21MP 1Ds Mark III Announced

"frederick" wrote in message
news:1187852244.906171@ftpsrv1...
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"frederick" wrote:

Both cameras expected to be available in November.

Sheesh! Nikon's making a liar out of me again: it's not six months, it's
only three months.

The D3 is out of my price range, but the D300 looks like the camera I've
been waiting for. I'm glad I skipped the D200, stuck with my D70 and
spent what I would have done on lenses instead.

Don't chuck the D70 just yet: you may find yourself better off using D70
images straight than noise reducing and downsampling D300 images in low
light.

If Nikon made the D300 with worse noise than the D200, then IMO that's a
mistake if the option was to stay at 10mp and improve noise performance.

There isn't any "option to improve noise performance". The physics of the
situation are that measurement noise is the limiting factor here.

The only way to improve noise performance is to increase the pixel area.
(One could also, perhaps, move to stacked capacitors and reduce the ISO. But
that's not really "improving the noise performance".)

But my guess is that it's going to be good (but no - not a 5d). Take a
D2xs sensor and add a few years of development, and it darned well ought
to be improved.

Hehe. You have faith in technology, and I have faith in physics.

And no - the D70 has been excellent, but it's time to move on. At about
30,000 clicks, Even if I trashed it now, I've saved more than 5x what it
would have cost me in film and processing, and the results have generally
been better, sometimes much better than I ever got from 35mm.

Exactly! (I moved from MF to the 5D, and since I take a lot fewer frames,
haven't saved as much money...)

I shoot raw, and use an R1800 for printing. Viewing my old Cibachrome
collection shows me very clearly how much things have moved on in a
relatively short space of time.

I took 25 years off from photography, so I missed Cibachrome.

I messed up. I have the R800 for work and A4, and bought the R2400. So far,
I've not been able to persuade the R2400 to do any better than the R800 for
B&W (and the R800 is better for color glossy), and the need to switch inks
to switch between matte and glossy is a disaster. I basically print matte
until the matte black runs out, then print glossy for a while....

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:03:33 +0900, David J. Littleboy wrote:

ROFL. They're still nowhere close to even the 1DsII. And that's been
more than 3 years. And won't be until they go FF.

I never mentioned the 1Ds. You're correct that Nikon won't be competing
on the FF field. Nikon will make a decent 1D Mk III killer.


ROFL again. They remain nowhere close to the 1DII. The D2x is a joke for
sports and PJ work.

Joke, you say? With the D3 the joke's on Rita B. and thee! It
looks like Rita's going to be much more active on eBay in the coming
months.

The D2x remains a joke, with D2x owners being the ones who have the
most to be unhappy about.

Nope. As anyone can see, my reply was not about the D2x, it was
about the D3, and as the quotes from previous replies show, the
comment was about not only the D3's FF sensor, but that Nikon now
has a top notch camera for sports and PJ work.


You may have already read up on it, but if not, this from DPReview:

It's here, after perhaps the longest period of speculation ever
Nikon has today lifted the covers on their first full-frame digital
SLR, the new 12.1 megapixel D3.

It looks like a great camera. In its weight and price class.

But it doesn't provide any increase in image quality over what I've had for
almost two years (it'll be a full two years the day the first D3 is
shipped).

Why should it have to be the ultimate camera for all types of
photography? Canon doesn't produce one. As with the D3, Canon
makes cameras that excel in certain, but not all areas. Do you
really think that cameras designed to be great for "sports and PJ
work" need to have the highest possible image quality? Criticizing
the D3 on this count is almost as silly as comparing it to the best
P&S cameras and saying that the D3 comes up short because it doesn't
take videos. In both cases, that's not what it was designed for.


and even a virtual horizon function which can tell you when
you're holding the camera perfectly level.

As before, being dizzy, this is the feature I need Canon to steal!

You're in for a long wait. The first Canon camera to have that
feature will be available Sept. 2010 in the Powershot S11 IS, the
first of the 18x18's which will boost the 12x lens to 18x, and will
cram 18mp into the same size 1/2.5" sensor.

David J. Littleboy wrote:
"frederick" wrote in message
news:1187852244.906171@ftpsrv1...
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"frederick" wrote:

Both cameras expected to be available in November.
Sheesh! Nikon's making a liar out of me again: it's not six months, it's
only three months.

The D3 is out of my price range, but the D300 looks like the camera I've
been waiting for. I'm glad I skipped the D200, stuck with my D70 and
spent what I would have done on lenses instead.
Don't chuck the D70 just yet: you may find yourself better off using D70
images straight than noise reducing and downsampling D300 images in low
light.

If Nikon made the D300 with worse noise than the D200, then IMO that's a
mistake if the option was to stay at 10mp and improve noise performance.

There isn't any "option to improve noise performance". The physics of the
situation are that measurement noise is the limiting factor here.

The only way to improve noise performance is to increase the pixel area.
(One could also, perhaps, move to stacked capacitors and reduce the ISO. But
that's not really "improving the noise performance".)

But my guess is that it's going to be good (but no - not a 5d). Take a
D2xs sensor and add a few years of development, and it darned well ought
to be improved.

Hehe. You have faith in technology, and I have faith in physics.
I don't have the patience to study the technical data to try and find
flaws in what looks like a convincing argument. But, I do see that for
example the new Olympus 10mp 4/3 sensor (with pixel density ~ 15mp on
DX) converted raw files look no worse and IMO better than D2x files at
the pixel level.
But I'm not rushing to buy a D300 - I'll wait until I see, not just for
noise / DR, but rushing to a new model isn't a great idea IMO.

And no - the D70 has been excellent, but it's time to move on. At about
30,000 clicks, Even if I trashed it now, I've saved more than 5x what it
would have cost me in film and processing, and the results have generally
been better, sometimes much better than I ever got from 35mm.

Exactly! (I moved from MF to the 5D, and since I take a lot fewer frames,
haven't saved as much money...)

I shoot raw, and use an R1800 for printing. Viewing my old Cibachrome
collection shows me very clearly how much things have moved on in a
relatively short space of time.

I took 25 years off from photography, so I missed Cibachrome.

I messed up. I have the R800 for work and A4, and bought the R2400. So far,
I've not been able to persuade the R2400 to do any better than the R800 for
B&W (and the R800 is better for color glossy), and the need to switch inks
to switch between matte and glossy is a disaster. I basically print matte
until the matte black runs out, then print glossy for a while....

The real difference with R800/1800 and 2400, apart from monochrome, is
the better gamut of the k3 inks on matte papers. If you soft-proof in
photoshop, you can see a clear advantage to k3, particularly in
saturated and dark greens. On my calibrated system, the R1800 prints
match soft-proof in photoshop extremely well. For landscape prints on
matte papers, I'll sometimes need to tweak the image or risk
posterisation or washed out colours in foliage or grass. If I load the
equivalent R2400 profile, then the gamut warning goes away (and I expect
- so would the problem if I had an R2400!).
I'm pretty happy with the B&W from the R1800, but get a definite but
slight cyan shift in light grey tones. Nobody viewing a print has ever
commented, so it's not a big deal, but I'd like better.
So IMO you *should* be seeing better results with the 2400 on
monochrome. If you wanted to sort it, then the forums at photo-i.co.uk
are a source of some good advice on workflow, and on which ICC profiles
and settings work best.


David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

David J. Littleboy wrote:
"frederick" wrote in message
news:1187843795.908806@ftpsrv1...
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
frederick wrote:

Canon Nikon.


Rumour has it, that situation changes in 3 hours.
He's currently correct when it comes to the dSLR body. I'll give Nikon
a year to totally trash the Mk III.
ROFL. They're still nowhere close to even the 1DsII. And that's been more
than 3 years. And won't be until they go FF.

Whaddya mean?...
Ooops - sorry - you wrote that yesterday.

Didn't take long for that to be historyg. Hooray! Canon's got some
competition. Finally.

Here's a comment that Bjorn Rorslett has just made on DPreview:

"The new D3 has high-ISO performance beyond what anyone could imagine
possible. I could hardly believe my eyes."

Yes - it sure looks like Canon has some serious competition.

"frederick" wrote:

I'm pretty happy with the B&W from the R1800, but get a definite but
slight cyan shift in light grey tones. Nobody viewing a print has ever
commented, so it's not a big deal, but I'd like better.

I think that's a driver issue. I've never seen a color shift with the R800
printing B&W images from Qimage, but most people in English speaking
countries have that problem.

So IMO you *should* be seeing better results with the 2400 on monochrome.
If you wanted to sort it, then the forums at photo-i.co.uk are a source of
some good advice on workflow, and on which ICC profiles and settings work
best.

Thanks for the pointer; I keep forgetting to check them out. (I've just gone
back to printing from Qimage after spending too much time hassling profiles
with Lightroom. Grr. Qimage with no profile to the Epson Japan drivers set
to Automatic and Photo-Realistic and the correct paper type simply works. I
know real men use ICC profiles, but the printers are actually
Japanese-market models and it's not clear that the papers are the same. For
example, the "R800" corresponds to the PX-G900, PX-G920, and PX-G930 models
here.)

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Aug 23, 12:42 am, frederick wrote:


ROFL. They're still nowhere close to even the 1DsII. And that's been more
than 3 years. And won't be until they go FF.

Whaddya mean?...
Ooops - sorry - you wrote that yesterday.

OK, so we can all now agree that Nikon is 3 years behind Canon.

Now we can see if Nikon's pattern continues. That is announcing
products early to thwart sales of a Canon product already on the
market and then pushing back their release dates. I wouldn't put this
one on your Christmas list just yet. At least not XMAS of 2007.

David J. Littleboy wrote:
"frederick" wrote:

I'm pretty happy with the B&W from the R1800, but get a definite but
slight cyan shift in light grey tones. Nobody viewing a print has ever
commented, so it's not a big deal, but I'd like better.

I think that's a driver issue. I've never seen a color shift with the R800
printing B&W images from Qimage, but most people in English speaking
countries have that problem.

It's something I've never looked in to in great detail (on an endless
todo list). Often I'll warm up - very slightly sepia tone - a
monochrome for matte paper, because IMO it looks better than flat
neutral. In that case, there's no problem at all.


So IMO you *should* be seeing better results with the 2400 on monochrome.
If you wanted to sort it, then the forums at photo-i.co.uk are a source of
some good advice on workflow, and on which ICC profiles and settings work
best.

Thanks for the pointer; I keep forgetting to check them out. (I've just gone
back to printing from Qimage after spending too much time hassling profiles
with Lightroom. Grr. Qimage with no profile to the Epson Japan drivers set
to Automatic and Photo-Realistic and the correct paper type simply works. I
know real men use ICC profiles, but the printers are actually
Japanese-market models and it's not clear that the papers are the same. For
example, the "R800" corresponds to the PX-G900, PX-G920, and PX-G930 models
here.)

I'm pretty sure that the papers will be the same if you can sort the
nomenclature out. One catch is the "premium" and "ultra premium"
suffix, and Epson's practice of calling the same paper by different
names in different markets - ie I still buy paper formerly known as
Archival Matte, then Enhanced Matte, now Epson Ultra Premium
Presentation Matte in some markets - but still called Archival Matte
here. Go figure.
The Japanese drivers work fine on the US models, and I'd assume
vice-versa. Some use the Japanese drivers as IIRC the US driver doesn't
have a "greyscale" option in the driver (The NZ/Aust driver does).
The best canned profiles I have seem to be the latest US releases -
except the Ilford Galerie profiles seem better still (smooth pearl is my
favourite paper on the R1800).
Yeah - using ICC profiles can be a drama, but once your workflow is
sorted, then it's second nature. I don't use QImage - does that allow
soft-proof / gamut warning?

"frederick" wrote:

Yeah - using ICC profiles can be a drama, but once your workflow is
sorted, then it's second nature.

I had it down for a couple of paper/printer combinations, but got tired of
making test prints. Also, while I like the idea of printing from Lightroom,
I think I'd rather check my images in Photoshop before printing.

I don't use QImage - does that allow soft-proof / gamut warning?

The soft-proof / gamut warning terms seem to be quite recent (I just
upgraded from PS 7 to CS3, and I also haven't upgraded to the latest version
of Qimage), or maybe I just didn't notice them earlier. But I don't recall
seeing them in a Qimage context.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Aug 23, 8:36 am, frederick wrote:
G.T. wrote:
"frederick" wrote in message
news:1187842023.275000@ftpsrv1...
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
frederick wrote:

Canon Nikon.

Rumour has it, that situation changes in 3 hours.
He's currently correct when it comes to the dSLR body. I'll give Nikon
a year to totally trash the Mk III.
ROFL. They're still nowhere close to even the 1DsII. And that's been more
than 3 years. And won't be until they go FF.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Oops - Looks like they just gazumped the 1DIII

Full Frame at 9fps / DX crop @ 11fps.
Hi2 mode ISO 25,600
Normal mode up to ISO 6400

US $5,000

Also, as has been predicted:
14-24 AFs F2.8
24-70 AFs F2.8
400mm 2.8, 500mm f4, and 600mm f4, all with AFs & VR

I guess Rita bought his Mk III too soon.

Greg

Lol - I think so. The big surprise is that it's only $500 more than
the 1DIII, and the famed 17-35 also just got gazumped by new AF-s f2.8
14-24.

That 14-24 looks great! I hope now prices of used 17-35mm will come
down to earth...

On Aug 23, 12:58 pm, frederick wrote:
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"frederick" wrote in message
news:1187843795.908806@ftpsrv1...
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
frederick wrote:

Canon Nikon.

Rumour has it, that situation changes in 3 hours.
He's currently correct when it comes to the dSLR body. I'll give Nikon
a year to totally trash the Mk III.
ROFL. They're still nowhere close to even the 1DsII. And that's been more
than 3 years. And won't be until they go FF.

Whaddya mean?...
Ooops - sorry - you wrote that yesterday.

Didn't take long for that to be historyg. Hooray! Canon's got some
competition. Finally.

Here's a comment that Bjorn Rorslett has just made on DPreview:

"The new D3 has high-ISO performance beyond what anyone could imagine
possible. I could hardly believe my eyes."

Yes - it sure looks like Canon has some serious competition.

Well, Rorslett isn't the most unbiased judge... Let's see what he
imagines possible first!