Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Nikon D7000 - the non-pro review.
The new Nikon D7000 is already in shops. Well, you'll probably find it hard to get one, but it's there. But should you upgrade? Here is my non-professional review of it. I'm not a professional so if you aim to professional photography, this review might not be the best for you. And please if you read something that you think you might like or not like about D7000 here - don't take my words as granted. Just go and check by your self. Everyone is different and different things are important. Note that I have D7000 for few days and I might have some wrong first impressions. I'll correct this review as I get used to the camera.
D7000 is semi-pro camera. Regardless the scenes position of the mode dial it's getting away from family camera. No I don't mean that you must have tons of experience to use it, but you should really read the manual (which is always a good idea). What do I mean? Many of the functionalities are set by a button and all you see is a letter appearing on screen or a dot and you won't find in-camera information about what you just did. Of course if you know what you are doing it's a way faster to set functions that way, but if you don't read the manual carefully you might miss some very useful functions of your camera because it might not be in any menu.
Another difference is that it feels heavy. The body is made from magnesium alloy and there are some pretty nasty edges. Mostly If you had a plastic body camera you might find these edges annoying. Don't be scared. I'm talking mostly about the edges at bottom - where the tripod mount is. Of course these edges save you a lot of troubles when you mount it on tripod. For example D5000 with heavy lens is hard to mount on non-rubber tripod heads. it slips easily. But still - these edges hurt. Especially when you use the menus. So when you buy D7000 and you want to study the menus - use light lens or you'll find it painful because there are so many settings in the menus and you could spend hours digging it.
I won't talk about every button and what's its use. It's in specifications and/or manual. I'll try to tell how easy it is to use these buttons. For example I find it hard to set focus modes, but I might be using the wrong fingers (non-pro, remember?). The Fn button is quite convenient to use. It's so useful that you might find it hard to choose what function to set to it. I want more buttons like this!
The AE-L/AF-L is pretty useful for professionals (should be - they don't change it) and pretty useless for me. You'll find it hard to lock both focus and exposure because you have to keep pressing it while you half-press the shutter button because shutter button is "lighter" ... easier to press. For that case I would like to have "AE/AF hold" choice in the menu, so you have to press it once for lock and again for unlock. Now there is only AE-L hold option. Of course you can set the AF switch to manual focus and you have focus lock, but you have to do it with the left hand which is usually supporting the lens. For me - I would like to use it as another function button because it's easily accessible. Well, maybe using it as focus button is somewhat useful for me.
And that's one of the "semi"s in "semi-pro" - U1 and U2 can be use only with the P mode (flexible program mode). It would be great if you can set the mode to S, A and M. Of course Pro's also shoot in P sometimes, but I don't think they do it often. Me - I like A (aperture priority) mode. Most of the time P is fine for me. However if you put flash (I mean hotshoe attachable flash, not the built in) you might want to set it to manual mode and use TTL-i of the flash to set the amount of light. Sometimes in A and P modes the speed is too slow for fast moving objects.. Actually you can set whatever mode you need for U1 and U2. To do that you have to dial the mode make adjustments and then save the settings to U1 or U2. The only problem is that you can't set the mode while you are in one of these user modes. To set mode you have to go to P, S, A or M mode and by doing that you loose all other settings that you set to U1/U2 mode.
Well. Ok. Even with sharp, noise-free video recording it's not always useful. it's hard to track moving kids. With a little practice you can shoot in manual focus. Focus doesn't have to be perfect to make a good video. It's easier with lenses that have AF with manual override. You can try to focus with camera and if it doesn't work fast enough - grab the focus ring and do it right.
RAW .nef file is realy 12/14 bit raw. Previous (D90, D5000, D3000) use "lossy compressed" (although it's not jpeg type lossy compression) RAW format with about 9.5 bits per color value. 9.5 is not much more than 8 bits. With 14 bits you can edit a lot more before you see loss of information. And the best is that you have an option to choose. I never liked when a software or device decides instead of you. If you need 14 bits lossless - set it, if you need small file size - set it to 12 bit "lossy" compression. What's really the difference? Ok. With 8 bits you have 256 grades for each color red, blue and green. With 9.5 you have about 700. With 14 it's 2^14 = 16384. Don't get me wrong. D5000 and D90 use lossless 9.5 bit compression for raw files. The only loss is that 12 bit color value is converted to ~9.5 bit using a special curve and neither you nor your monitor can tell the difference. The only reason to use full 14 bit raw file is to compensate lost information during editing (mostly exposure compensation).
As opposed to D5000, which uses the more compatible AVI video format, D7000 uses quicktime .mov and you need the latest quicktime codecs to be able to play it. And the bad news - codec does not come with your camera. Yes! When you install the CD from the package you might get "unsupported format" when you try to see video even in ViewNX 2. That's stupid. It's not a big problem because you can always download latest Quicktime or "Quicktime alternative" codecs, but it's just not right.
I hope that the "non-pro" in the caption will keep the professionals away because they get annoyed when someone who doesn't do professional photography reviews a camera. Well I'm not a pro, but I really use the camera to make photos. I don't just shoot test patterns and try to get the sharpest photo of a ruler. For me photography is all about fun. Pro's make it too complex. If you are having enough fun, then you are on the right track. Having fun keeps you addicted and you'll find your mistakes and correct them. And sometimes what someone sees as a good photo is not always a good photo for the others. I saw once a purple-orange spot which a lot of people "good photo" because it was made by a pro.
D7000 is semi-pro camera. Regardless the scenes position of the mode dial it's getting away from family camera. No I don't mean that you must have tons of experience to use it, but you should really read the manual (which is always a good idea). What do I mean? Many of the functionalities are set by a button and all you see is a letter appearing on screen or a dot and you won't find in-camera information about what you just did. Of course if you know what you are doing it's a way faster to set functions that way, but if you don't read the manual carefully you might miss some very useful functions of your camera because it might not be in any menu.
Another difference is that it feels heavy. The body is made from magnesium alloy and there are some pretty nasty edges. Mostly If you had a plastic body camera you might find these edges annoying. Don't be scared. I'm talking mostly about the edges at bottom - where the tripod mount is. Of course these edges save you a lot of troubles when you mount it on tripod. For example D5000 with heavy lens is hard to mount on non-rubber tripod heads. it slips easily. But still - these edges hurt. Especially when you use the menus. So when you buy D7000 and you want to study the menus - use light lens or you'll find it painful because there are so many settings in the menus and you could spend hours digging it.
I won't talk about every button and what's its use. It's in specifications and/or manual. I'll try to tell how easy it is to use these buttons. For example I find it hard to set focus modes, but I might be using the wrong fingers (non-pro, remember?). The Fn button is quite convenient to use. It's so useful that you might find it hard to choose what function to set to it. I want more buttons like this!
The AE-L/AF-L is pretty useful for professionals (should be - they don't change it) and pretty useless for me. You'll find it hard to lock both focus and exposure because you have to keep pressing it while you half-press the shutter button because shutter button is "lighter" ... easier to press. For that case I would like to have "AE/AF hold" choice in the menu, so you have to press it once for lock and again for unlock. Now there is only AE-L hold option. Of course you can set the AF switch to manual focus and you have focus lock, but you have to do it with the left hand which is usually supporting the lens. For me - I would like to use it as another function button because it's easily accessible. Well, maybe using it as focus button is somewhat useful for me.
Settings
You have 2 user settings banks. This is a complete recall of all the settings. It's a bit of a pain to set all settings of U1 and U2 mode and it'll help if you set up the camera to your needs, before you start playing with U1 and U2 modes.Live view
One thing I noticed. That when zooming to maximum live view is pretty slow. It's slower than D5000 which is stupid because D5000 have slower processor. My guess is that they decrease shutter speed instead boosting ISO for more clear view. Maybe if I try it in brighter light it'll be fast when I zoom. However one of the best uses of zoom in live view is to focus where the camera can't focus - low light for example.ISO
If you think that this camera is a magic wand and it can shoot in iso 6400 without significant noise when zoomed to 100% you are wrong. Yes it has quite less noise on high iso, compared to previous cameras, but when you read some reviews you might get it wrong. The noise is there, it's just a bit less. If you are a pro, you might get impressed, but I heard some people saying "what a bad camera" when looking at low light photo zoomed at 100% at ISO 800. One good thing is that color noise quite less than previous cameras. And I'm not talking about ISO 25 000... I'm talking about useful ISO's up to 1600.Speed
It's more responsive. Yes, but I have the feeling that the cost is a bit less "sure" focus. If you press the button all the way down sometimes it can shoot even if the focus is not perfect. That's not a bad thing. The bad thing is that you can't fine tune this option. I think some of the other cameras (D300, but I might be wrong) has 3 settings - 1. only shoot when focus is perfect, 2. shoot when focus is almost perfect and 3. always shoot when shutter button is fully depressed. D7000 have only 2 - 1. wait for focus and 2. shoot immediately. Well you can always wait for focus confirmation before you fully depress the shutter button. I'm glad that there is such option at all. In D5000 when you set it in continuous release mode and you want to catch moving object it can constantly try to focus and never lock. You better have non-perfect photo than no-photo. Also in continuous release mode if the object is moving towards you or away from you it might get in the focus plane and you can still have sharp photos. So if you have time - wait for confirmation. If not - go for it and shoot, and if you get lucky you'll have a nice photo. One successful photo of every ten situations is pretty much more than zero.Resolution
Although 16 MPx look much more than 12 MPx. Yes it's noticably more, but it's not that much. With D5000 at 12.1 MPx you get 4288 x 2848 image. With D7000 you get 4928 x 3264. You can't crop that much and at these high resolutions you mostly need resolution to crop. Well downsample will reduce the lack of sharpness because of Bayer interpolation, but D7000 already has high linear resolution. In real live photos it's sharp enough (or the reason is not in the camera itself). Personally I'm glad that I have 640 x 416 more pixels to crop because usually I'm not good at cropping at shooting time. Also loss of information because when shooting with higher ISO settings (noise) is less noticable when downsampled a bit.Video
D7000 supports full HD video! Some say that video is not good. What do you expect from a photo camera? It's made for photos. It has video because it's a shame to miss that feature with the power of many lenses and the big sensor. Yes, it focuses slowly and tracking objects is often mission impossible, but if you want a video camera - buy one. Even with these issues in mind D7000 is quite good video camera in some cases. External microphone is a huge step. With external microphone you can use VR, zooming, focusing without warring too much for the sound noise. And it's sharp and clear, and ... wow. All the maniacs that zoom to 100% and say "This photo is so not sharp!" - they are usually impressed by video because video is down-sampled from full resolution. There is no Bayer interpolation loss of sharpness, you can't see most of the lens' issues. You can look closely at 1920x1080 wide screen and you might not see any luck of sharpness. And noise. What noise?Well. Ok. Even with sharp, noise-free video recording it's not always useful. it's hard to track moving kids. With a little practice you can shoot in manual focus. Focus doesn't have to be perfect to make a good video. It's easier with lenses that have AF with manual override. You can try to focus with camera and if it doesn't work fast enough - grab the focus ring and do it right.
Battery
Surprise - new battery EN-EL15. Looks like a LiNiO2 chemistry. That gives you little more energy in less weight. I don't think it's really much of improvement. Yes it give's few 10 to 30% more shooting with one charge, but it'll be hard to find cheap chinese batteries. Yes, chinese batteries don't have all kinds of protection circuits but charger is smart enough not to blow them (if you use the original) and camera is more than smart. Nikon's prices for accessories are too high. The battery price is $64.95. For example EL9a battery price is $58.00 and you can find Nikon branded battery for $34.33, while you can find pretty descent one for $10.84. $65 is too high price when there is no much of new technology or creativity in the EN-EL15 battery.File formats
RAW .nef file is realy 12/14 bit raw. Previous (D90, D5000, D3000) use "lossy compressed" (although it's not jpeg type lossy compression) RAW format with about 9.5 bits per color value. 9.5 is not much more than 8 bits. With 14 bits you can edit a lot more before you see loss of information. And the best is that you have an option to choose. I never liked when a software or device decides instead of you. If you need 14 bits lossless - set it, if you need small file size - set it to 12 bit "lossy" compression. What's really the difference? Ok. With 8 bits you have 256 grades for each color red, blue and green. With 9.5 you have about 700. With 14 it's 2^14 = 16384. Don't get me wrong. D5000 and D90 use lossless 9.5 bit compression for raw files. The only loss is that 12 bit color value is converted to ~9.5 bit using a special curve and neither you nor your monitor can tell the difference. The only reason to use full 14 bit raw file is to compensate lost information during editing (mostly exposure compensation).
As opposed to D5000, which uses the more compatible AVI video format, D7000 uses quicktime .mov and you need the latest quicktime codecs to be able to play it. And the bad news - codec does not come with your camera. Yes! When you install the CD from the package you might get "unsupported format" when you try to see video even in ViewNX 2. That's stupid. It's not a big problem because you can always download latest Quicktime or "Quicktime alternative" codecs, but it's just not right.
I hope that the "non-pro" in the caption will keep the professionals away because they get annoyed when someone who doesn't do professional photography reviews a camera. Well I'm not a pro, but I really use the camera to make photos. I don't just shoot test patterns and try to get the sharpest photo of a ruler. For me photography is all about fun. Pro's make it too complex. If you are having enough fun, then you are on the right track. Having fun keeps you addicted and you'll find your mistakes and correct them. And sometimes what someone sees as a good photo is not always a good photo for the others. I saw once a purple-orange spot which a lot of people "good photo" because it was made by a pro.
Links
- D7000 page at KenRockwell.com - read this and you won't regret. It's from a professional for both pro- and non-pros.
- D7000 review at DPReview.com - 22 page review with all kinds of tests.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Google Android
Open source? Is it really an open source. Linux? What part of it is Linux and what is Linux used for? If you have a regular Java enabled phone and on the other hand you have an Android powered device what will be the difference. Some Android fans would say you can make a native library on Android device. Well yes, but you still have to make your application in Java. What choice do you have? Use Java or die! Use Windows or die. Where is the freedom of Linux? And they don't stop here - use Eclipse ... Why? It's a nice IDE, but it has awful editor. Well ok, it's good, but do I have to use it. It is written: "Use whatever you want, but we recommend Eclipse.". Well these Google sayings are starting to sound too Microsoft-y. Use Google Chrome or die (This one is behind Google's Adwords sign "Use only modern browsers") ...
Why do I waste my time to write this? Well because it helps me calm down. I don't care if there are other people who think like me. Well of course there are ...
I liked Google before. I guess when someone gets too big, he becomes an greedy bastard. I wonder what Sergey and Larry think about how Google is doing these days. I guess they are just too tired of all this and switch the beaches for a change.
Good luck Google. I'm sure they will get you one day. You are a little smarter and quieter than Microsoft, but soon or later you'll get what you deserve.
Edit: On the other hand Windows mobile 6.5 looks promising. Well it's probably another shit, but at least you can run native programs.
Why do I waste my time to write this? Well because it helps me calm down. I don't care if there are other people who think like me. Well of course there are ...
I liked Google before. I guess when someone gets too big, he becomes an greedy bastard. I wonder what Sergey and Larry think about how Google is doing these days. I guess they are just too tired of all this and switch the beaches for a change.
Good luck Google. I'm sure they will get you one day. You are a little smarter and quieter than Microsoft, but soon or later you'll get what you deserve.
Edit: On the other hand Windows mobile 6.5 looks promising. Well it's probably another shit, but at least you can run native programs.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Google are trying to control us
When someone becomes big on the market he has the power to do many nasty things. That's why there is a control on monotheism. For example Microsoft. Do you think they are trying to rule the world? They are harmless. Most of their attempts are stopped. That's because when they do something they do it with thunders.
Google? They are much worse. They are give you no choice and you even don't notice. Their first attempt was with removing flash from the web because it can't be indexed. But it was too "loud" and they gave up. They now index flash. However their next attempts are more quiet and slow. Lately they are trying to remove "old" browsers ... I like these so called old browsers. Firefox 2 is quite more stable than 3.x. Google chrome is shit. Although it's fast it's not close to stable. Internet explorer 8? Why? Why are they trying to tell me what browser to use? Because it's easy to make their applications? What's not good enough for me. I like my browsers and they will support them. Firefox 2 is not old.
Now you'll ask why I'm thinking that Google wants to make me use new browsers. Well go to YouTube with internet explorer 6. What do they say "Use modern browsers like Google chrome, Firefox 3.5 and IE 8". Although the message is not on Firefox 2, they didn't say that they support it. Not enough? Go to AdWords. Firefox 2 ... not supported. They could leave the old interface to use it with old browsers, but no - they better make you use what they want you to use.
Now I'm using Firefox 2.0 to post on this blog. Since Google have blogger.com too I don't have much time left. So I decided to post because it could be my last post. No one will tell me what I'll use! I won't use IE 8, Firefox 3 because ... well at least I like my "Go" button. I won't use VISTA because it sucks in every way. Don't tell me what software to use. I'll move to next version when I decide that it's stable and user-friendly enough!
Who's with me!
Google? They are much worse. They are give you no choice and you even don't notice. Their first attempt was with removing flash from the web because it can't be indexed. But it was too "loud" and they gave up. They now index flash. However their next attempts are more quiet and slow. Lately they are trying to remove "old" browsers ... I like these so called old browsers. Firefox 2 is quite more stable than 3.x. Google chrome is shit. Although it's fast it's not close to stable. Internet explorer 8? Why? Why are they trying to tell me what browser to use? Because it's easy to make their applications? What's not good enough for me. I like my browsers and they will support them. Firefox 2 is not old.
Now you'll ask why I'm thinking that Google wants to make me use new browsers. Well go to YouTube with internet explorer 6. What do they say "Use modern browsers like Google chrome, Firefox 3.5 and IE 8". Although the message is not on Firefox 2, they didn't say that they support it. Not enough? Go to AdWords. Firefox 2 ... not supported. They could leave the old interface to use it with old browsers, but no - they better make you use what they want you to use.
Now I'm using Firefox 2.0 to post on this blog. Since Google have blogger.com too I don't have much time left. So I decided to post because it could be my last post. No one will tell me what I'll use! I won't use IE 8, Firefox 3 because ... well at least I like my "Go" button. I won't use VISTA because it sucks in every way. Don't tell me what software to use. I'll move to next version when I decide that it's stable and user-friendly enough!
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Does size count?
Well it is a big question. Why men are so proud when they have big penis? I heard it three times from three different women that having sex with men who have big penis - it hurts. Why if the woman is not masochist why would she like it?
Here is a prof - women do like to touch themselves (like men don't :). So how do they do it? How many fingers do they use? One? Two? Well not more than 2 if someone don't pay for that.
The same is valid for women and their breasts(except that men are not hurt by big breasts - that's what I heard). Men don't think that big breasts are more beautiful than smaller ones, even when they say it. It's just fashion - "Big breasts are good, and you can't have your own opinion".
So do you have small penis or breasts? Don't be ashamed or some people can make a lot of money from you.
Read other opinion here:
http://www.askmen.com/love/vanessa/vanessa4.html
and here:
http://iafrica.com/loveandsex/sexadvice/sexuallyspeaking/662836.htm
Here is a prof - women do like to touch themselves (like men don't :). So how do they do it? How many fingers do they use? One? Two? Well not more than 2 if someone don't pay for that.
The same is valid for women and their breasts(except that men are not hurt by big breasts - that's what I heard). Men don't think that big breasts are more beautiful than smaller ones, even when they say it. It's just fashion - "Big breasts are good, and you can't have your own opinion".
So do you have small penis or breasts? Don't be ashamed or some people can make a lot of money from you.
Read other opinion here:
http://www.askmen.com/love/vanessa/vanessa4.html
and here:
http://iafrica.com/loveandsex/sexadvice/sexuallyspeaking/662836.htm
Friday, February 02, 2007
Oh boy! What do you know ...
Two year talented drummer Julian Pavone in his own TV show "The World's Yougest Drummer!"
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
HotOrNot
I visit www.hotornot.com from time to time. I have a small list of double matches - people who I would love to talk to, but ... yeah the $6 fee. I won't pay it. I can afford it, but I won't. I'll make a website similar to "meet me" function of www.hotornot.com and it will be FREE. Check this blog for update. I promise I'll make this site even it will the last site I'd do!
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