marcell
29th of September 2007 (Sat), 06:58
First of all: this is not a camera test. I don't have enough technical knowledge to do so. I only share the experiences I made when buying the Nikon d200. I know I am in a canon forum. But the issues that arise when buying and using a digital camera are the same with any camera. Since if I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have bought it. Maybe I had bought the 5D. Maybe none at all... Anyways, this text might give you some questions that you could ask before investing in equipement.
The initial situation
I hate digitally made images. Conversely I favour the good old analog photography. Why? Yeah the good old war of photo-worlds. Eventually the best possible analog material has more subjective density and body. A digital image looks flat. An analog one has the feel of coming closer to three dimensions. I have a couple of different cameras for different uses. Mostly I use the Nikon FM2 with a 35mm 2.8 and a 50mm 1.4 lense. Slide-film, Kodak E100VS and Fuji Provia 400x. Fixed focus lenses. Good vario lenses will never beat good fixed focus ones. The quality differs in the largest possible aperture that allows to photograph with less light, the dark corners that are visible with less good wide angle lenses and the overall sharpness of the image. Plus these lenses have no auto focus just as the camera hasn't. So I have to focus manually. If you practice a lot and have a bright and large view finder then you are quicker when focusing manual. Plus you control the focus, you can easily be out of focus which can be a goal sometimes. Here again less technology means more quality. Usually the best auto focus lenses will not beat the best manual ones.
I do photography professionally but it doesn't make the largest portion of my income. I do freelance-reportage (you can see some work at www.fischka.com (http://www.fischka.com/e_index.html) and occasionally documentation, commercials, portraits etc. I don't like weddings since the pictures are more important to the clients then what they usually are willing to pay. So if you want to work above average you have to invest more energy than you usually get back. For photo journalists and commercial photographers who do 4 weddings and a funeral a week, there is no question on IF they should go digital but WITH WHAT equipment.
I would never do a freelance reportage digital. But clients are often not willing to pay the extra quality any more and don't want to wait three days to delivery. The quality of scans from labs in my town varies to the extent that I can't really rely on them. At least not in the price range I am willing to pay. So with buying digital gear I would loose some percentage in quality. But most clients don't really see the difference, I will be faster, I will have more control, due to the lack of film and processing, the jobs will cost less. So I either keep more of the sum or I can offer a job cheaper. Which might be a good thing in a more and more competitve environment.
The best
Ok, I wasn't really serious. But I at least wanted to give it a try. The Leica M8. The digital successor of analog M6 and M7. The legends. The best 35mm photo camera existing. Even though the digital M8 was having some technical troubles, it was supposed to be a real Leica. So I went to a local Leica Shop. I spoke to the really nice vendor. I said I in my naivety that I hoped quality would somehow come close to my usual. He asked my about my equipment. I told him. He drew a sad face and said: Well, you should come back in September. But September 2012. Maybe digital will be equal then." Anyways the Leica M8 was nice. Fine handling and an overall decent image quality. It wasn't as good as slide film, but obviousy as good as it gets with digital. But the body alone cost more than 4.000 Euro.
The choice
So when you want to have the cheapest possible professional level you can either go for the Nikon D200 (D300 now) or the Canon 5D which is app. 30% more expensive (about 2.000 Euro). When you have lenses and flashes and what ever stuff made for your analog Nikon, then you won't go for Canon. At least thats what I thought. I really haven't looked into the Canon stuff but I should have. Even some Nikon-fans admitted that Canon is overall better with digital matters contrary to analog mode. So I went to my local dealer, had a quick look at the D200 and bought it, knowing that I wouldn't want to afford a better Nikon.I also invested in an extra handgrip. Like that the D200 feels like a real camera. A bit heavy but very steady.
The if's and but's
The Focal crop
The D200 and the D300 have the 1.5 crop. A 35mm lense will be 50mm. A 50mm lens will be 75mm. I surely knew that before. So I knew that the widest lense that is available to me is a 20mm. I use it rarely but I do. That makes 32mm in digital. When I need more wide angle, than I have to buy a new lense. More cost. The Canon 5D has a full frame chip btw.
Focus
When you have new autofocus lenses then everything is fine. Autofocus is fast enough for most uses, exposure works quite well. But don't you dare trying to use manual focus. The viewfinder is small and dark. When I have all the time in the world and can make mulitple exposure than I am able to hit the right focus manually. There is a little dot in the viewfinder that tells you, when you have focused sharp. Works sometimes. But definitely not always. So this turned me from seeing to half blind. Told you, most of my lenses don't have autofocus. So if I really want to work professionally, I have to buy new lenses. With probably less quality.
The Flash
I thought, cool, I can use the SB26 and have TTL for the first time. The FM2 only supports manual flashing. I prefer available light photography but being able to use a flash would broaden my scope. Then I found out that even though the SB26 is a good flash, it doesn't do TTL with a digital camera. For this I need a newer flash. So again more expenses. Tell you, I was pretty pissed when I found that out. By now I could have invested in a Canon.
The files
No matter what I did. If I want the camera to save the images in jpg, the quality was mediocre at best. I read in various forums that this is normal. If you want to get the most out of your images, you MUST use RAW-format. Even when only using the conversion tool from photoshop cs2 in auto mode, the images look twice as sharp and colorful than in native jpg. So photoshop cs2 can't read native D200-Raws. I have to use a conversion tool, make some more files that can be converted to tiff and manipulated. That means it takes quite some time before you even come close to manipulating your files. Plus RAW files are quite large. Storage becomes an issue. Not if you do the occasional holiday snapshot stuff, but surely when you do a job a day with 200 images for each job. Storage and Backup comes quite costly after a while. So when working with RAW it is clear that you need lots of Flash-Cards, app. four times more space than without. In that case I'd advise to buy several smaller storage cards instead of a single big one. Storage cards tend to cease functioning after a while. It is better to loose 50 pictures and not 500. Plus with storage cards it pays of to buy better (and thus more expensive) ones. They just hold longer.
The manipulation
The pro of a file from a digital camera: you can do much more photoshop manipulation than with a analog file. It is more flat, it originally has less colors, has more detail. There is quite a lot you can polish there. And with manipulation I don't mean adding or deleting or distorting information in the picture but only color correction and sharpening. Best book ever for this: Professional Photoshop from Margulies.
The con: I do have to do more work in Photoshop than with an analogous photo. If I get my analog films scanned decently or use my own film scanner (Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED - a phantastic gadget) then I pretty much have a decent file. I might employ some little color correction (by setting white and black points) and my usual sharpening (mostly usm: 30-30-10 plus 150-5-3). But thats it. Takes 30 seconds per image. I usually work three to four times as long with a file from the digital camera. When it comes to cost, what I have saved with film stock and development I at least partly loose out to spending more time with photoshop.
The archive
One more thing to bear in mind. When I do film then I always have the neg or the slide. A scan is just a copy. And even though I don't want to loose it and do it again I can still treat it as a copy. With digital the file is my original. If it is lost, then it's gone forever. Therefore I have to take care double with backups. Plus with film I only keep the files I absolutely need, with digital, I rather keep more. Just to be sure. And I keep it in the biggest size possible while with analog I keep the file as I need it now.With digital I keep the manipulated file plus the original. So I end up with at least four times the space on hard disc and dvd-roms than before. Even though space becomes cheaper and cheaper, I have more cost.
Eventually I ended up charging the same amount of money to a client, no matter if digital or analog. I just label it different. Before it was material plus scan. Now it is image manipulation and storage. I know I am hyper critical here, but when it comes to calculating offers, it is important.
As said in the beginning, this is not a try to keep anyone away from digital stuff. There are just a couple of issues to deal with, when thinking about buying digital equipment. Issues that might not be visible beforehand but I at least would have liked to know before putting 1.800 Euro on the table.
Checklist
So next time I would check out this (besides the usual buying criteria such as price and quality):
* test at least two different systems (such as Nikon and Canon)
* check if all your lenses work nicely
* think about what a 1.5 focal crop means for your work
* see if the viewfinder is good enough to focus manually
* does your flash do TTL with the digi cam
* how does the RAW export work
* is the workflow from Camarafile to TIFF easy and fast
* what other equipment will I need (such as additional batteries, storage cards, handgrip)
truly yours, Marcell
ps: see my stuff at www.fischka.com (http://www.fischka.com/e_index.html)
The initial situation
I hate digitally made images. Conversely I favour the good old analog photography. Why? Yeah the good old war of photo-worlds. Eventually the best possible analog material has more subjective density and body. A digital image looks flat. An analog one has the feel of coming closer to three dimensions. I have a couple of different cameras for different uses. Mostly I use the Nikon FM2 with a 35mm 2.8 and a 50mm 1.4 lense. Slide-film, Kodak E100VS and Fuji Provia 400x. Fixed focus lenses. Good vario lenses will never beat good fixed focus ones. The quality differs in the largest possible aperture that allows to photograph with less light, the dark corners that are visible with less good wide angle lenses and the overall sharpness of the image. Plus these lenses have no auto focus just as the camera hasn't. So I have to focus manually. If you practice a lot and have a bright and large view finder then you are quicker when focusing manual. Plus you control the focus, you can easily be out of focus which can be a goal sometimes. Here again less technology means more quality. Usually the best auto focus lenses will not beat the best manual ones.
I do photography professionally but it doesn't make the largest portion of my income. I do freelance-reportage (you can see some work at www.fischka.com (http://www.fischka.com/e_index.html) and occasionally documentation, commercials, portraits etc. I don't like weddings since the pictures are more important to the clients then what they usually are willing to pay. So if you want to work above average you have to invest more energy than you usually get back. For photo journalists and commercial photographers who do 4 weddings and a funeral a week, there is no question on IF they should go digital but WITH WHAT equipment.
I would never do a freelance reportage digital. But clients are often not willing to pay the extra quality any more and don't want to wait three days to delivery. The quality of scans from labs in my town varies to the extent that I can't really rely on them. At least not in the price range I am willing to pay. So with buying digital gear I would loose some percentage in quality. But most clients don't really see the difference, I will be faster, I will have more control, due to the lack of film and processing, the jobs will cost less. So I either keep more of the sum or I can offer a job cheaper. Which might be a good thing in a more and more competitve environment.
The best
Ok, I wasn't really serious. But I at least wanted to give it a try. The Leica M8. The digital successor of analog M6 and M7. The legends. The best 35mm photo camera existing. Even though the digital M8 was having some technical troubles, it was supposed to be a real Leica. So I went to a local Leica Shop. I spoke to the really nice vendor. I said I in my naivety that I hoped quality would somehow come close to my usual. He asked my about my equipment. I told him. He drew a sad face and said: Well, you should come back in September. But September 2012. Maybe digital will be equal then." Anyways the Leica M8 was nice. Fine handling and an overall decent image quality. It wasn't as good as slide film, but obviousy as good as it gets with digital. But the body alone cost more than 4.000 Euro.
The choice
So when you want to have the cheapest possible professional level you can either go for the Nikon D200 (D300 now) or the Canon 5D which is app. 30% more expensive (about 2.000 Euro). When you have lenses and flashes and what ever stuff made for your analog Nikon, then you won't go for Canon. At least thats what I thought. I really haven't looked into the Canon stuff but I should have. Even some Nikon-fans admitted that Canon is overall better with digital matters contrary to analog mode. So I went to my local dealer, had a quick look at the D200 and bought it, knowing that I wouldn't want to afford a better Nikon.I also invested in an extra handgrip. Like that the D200 feels like a real camera. A bit heavy but very steady.
The if's and but's
The Focal crop
The D200 and the D300 have the 1.5 crop. A 35mm lense will be 50mm. A 50mm lens will be 75mm. I surely knew that before. So I knew that the widest lense that is available to me is a 20mm. I use it rarely but I do. That makes 32mm in digital. When I need more wide angle, than I have to buy a new lense. More cost. The Canon 5D has a full frame chip btw.
Focus
When you have new autofocus lenses then everything is fine. Autofocus is fast enough for most uses, exposure works quite well. But don't you dare trying to use manual focus. The viewfinder is small and dark. When I have all the time in the world and can make mulitple exposure than I am able to hit the right focus manually. There is a little dot in the viewfinder that tells you, when you have focused sharp. Works sometimes. But definitely not always. So this turned me from seeing to half blind. Told you, most of my lenses don't have autofocus. So if I really want to work professionally, I have to buy new lenses. With probably less quality.
The Flash
I thought, cool, I can use the SB26 and have TTL for the first time. The FM2 only supports manual flashing. I prefer available light photography but being able to use a flash would broaden my scope. Then I found out that even though the SB26 is a good flash, it doesn't do TTL with a digital camera. For this I need a newer flash. So again more expenses. Tell you, I was pretty pissed when I found that out. By now I could have invested in a Canon.
The files
No matter what I did. If I want the camera to save the images in jpg, the quality was mediocre at best. I read in various forums that this is normal. If you want to get the most out of your images, you MUST use RAW-format. Even when only using the conversion tool from photoshop cs2 in auto mode, the images look twice as sharp and colorful than in native jpg. So photoshop cs2 can't read native D200-Raws. I have to use a conversion tool, make some more files that can be converted to tiff and manipulated. That means it takes quite some time before you even come close to manipulating your files. Plus RAW files are quite large. Storage becomes an issue. Not if you do the occasional holiday snapshot stuff, but surely when you do a job a day with 200 images for each job. Storage and Backup comes quite costly after a while. So when working with RAW it is clear that you need lots of Flash-Cards, app. four times more space than without. In that case I'd advise to buy several smaller storage cards instead of a single big one. Storage cards tend to cease functioning after a while. It is better to loose 50 pictures and not 500. Plus with storage cards it pays of to buy better (and thus more expensive) ones. They just hold longer.
The manipulation
The pro of a file from a digital camera: you can do much more photoshop manipulation than with a analog file. It is more flat, it originally has less colors, has more detail. There is quite a lot you can polish there. And with manipulation I don't mean adding or deleting or distorting information in the picture but only color correction and sharpening. Best book ever for this: Professional Photoshop from Margulies.
The con: I do have to do more work in Photoshop than with an analogous photo. If I get my analog films scanned decently or use my own film scanner (Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED - a phantastic gadget) then I pretty much have a decent file. I might employ some little color correction (by setting white and black points) and my usual sharpening (mostly usm: 30-30-10 plus 150-5-3). But thats it. Takes 30 seconds per image. I usually work three to four times as long with a file from the digital camera. When it comes to cost, what I have saved with film stock and development I at least partly loose out to spending more time with photoshop.
The archive
One more thing to bear in mind. When I do film then I always have the neg or the slide. A scan is just a copy. And even though I don't want to loose it and do it again I can still treat it as a copy. With digital the file is my original. If it is lost, then it's gone forever. Therefore I have to take care double with backups. Plus with film I only keep the files I absolutely need, with digital, I rather keep more. Just to be sure. And I keep it in the biggest size possible while with analog I keep the file as I need it now.With digital I keep the manipulated file plus the original. So I end up with at least four times the space on hard disc and dvd-roms than before. Even though space becomes cheaper and cheaper, I have more cost.
Eventually I ended up charging the same amount of money to a client, no matter if digital or analog. I just label it different. Before it was material plus scan. Now it is image manipulation and storage. I know I am hyper critical here, but when it comes to calculating offers, it is important.
As said in the beginning, this is not a try to keep anyone away from digital stuff. There are just a couple of issues to deal with, when thinking about buying digital equipment. Issues that might not be visible beforehand but I at least would have liked to know before putting 1.800 Euro on the table.
Checklist
So next time I would check out this (besides the usual buying criteria such as price and quality):
* test at least two different systems (such as Nikon and Canon)
* check if all your lenses work nicely
* think about what a 1.5 focal crop means for your work
* see if the viewfinder is good enough to focus manually
* does your flash do TTL with the digi cam
* how does the RAW export work
* is the workflow from Camarafile to TIFF easy and fast
* what other equipment will I need (such as additional batteries, storage cards, handgrip)
truly yours, Marcell
ps: see my stuff at www.fischka.com (http://www.fischka.com/e_index.html)