Canon to Nikon DSLR

DPReview concluded:

Conclusion - Pros

* Excellent resolution, lots of detail, not a leap from eight megapixels, but certainly from six
* Excellent build quality, tight shut lines, quality materials
* Instant power on, very responsive, very short black-out time, very fast media write
* Fast, accurate auto focus (11 area sensor, similar to the D200)
* Auto-focus assist lamp rather than requiring flash to be raised
* Vibrant color response, similar hues to other digital SLR's
* Reliable, sophisticated, if sometimes a little conservative matrix metering system
* Control over high sensitivity noise reduction
* Very large and bright viewfinder view with short black-out (quoted as 160 ms)
* Extremely useful, customizable automatic sensitivity (ISO)
* Easy to use playback / delete combination
* Very attractive and intuitive menu system
* Highly customizable, lots of camera and feature control
* Status LCD panel on top of camera (we hate to see these go)
* Unlimited continuous shooting in JPEG mode (with a reasonably fast card)
* Good SD card throughput and USB 2.0 transfer speed
* In-camera retouching features including D-Lighting and Red-eye reduction
* Built-in wireless flash commander
* Support for SD and SDHC cards
* Good battery life, battery design provides detailed information to camera
* Good large LCD monitor with wide viewing angles and removable protective cover
* Dedicated help button provides in-menu assistance
* Optional battery / portrait grip
* Programmable FUNC hard button

Conclusion - Cons

* High sensitivity (ISO) noise levels higher than Canon EOS 400D
* Noise reduction can be intrusive, although adjustable, more grain-like appearance
* Default sharpness level perhaps still a little conservative
* Disappointing automatic white balance performance in incandescent light
* No RAW adjustment with supplied PictureProject, only simple conversion
* Limited image parameter adjustment (especially for color saturation)
* Slower maximum shutter speed (1/4000 vs 1/8000 sec) compared to D70/D70s
* Price difference to the competition


More info here, including the RAW issue:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/

Bosh,

you would need to use Nikon's own 'Capture' software to do your RAW files any justice......the basic software supplied with the camera (Picture Project) is as the name suggests, basic!

I use Capture 4 at present with my D70s, but the new Capture NX software is available for £120 and is getting great reviews. This is mainly due to it's use of control points, an new and convenient way of making adjustments instead of using lots of layers.....but I haven't tried it yet......

The D80 is getting cracking reviews too though, and I was a bit gutted when it came out - not even six months after I'd purchased my D70s......hey ho, just need to save/get better to justify a D200......

Cheers,
Ali

surely you just get Adobe's RAW converter and get on with it, in potatoshop CS? Is this really an issue? Or (gasp) BUY nikon's flashy software (there's usually a month's trial included in the box, for free).

As to why noise isn't important, take a look at the link. Then consider Your Camera Does Not Matter, and go buy what handles best for you. Handling (for me) is *way* up on the list - no matter how good a camera might be, if it doesn't feel good in your hands, you won't take it out of your bag nearly as often.

hope that helps!

PS - I think the D80 is fab. You can't really go wrong with the Canons, either. It's really come down to a nissan vs toyota kind of argument - they're both excellent overall at what they do. Do you have many lenses for your Canon that you'll lose the use of by converting?

Rico,

Extremely interesting articles - I'm sure others may have a different view but it gives me greater confidence in the current breed of D slr's - I had assumeed we would have to reach 20MP+ before obtaining Provia standards.

Do you know if there is any concensus on image quality difference between say Provia 100F scanned on a Coolscan V and a D200 using the same lense, settings, etc?

Peter

Hi Peter

One of the things I find refreshing about Ken Rockwell's articles, is his simple crystaline approach. The argument and opposing views that result undoubtedly fuel the 'controversial' sub-tag that sometimes relates.

I'd suspect (am no expert) that provia will look better (for the things that are important when one recognises the great things that chemistry provides) when printed by a professional lab. When you introduce a scanner (great as I understand the coolscan V is - I'd *love* one of those), it's difficult to predict.

The arguments increase in complexity when you plug in the convenience and quality of digital. Ultimately I guess it's an argument nobody can win - there will always be people who recognise film for it's strengths, and will not accept digital; and vice-versa. I think Ken Rockwell's approach is that the advantages of digital now outweigh film for the majority of cases.

I've a bob each-way - a D70, and an F80. I plan on acquiring a scanner - preferably a Coolscan V if I can find the budget; or at least a decent photographic quality flatbed scanner with lightsource - to capture some of the thousands of slides and negs I have from '82-odd to 2001, and the film I will continue to shoot (at greatly reduced volume).

In the example you provide, I guess the flim camera would have to be the F100 to have some equivalent approximation of metering system. The workflow from the D200 is certainly much more efficient from location to print.

best, Rico

PS - re the RAW conversion above, Adobe acquired Pixmatec this year and are integrating their technology/IP into the Lightroom product. Pixmatec had a well-recieved RAW converter. Last I heard, Lightroom was available in beta for download and trial - I've not tried it (not enough room on my ailing PC), have heard it's very very good.

I think one of the advantages of RAW (apart from the obvious higher dynamic ranges, ability to change white balance and exposure easily in post-processing) is that as the software improves, so can the results *if* you still have the RAW data capture from the camera's sensor. Imagine the possibilities in ten years time, if someone has developed a filter/profile for (say) the D70, D200, 30D etc. Revisiting captures for better result - luxury.

Anyway, have a poke around the interweb for lightroom.

Bosh,

The basic raw converter that comes with the package is fine and is still the best way to produce a tiff. I basically only use Nikon Capture NX for raw conversion, then transfer the tiff over to Photoshop for manipulation.

You won't have colour temp conversion, but you can do this in Photoshop anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the images take a lot of adjustment to get "right"", it only converts what you shot and the rest is up to you.

Thanks for all your replies

Rico -
My EOS 300/Rebel has the kit lens and a basic sigma telephoto zoom. My initial idea was to upgrade to a couple of Canon lenses but to get 2 Canons zooms will cost around £700 (£450 for Sigmas or Tamrons)

For £750 I can get a D80 with 17-135 that covers the 28-200 range. With the £300 I'll get for the Canon kit, the D80 is effectively a free upgrade!!

I'll search around for Lightroom. PC space is going to become an issue with 10MP Raws. I currently have a 460Gb of space but Itunes takes 80gB, my photos another 70gB and I am planning to get a Coolscan to archive my slides and Negs.

Backing up is what worries me, perhaps I need another 320gB HD as a backup drive


PS Rico - how did you get on with your active trials? I am currently trialling active 250-2/500 and 300/500 with supercap and hicap and unexpectedly the 250-2/500/HC2 with Snaxo 242 is the current favourite although they have only been powered up for a week

no active trials for me mate, 2 preschool kids in nappies, wife working part time and the usual mortgage we all shoulder, a vehicle to replace - leaves little spare dosh for the system. Best I can manage right now is a pair of SBL grilles and not think of the two pushed-in tweeters I found last night. Luckily they kissed out okay - they'll need replacement in the long-term.

camera gear comes in from time to time under the 'making great photos of the kids' budget - it's like a dip passport in front of money immigration control from the bank account. A coolscan doesn't seem to be extended a visa at this stage, though.

Your plan for the D80 seems a good one. Do go and handle one first; maybe even compare to the 400D just to be sure the change meets your preference.

cheers

http://www.jessops.com/Store/s47076/1-136-481/Home/Came...mm-Lens/details.aspx

As for RAW, I use Aperture for OSX and there is Adobe Light Room for PC users, both offer live non destructive editing which is excellent, Aperture is of course better

Garyi

How do you find aperture - my mac does not have enough ram (only half a gig) and you need one gig i think. I use photoshop cs but it looks as if Apature is like an advanced programme but with an interface that is simple as iphoto - is this the case.

One thing that would appeal is the archiving system being built into the editing suite, I miss this from my pc days when i used elements (4 ithink) which had adobe album or somthing which was almost built into elements.

Is the archiving/library built into apature?

Simon

I'm keen to give aperture a lash - I'm due to trial "my first mac" sometime in the next few weeks to see if I can 'go lefty' #; )

I would not say that aperture replaces photoshop. The editing features are simply for photo correction, there are no fancy filters or layering etc.

On the other hand it is superb for making variations, the new edge sharpen is awsome to the max and using it just feels right. It does what it says, post production for photos.

However it is working in real time on RAW files. it is changing them on the fly and using core graphics to keep those changes visiable via the graphics card. Changes can be changed or dropped at any stage and is quite difficult to get your head round initially. Where as in Photoshop you might be good with the history brush, or making lots of adjustment layers, in Aperture if in three weeks time you no longer liked the amount of sharpening you applied, then take it off. All other changes remain.

Its a total hog for this ability. You need a decent graphics card and 2 gigs of ram.

It runs flawlessly on an iMac intel though, no doubt even better on the new core 2 iMacs.

Best piece of software I have owned frankly.

speaking of sharpening (not edges only) have you tried noise ninja? standalone, or as plug-in for PS. optimised filters for your camera (eg D50, D70) for each ISO. not 100% foolproof, yet very very good.

I don't expect 'my first mac' is going to be man enough for aperture, then.

Gary
Thanks for that. I have been dithering over getting a dualcore Imac specifically to run Aperture. My G4 is not approved to run it sadly.
I tend to store my out-of-camera jpgs (usually from Canon DSLR or a compact digicam) in iPhoto. Presumably I can save RAW files to jpg from Aperture, while filing the originals elsewhere??

Chris is you had asked that question a month ago then no, all pictures remained in the aperture library.
Thankfully they dealt with this. You can now simply 'reference' the images from any where, any adjustments you make are saved as a side car in the aperture library though.

This is handy as you can have your photos hogging up a drive somewhere and just a few k side cars as the aperture library which can be backed up.

All photos can be kept track of. For instance you might have fifty wildlife images spread over three drives, if you were to make a web site of them from within aperture then clicking 'consolidate' will bring all the originals together ready for work.

To do all this aperture creates JPGs of your raws for use within aperture, these can be as good or poor quality as you wish. The net result is, yes aperture has either on the fly jpgs for email etc or you can export the adjusted raw image as a top quality JPGs.

Its important to point out that this is not like other photo organisation software, you will not have used anything like this before.

I have also been running with the lightroom beta, which is also not that same.

quote:

Its a total hog for this ability. You need a decent graphics card and 2 gigs of ram.

Chris,

I've just got a new 2.16ghz 24" imac - moving from a 15" powerbook, it's a bit of a shock to have such a jump in size.

A word of caution on the ram front - I bought mine with 1gb ram which unfortunately comprises 2 x 512mb cards - imacs only have two slots, so in order to upgrade ram, I'll have to throw at least one card away. You may have to order from Apple direct if you want more than 1gb as the shops I went into (including Apple Regent Street) didn't offer the option from stock.

There are only two graphics card options 128mb or 256mb - I went for the 256mb card. Important decision there if the Apple store people are correct in saying you cannot retrofit an upgrade graphics card. Seems illogical, but that's what they told me.

Hope this may be of some help to you.

Peter

Hi Peter

I "think" you may need to use matched pairs of RAM as well. So that means replacing both sticks if you want to go to 2gb.

Did you actually pick up a 256mb video version in store? What other options do they have, do they do hard-drive size as well?

Jay

Jay

As the maximum ram is 3gb, matched pairs are not an issue - that is, until you see the price of a 2gb card!!

I ended up getting the imac in Micro Anvika's section of Selfridges - they also have branches on Tottenham Court Road and yes, I picked up the 256mb version. M.A. also said they normally have in stock the 2.33ghz version with 500gb hard drive - but not on the day I made my purchase - I think it was £200 - £300 extra.

Peter

Peter aperture is available from apple as a demo for 30 days should get you a feel for it.

Personally I only ever buy from apple on line now as you a sure to get the latest revision. Also ram should be purchased from crucial.com

The graphics card is not really a graphics card in the iMacs hense why they cannot be upgraded. Infact the new iMacs are not like the G5 ones nothing insidecan be got at easily apart from the ram.

quote:

Originally posted by northpole:
Jay

As the maximum ram is 3gb, matched pairs are not an issue - that is, until you see the price of a 2gb card!!

I ended up getting the imac in Micro Anvika's section of Selfridges - they also have branches on Tottenham Court Road and yes, I picked up the 256mb version. M.A. also said they normally have in stock the 2.33ghz version with 500gb hard drive - but not on the day I made my purchase - I think it was £200 - £300 extra.

Peter

Thanks for that Peter.I hate waiting for stuff!

Enjoy your new purchase.

Jay

The graphics upgrade is a no brainer at 50 quid, but I found it hard to justify the extra money for the harddrive as 300-500 gig ones can be got a lot cheaper.

quote:

Also ram should be purchased from crucial.com

I concur with that - but anyone wanting a 2gb chip had better really need it - yours for a mere £573!!

I agree with gary on the hard drive costs - particularly as my powerbook came with a 20gb hd - thankfully lacie's extl drives ahve proved reliable over the years!!

Peter

Ordered the Nikon D80 with 18-135mm lens yesterday from Jessops.com at a special "discount code" price of £714 inc. free delivery (usually £764 - cheapest on the net) just enter "donder" at checkout to get your £50 discount