HELP!!!!! Digital Nikon Cameras

[Bill@Interstell]

This is just barely about air racing at this point, but....

I find camera's with motor drives don't work well for me when I'm shooting sports, or anything else for that matter. I always seem to get two images equally spaced either side of the instant in time I really wanted. It burns film too.

Another gripe I have with digital cameras is that there seems to be a delay between depressing the shutter button and the camera taking the shot with most digitals I have tried. I admit I haven't used all that many as they are just now getting to the point that they have enough resolution to compete with film. Perhaps the models under discussion don't have the aforementioned shutter delay, but they still aren't price competative.

The real advantage of going digital is the ease with which one can transfer images to a PC and hence the internet. This goes a long way toward explaining why you aren't viewing any my images right this second. My scanner is down.

Oh well, lifes a bitch, and then you go air racing.

[W J Pearce]

The shutter delay for the cameras mentioned is equal to film. For the D2H it is better.

Older "point and shoot" and "prosumer" digicams had major delays. Press shutter, subject leaves frame, picture is taken of background.

BP

[AAFO_WSagar]

Originally posted by W J Pearce
The shutter delay for the cameras mentioned is equal to film. For the D2H it is better.

There is some fraction of a second delay in the D1 but I've never noticed it. As far as running the motor drive, or "burst" on digitals.. that's the nature of the beast.. You either have incredible timing or you get a lot of shots of sky, tails, noses, wings... or whatever you DIDN'T want in the frame.. Sometimes you get lucky... The shot at the tail end of this message was one of those that you *have* to get shots...

Very few opportunities to get the Bear lined up with a pylon in the foreground... Absolutely impossible to tell when he's going to hit the spot you want... You just have to get on him, stay on him, hope you keep him in focus and exposure and pray that you get the pylon in one of the frames.

Somewhat easier with the airplane coming at you with the Pylon more or less stationary in the frame, but not possible on this particular pylon because the framing would not work at that angle, he was just too high to make it work..

You either have to burn a lot of Fuji, or a lot of electrons and shutter cycles on the digital.. again, unless you have an incredible sense of timing and can shoot with one eye, and track with the other..

By the way, this is, by NO means, a perfect shot.. It's WAY soft and normally, would have seen the light of day only for my eyes only... since it was the ONLY shot that anyone produced with a pylon in the foreground (that I know of) and was requested.. it hadda do..





Wayne

[AAFO_WSagar]

Fiddling A Bit .....

Actually.. I don't think I really spent a lot of time on that image when I first put it up... (wherever it was located on the site... I forget )

Running a bit more... which is needed with digital, they are always a bit soft out of camera, even at their best... (I shoot with all in-camera sharpening OFF, and adivise anyone who shoots digital to do same)

Anyway... here's same shot run one more time through the mill.. a little "over sharpened" maybe but more acceptable.. I actually sold one copy of this photo to a very loyal Rare Bear fan and it looked pretty darn good.. I think, it was even printed at 13x19..

Not *too* bad for not using Nikon glass.. (wish I could afford some!)

Wayne

[Mayo]

Pentax K-1000

OK, now you shutter bugs,

what is the concenssus on the ol' Pentax K-1000
someone did say to me that a good general 'slr' camera would be the Pentax, does anyone know of the limits of this unit, its ability and disfunctions, what one can and can not do?

Sincerely,
Kodachrome

[Bill@Interstell]

Pentax

The K-1000 is a greaat camera. No bells, no whistles, just a basic solid camera with superior optics. I have a spotmatic which became the K-1000. My dad, who is a professional aerial photographer, started using Asahi Pentaxes in the early 60s before Honewell got involved. At the time he put the lenses on a columator at the factory in Japan to assure himself they were as good as anything Nikon or Zeiss had to offer. He bought a matched set of 3 S-1s which are all still useable. When the 6x7 came out he sold his Hasselblad 2 1/4 as he found the setup ackward for shooting out the left window. He has used a lot of different cameras over the years, but I think the Pentax has always been his favorite. One caution... I've had trouble getting my spotmatic serviced. It gets a sticky shutter if the temperature drops below freezing. I've had is lubed twice by 2 differnt shops and it still sticks.

[Bill@Interstell]

OK here's another question

If you were going to drop a high end consumer amount of change on a digital camcorder, what would you buy?

I've been lusting after a Canon XL-1s with the manual lens (it has a hard stop at infinity rather than a focus ring that just keep turning and turning) for a couple of years, but can't believe Canon isn't about to come out with denser CCDs soon. Almost everyone has 1Meg chips now, and these are still 280,000 pixels, time 3 chips of course.

The GL2 has everything the XL-1s has except the interchangable lenses for less money.

The Sony TRV950 (also a 3 chip camera) looks good and is a lot smaller (read more candid and less to lug around).

There is also a new JVC that actually shoots high definition, but the editing software it comes with won't run on my new G4.

I really need to replace my hi-8 and would love to do it before the races but I'm running out of time...