New Nikon x

Most folks here would never need a high-res camera - 8 or 10 or 12 mp are plenty for what 99% of photographers do and we have just some incredible cameras from many brand names on the market right now that far exceed the quality of any 35mm film camera ever, and even match and exceed medium format film as well. You can make beautiful 40" x 60" prints with a 12mp camera that rival those from 4x5 scanned film. I know, I've been making them for a while, from all formats, from 4mp to 39mp, and from 35mm film up to 4x5 film. So most of you should care less about the new Nikon, or the silly price discussions that have taken place online during the past few weeks. But for those who might be interested...

I just got my D3x today - paid about the same price as I paid for my Canon 1Ds when it first came out, for my Canon 1Ds2 when it first came out, and my Canon 1Ds3 when it first came out, and a LOT less than I paid for my last digital camera (a Phase One). This is far and away the best camera that Nikon has ever produced, and I've been shooting Nikon cameras for more than 30 years. I don't believe there is any argument that this new camera can produce the very best image quality of any 35mm camera, bar none, at any price. In the end that is really all that I am interested in - image quality. I shoot with a Sony dslr every day, and have used Zeiss lenses for more than 20 years, including using them on all of my big Canon digital cameras, so I am aware of what the new Sony camera can do (for those who don't keep up with all this, there are some terrific Zeiss lenses available for the new big Sony camera that are wonderful). The simple answer is that Nikon beats Sony. That's really all there is to it for me - I will use Sony for some of my other work, but when I want the very best image quality from a 35mm camera, there really is no other choice but the new Nikon. And while new technology IS expensive, it is no more expensive as we have seen in the past from other brands, so why all the fuss?

And now for the results of a little test that I did this afternoon - between the Sony, the new Nikon, and my big 39mp camera. I'll only tell you about the Nikon files though - well, I guess I have actually stated my results in statements above so you know how this camera compares to the Sony.l But to add one little tidbit - if you take the new Nikon files, blow them up to even past 100%, do an auto levels, then look VERY closely, guess what you can see - not in the highlights like some folks worry about with the new Canon - but in the shadows - there are BLACK helicopters! Little black helicopters flying all over the place. And the details are so fine and crisp that you can see the little green men inside quite clearly. So after this little test, I can honestly recommend that you ignore most of what you read about pixel-peeping on the internet, use the camera you have if it is producing wonderful files that you love, forget about all of the price BS, and just go out and take photos! And don't worry about the black helicopters too much - they've been around for years and so far have not harmed anyone!

*In case you are not a local redneck nor environmentalist, many "locals" back in the woods (perhaps in the cities too) have sworn up and down that the government has been sending "black helicopters" to spy on them for years, and they swear the government is going to swoop down and take away their land by force. That is of course silly paranoia, just like all the pixel peeing that goes on with new camera models - if the government wanted to take away your land they would not go to the expense of sending black helicopters - they would simply send a lawyer to do the job!

I had to laugh about the helicopters you're seeing, Tim...sure you haven't had one too many B&Cs ? It IS Friday night I guess...This Canon black dot thing has been really blown out of proportion - artifacts that nobody would see unless they were looking at a billboard-sized print maybe.

There really are so many things to like about the D3x, like the 5:4 format option, much improved high ISO noise, lateral CA correction, improved dynamic range, 51 point focusing, 14-bit files, and on and on.

How many did Bedford's get? Any leftovers?

I'm sorry Bill, none left at Bedfords or anywhere else - you'll need to just keep using your old camera. Those 24mps are way overrated - haven't you been reading? ISO 120,000,000 sucks. Black dots, black helicopters, too much money, my goodness I think you had better switch to a little point and shoot, or better yet a tried and true instamatic - they used to take great snapshots! Did you hear that digital cameras give you cancer? I heard that Alaska was the only place you could safely operate one - perhaps you need to move there, then I could sleep better since there would not be quite as many footsteps coming up behind me, ha!

Actually the D700/D3 produces files that most photogs would kill for, and really all that is needed for even large prints. The new X will get you more resolution for larger prints, but you must be very careful with technique (not an issue for you), and lens choice is much more critical. Nikon has the glass to keep up with this sensor for sure, and certainly Sony has some and will have more in the future, but most glass won't cut it (that's a pretty bad pun I guess - and I've not had a thing to drink tonight). Hopefully Canon will be forced to step up to the plate now and produce some good glass as well - they will need it for their 1Ds4 - unless they just want to let Zeiss keep building better lenses for their cameras.

One thing I noticed right off - the new X is actually smaller (shorter) than my D700 with battery grip - how could that be? And it might be lighter too, although the specs don't show that - perhaps they left something out of my camera? Befrods got seven x's in today - the Fayetteville store still had one on the shelf (in the back room) when I left - I don't know where the others were or if they were spoken for.

One of these days I want to do a test with the new X, a big Canon, and the Phase One - identical subject and LIGHTING and framing, then make 40 x 60 prints and see what the differences are. I'll have to wait until CS4 catches up so that all files can be processed with the same raw converter. There certainly will be differences at this print size, but probably not much in smaller sizes, if any...

Dang, I need one of those... helicopters!!!

Tim, your mini-story is so true - I gave up on the gear heads and their commentary (ie. obsession) with pixel peeping quite a while ago.

I was in the Fayetteville store a couple of times this week, and didn't pay attention to the D3 or D3X stock on the shelves. If I had the spare cash, I'd seriously consider a D700/D3 for wildlife work, and the long lens pricing is quite... For now I'll have to be happy with a cropped sensor format and a digital specific 12-24mm UWA lens.

I've got a 10.2MP TIFF at 400DPI file ready for printing a 36" x 48" in the new year for a repeat customer. I am very curious to see how it will look printed at that size, since it's the largest I've ever done.

I look forward to your tests and the results!

Way to go Tim. Enjoy your new D3x. You going to need some more Nikon lenses? I have a spare 70-180mm.

I had no idea you were paranoid about them black helicopters.

Good advice is hard to come by and I believe your advice hits the nail on the head Tim. It would be nice to run out and buy the very latest every time it comes out but I have to step back and ask myself, why? Am I happy with what I have and does it give me acceptable results? For now the answer is yes. Not that I wouldn't take the latest and greatest, hopefully in time.

I do have a question Tim if you get back to read this, about the relationship between sensor mp's and print size. Your experience is what I am after. Lets use my situation as an example. A 10mp, APS C size sensor in this case a canon, I think the Xti I am referring to is approximately 2 years plus old technology wise. It is my understanding the native size of a raw image brought into photoshop is approximately 10"x16" at 240ppi. The question is this. In your opinion what is the best approach to increase this to an acceptable high quality larger size print, say up to 20x30 at what ever ppi is necessary, and is interpolation (adding of pixels) necessary. My only option now is to simply do this in photoshop with "image size" bicubic, resampling checked ppi increased to 300. I can't say I have had a problem with the few of them I have done, I know there has to be image quality issues with the interpolation taking place. Is this the best way to go about this? Or am I just letting the little green men in the little black helicopters drive me crazy! Thanks man.

"In your opinion what is the best approach to increase this to an acceptable high quality larger size print, say up to 20x30 at what ever ppi is necessary, and is interpolation (adding of pixels) necessary."

Use bicubic smoother in one step, and YES - interpolation is the only way you can print larger at the same ppi. You can also print larger by lowering the ppi, say down to 180, which is what I use for canvas printing - I normally hold to a minimum of 240 for photo paper. It also will depend on what the final viewing distance from the print would be - the farther away you are the less ppi you need. Some folks think you must print at 300ppi, or 360ppi, or even higher, and that you must use one of these ppis amounts instead of something in between (like 323ppi), but that is simply not true. My general rule is that if the file is in between 240ppi and 480ppi at whatever print size I want, then I send those native pixels to the printer. If it is below 240ppi (or 180 for canvas), then I uprez to whatever size it needs to be - and bicubic smoother does as good a job as any of the expensive plugins I've ever used. (bicubic does not work as well, it needs to be bicubic smoother) With a great file* you can go up 400% in one step and be OK, perhaps even more.

*Great file. That really is the key here - your file needs to be just about perfect in every way - exposure, focus, proper use of heavy tripod/ballheard/cable release/shutterspeed etc., or otherwise any uprezzing you do will only increase the bad parts - you are after all just inventing new pixels based on the native ones, and if native ones are out of focus the new ones will be too, only more so since they will be enlarged. You can get away with a marginal file on small prints, but not when you print large, no matter what your ppi count is. I can make a 40 x 60 print that is just stunning from an 8mp camera file if everything is perfect in the file (which is rare). I can also make a 16 x 20 print from a 39mp camera file that looks like crap - it all depends on the file that you begin with. And you certainly don't need to print at 300ppi - no matter what others have told you - there is no magic formula.

I will say that once you get used to really nice prints through careful photography technique and using the best glass and then processing techniques, "normal" prints to everyone else just look terrible. I've have seen a lot of really bad prints lately - folks think that just because they have xyz million-megapixel camera that they can just shoot away and print whatever they want - if anything, digital forces me to shoot much MORE carefully than I ever had to do with film, and only a small percentage of all the captures I make are worthy of being viewed at any size, much less in a large print. By the way, you can shoot a digital file that is large enough to print out a billboard with a 3mp camera - billboards are normally output at something like 8dpi (dots per inch). Viewing distance matters baby!

Appreciate your time and knowledge Tim.

Congrats on the D3x! Great info about pixel-peeping... Even people upgrade point and shoot camera's from 6-8mp cameras for the latest 10-12 camera. If technology stopped advancing after 10mp, we'd all still be ok.

I've been very curious about ZEISS glass, especially the 21mm 2.8 and the 50mm 1.4 that may compensate for Canon's lack thereof. The Canon 24-70 L is tempting to start, but I wish I could have found one USED!!!

I've had some some trouble with my printer (epson 9800) recognizing large panorama files (over 1gb) through USB, but knowing that I can go as low as 180ppi for canvas will help me out in the future. I just need to shoot something good enough to break that 44" Breathing Color canvas out of the box. Tim- how much time do folks get to spend in the "print room" in your workshops? If you ever need an assistant to help bust out some prints, I've got an open schedule and would work just to learn technique. Are you going to keep that D700 for night shots?

I've had three of the original Zeiss 21mm lenses - first on my Contax RTS III, then two different ones for my big Canons. Far and away the best wide lens I ever used, at least until I got the Nikon 14-24 - the differences would be in the pixel-peeping range. The Zeiss 21mm is very large and heavy. I had an Olympus 21mm f2 for my big Canons and it was tiny in comparison (although it was "almost" as good). It will be awhile before the new Zeiss 21mm comes out for the Nikon or Canon, but I'm sure it will be a popular lens for folks who really care about premium image quality and who don't have or can't use the 14-24. By the way, I got in on a couple of sale deals with the Zeiss 21mm at the height of the frenzy, and sold one copy for $4200 (that I paid $1400 for new a month before). It can be had for nearly half of that record sale price now, which will be about the price of the new lenses.

There are great copies of the Canon 24-70 lens floating around - the one that I sold to Tom Kennon is one of the best lenses of any kind I've ever used - and I should never have sold it to him, gosh darn it! But most copies of this lens are just OK. The first time I did a test with this lens it was against a short Canon macro, which should have smoked the zoom. I was stunned when the file I picked to be far and away a better image was from the zoom lens. And I quit using my special Zeiss 35-70 hand-picked lens since the Canon was better at all focal lengths. If Tom ever switches to some other camera brand, he will have quite a sales frenzy going on!

While I have not been able to do any high-ISO testing myself with the X, it would appear that it does very well at high ISO, in fact some are saying as good as the D3 - which comes as quite a shock to a lot of folks, especially those doing the tests! It is ahead of the Sony for sure, which was to be expected, but not by the margins they are reporting. So if that is the case I may use the X for night images as well - however battery life is an issue with really long exposures - with the D700 I can use two battery packs vs. only one in the X. It is interesting to see the tests vs. the 39mp Phase One back that I also have - not really in the same league, but that too was expected. Overall though, I think the cries about it being overpriced are dying down...

I will pass along your offer of free assistance at workshops to my two assistants just to help keep them in line. Actually being a great workshop assistant has more to do with people skills than it does with photo skills, although mine tend to have a lot of both! I stole my main photo assistant away from former Senator/Governor David Pryor (was his Chief of Staff) - he is a terrific photographer but a top-notch people person as you might expect. And my IT assistant is a Photoshop guru and teaches Photoshop at three different universities at the same time - I don't know how she finds the time to come help me. (She is also a pretty good photographer, AND the cook!) So just like being a successful nature photographer, the actual photography part of it is just a small part of the greater puzzle. Sometimes I have more workshops then these guys can handle so am always on the lookout for a good assistant and will put your name in the hat! One thing to consider, and a good point for all to ponder who work for others - probably not a good idea to pass out your business cards during a workshop where someone else is paying you to represent them. Promotion by the boss is fine, and I do a lot of it for my assistants since they deserve it, but heavy self promotion is not a good idea.

Hummm, interesting last statement ...

Man, I have been out of town for a few days and missed a lot of good discussion here!

Tim, let me know when you are ready to do the test you mentioned earlier in the thread and we can hook up and put the 5D Mark II with "your lense" in the test.