot G1X Preview

Fuji X-Pro1 – The Digital Rangefinder that isn’t a Leica

Last year, FujiFilm released the X100. What I would call a digital rangefinder, in a sense that the Leica M9 is a digital range finder. Granted they aren’t exactly comparable, but the X100 offered the first really nice optical viewfinder—though not as nice as a Leica M—with the cool capability to switching over to being an EVF if needed. The problem, it was a fixed lens design.

Enter the Fujifilm X-Pro1.

The X-Pro1 takes the X100′s dual mode viewfinder and packages it up neatly with a interchangeable lens mount. What it intelligently doesn’t try to do is be everything to everyone. The X-Pro1 is clearly aimed at serious photographers, in fact it’s size and design aims it squarely at Leica’s $7000 M series range finders.

Only compared to an M, the X-Pro1 buys a lot of modern convenience, most notably that it’s fully electric lens mount means auto focus, auto aperture, and possibly image stabilization.

As much as I like the look of the X-Pro1 on paper, I have two big problems with it.

First it’s another system. Okay there’s nothing Fuji could have done about this, but it means that you’re severely limited in options right now and will be for the next year or two. And that assumes that the 9 total lenses Fuji has announced actually come to market.

The other problem is that it’s unlikely the X-Pro1 will ever take off in the numbers that are necessary to really get some good 3rd party support for it. Which is too bad, the X-Pro1 really looks to be the poor-man’s Leica M9.

Of course, DPReview is suggesting that there will be mount adapters, and that Leica’s M mount will likely be high on the list. Then again, even with mount adapters, you run in to the small issue that the X-Pro1 is an APS-C camera, meaning you’re 1.5x cropping those Leica lenses. A Leica 18mm f/3.8 (which may not even be able to be mounted due to it protruding into the lens mount) would only give the view of a 28mm lens, and costs considerably more than the X-Pro1 costs to start with.

The real problem I have with the X-Pro1 is the price. It really does look like the body alone is going to run for $1700. At that price point, it’s competing with Canon’s 7D, Nikon’s D300s, and Sony’a SLA-77. Granted they aren’t targeting the same market, but when the choice is between a limited (at the moment) rangefinder and either a 18mm f/2, 35mm f/1.4 or 60mm f/2.4 lens, or a Canon 5D-2 with a 24-105 f/4L IS, it at least warrants some time thinking about it.

FujiFilm X-Pro1 Product Page

DPReview’s X-Pro1 Preview

Exciting Times

Suffice to say, things are really starting to get good. Aside from the increasingly ridiculous prices of these cameras, we’re really starting to see hardware the can do incredible things.

Canon’s 1Dx and Nikon’s D4 take shooting in the dark to new heights.

Canon’s Powershot G1X makes for a really impressive compact camera that should be able to really shine in the high end compact space.

Finally FujiFilm’s X-Pro1 has the potential to bring back the “range finder” form factor and be a serious alternative to Leica’s M cameras, at least if it makes it. And I hope it does, because I’d love to have one in my bag.

I did a cursory Google for this, but otherwise haven’t fully investigated it. Instead I’m posting this half to remind to me to look into this deeper when I get a chance. In any event, here’s what I’m seeing…

In Lightroom 3.6 I have a Hard drive Publish Service setup to push out images to be synced to my iPad (though that last bit isn’t really important). File naming (renaming) is disabled so files should be named exactly the same as they are in the library. Regardless of what the format is set to under File Settings, the file names are always given the extension “.jpg”. So I’ll end up with a folder of TIFFs, PSDs, and RAWs that all are all named *.jpg in published folder.

I don’t usually mess with the output settings for a Publish Service after the service has been setup, so I don’t know if this is new, or has been an issue for some time.

Is anybody else seeing this?

Forgot to note, this is 64-bit Lightroom on 64-bit Win 7 Pro.

I’m not a Nikon shooter, but the inevitable Nikon envy always is fun. Never mind from a cool technology point of view keeping tabs on the latest and greatest is just plain fun as well. With that said, this isn’t a hands on review of the D4, or anything of the sort, but I did want to throw my 2¢ out there since it was just released.

The era of really expensive pro cameras

Whether it’s the sagging US economy, a stronger Japanese one, or the camera companies simply got the idea in their head that photographers are made out of gold, the prices on pro bodies, and lenses, have been going up each generation, not down.

Canon’s pro line previously was split between the $4000 1D and the $8000 1Ds, now they’ve been unified into a single $7000 1Dx. Likewise Nikon’s pro sports bodies have been marking upwards from the ~$4000 D3, to the $5000 D3s, to the new $6000 D4.

The question in my mind is do the cameras warrant these steadily growing prices?

As electronic devices, the costs of the electrical components should be coming down. CPUs, RAM, and integrated circuits in general, have gotten smaller and as a side effect of that cheaper. Even the sensors themselves, should be getting slightly less expensive—though they don’t obey Moore’s law the way most electronics do.

Even then, it’s clear that a FX sized sensor can be manufactured at a cost that makes a $2000 camera profitable.

So what gives?

On the other hand, these cameras are singularly more capable than any previous generation camera. The D4 expands Nikon’s useable ISO range out to ISO 50 to 204,000—though I’ll be coming back to this in a bit. In addition, you can always think of costs in terms of film; with a 400,000 frame shutter, it’s reasonable to consider the camera to be worth at least 11,112 36-exposure rolls of film, or ~$166,000 give or take in film costs and processing.

Either way, it seems like the age of cheaper pro cameras has temporally come to a close.

Crazy ISOs

At least on the pro end, it seems like the megapixel wars are finally over, the new battle ground appears to be for ISO supremacy.

Nikon originally set the bar for high ISO performance with the D3, back in 2007, and has continued to hold the hold that crown unchallenged since then. In the mean time both Canon and Nikon have been aiming to raise their ISO top end to unseen heights. Canon was the first to ISO 204,000, and the D4 brings Nikon up to that level as well.

The real interesting curiosity to me is whether ISO 204,000 on the D4 will be more marketing bark, than photographic bite. Why? Simple, the Nikon hasn’t appreciably expanded the base ISO range on the D4 from the D3s.

Extended ISOs are arrived at by under or over exposing the highest or lowest base ISO and manipulating the raw values from the sensor to useable exposure values.

For example, H1, on the D4 comes by taking an image at ISO 12,800 that’s under exposed by 1 stop, and multiplying the values read from the sensor by 2.

There are two side effects to the expanded ISOs, first is the loss of fine grain control. There are no 1/3rd stop increments past H1. The second is the loss of dynamic range. Yes, DR falls off as ISO increases regardless of whether it’s analog or digital, however, the digital gains insure that there is a 1-stop loss of DR for every stop past a base ISO the camera is set.

In short, at least on paper, it seems like Canon’s 1Dx may actually have a dynamic range advantage at high ISOs over the Nikon D4. Though this is only on paper, what happens in practice is anybody’s guess at this point.

Ergonomics

When it comes to ergonomics, the D4s design can trace it’s form back to the F5 or F6. Stable ergonomic design has it’s advantages, as it allows the photographer to seamlessly transition between various generations. However, it also means that controls are placed where they can be fit and then not moved down the line.

In short that means that that D4 has many of the same ergonomic problems of it’s predecessors.

It’s not all bad news though, Nikon has addressed two niggling issues. First, they’ve added a second thumb stick for AF point selection for the vertical grip. This has long been a major complain of mine, as it makes working in portrait mode considerably more difficult than it should be.

Though the AF selection stick for the vertical grip makes portrait ergonomics better, Nikon should have followed Canon’s lean and finished the job duplicating the two front control buttons (DoF Preview and the custom function button) for the vertical grip as well.

The other ergonomic upgrade Nikon made was the inclusion of back lights in the rear control buttons. Hopefully these will be in red so they don’t become intrusive in low light conditions.

Auto Focus

In another amusing reversal, Nikon has finally gained support for autofocus at f/8 while Canon drops it.

The new MultiCam 3500 AF system in the D4 isn’t significantly different than the MutliCam 3000 in the D3s, at least in layout. The differences are more subtle. It keeps the same basic layout of it’s predecessors, with 15 cross sensitive points centered in the frame. Past f/5.6, the previous AF limit, the number of cross sensitive central sensors drops to 9 (between f/5.6 and f/8) and then 1 (at f/8), and the number of usable single-axis sensors drop to 6 (between f/5.6 and f/8) and 10 (at f/8).

Bird and wildlife photographers who use long lenses with teleconverters will rejoice at this, making it the first time I can think of where a Nikon AF system was superior to a Canon one in this situation.

Flashy New Tech

The D4 adds a number of fancy new features to the bullet list on the box. First up is the inclusion of an XQD card slot. XQD is the standard the Compact Flash working group hopes will replace compact flash, apparently after CFast never made it out of the gate.

Unfortunately, I fear that XQD may suffer a similar fate. For starters, the cards are smaller than CF cards, which are already hard enough to handle with gloves on. The second major problem is that virtually nobody is making XQD cards right now. Neither Lexar or Sandisk have XQD cards in their product lines at the moment.

Though I guess someone had to do it first, I think it renders the D4 as effectively a single slot camera for the foreseeable future. Though at some point the transition is going to have to be made.

Like Canon’s 1DX, the D4 gains a gigabit Ethernet port for fast transfers from the camera over a network in a studio. As well as a new Wireless transmitter, with a built in web server offering the ability to control the camera over wireless from an iPad/iPhone or similar tablet.

There’s one more oddity in the D4. The battery. Long has Nikon maintained battery compatibility in their pro bodies. Actually the battery used in the D3s of today can be used going all the way back to the D2. The only update to the battery has been improved capacity from newer Lithium Ion cells. The D4 changes that as well, replacing the EN-EL4 with the EN-EL18.

While the new battery gives a slight bump in capacity, increasing the 21,090 mWH (11.1V 1900mAH) of the EN-EL4a to 21,600 mWH (10.8V 2000mAH), it breaks compatibility with it’s predecessors. Why is a bit of a mystery, especially considering Canon has been able to eek 27,195 mWH (11.1V 2450mAH) out roughly the same sized battery.

Concluding Thoughts

The D4 is no radical departure from Nikon’s previous cameras in any way. In fact, in some ways—the same base ISO range but the inclusion of an H4—it feels like the marketers had a hand in things in an attempt to keep up with Canon.

That said, Nikon makes some nice moves forward from the D3/D3s especially in the AF department.

However, ultimately the D4, much like the 1DX, doesn’t add nearly the functionality that could, and in my opinion should, be available in these cameras, but continues the trend of increasing the prices. Instead of providing photographers with tools that can help them do their jobs better and faster (like the addition of focus highlighting in image previews on PhaseOne’s IQ backs), they continue to focus on making marketable numbers and the price higher while skipping over inexpensive to implement but useful features.

The simple truth of the matter is that by and large, these cameras are little more than general purpose computers with some special hardware tacked on, and yet, they are still limited by the limited imaginations of the manufacturers.

Images courtesy of Nikon USA.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays.