After about a week of messing with the Nikon D80 I have now just about got the hang of all of its multifarious features and settings. Initial attempts with the camera were proving to be alarmingly un impressive for a machine of this quality. The Nikon more than any other digital camera I have had has demonstrated in a way, just how different digital photography is to film.
I thought I would upload a recent snap of Gill. Although this shot was taken in AP mode I still used a bit of the dreaded flash, something I tend to avoid at all costs. I think it would be interesting to do a study into the two different camera modes and how they relate to users. I tend to be more of an Aperture priority photographer with an interest in detail and depth of field, I wonder if SP folks would tend to be much more ‘off the cuff’. An interesting side line debate for Flickr no doubt. Despite the inevitable losses incurred by the considerable downsising of this photo it still looks incredibly smooth to me, with very good contrast and colour.The original is stunning in its detail!
Gill and I are off to Cardiff in couple of weeks to meet the folks so there should be more opportunities for pictures. I hasten to add that I have never visited South Wales and a trip out to parts of the Gower coast and other places sounds very promising.
More innovations and modifications are on the way for this website including a more divergent approach to the Prestbury Gallery that will include some of my more unusual and not necessarily ‘post-cardish photos of the surroundings. Or rather more studied, abstracted and expressive images from here about. The churchyard alone is yielding some very curious photos. Now that I am armed with a camera that can capture images in a huge range of lighting conditions (with attendant atmosphere) not to mention an accurate replication of a whole range of film effects, I see interesting times ahead for oliver-wood.co.uk
The great Nikon debate here at Oliver Wood photos has at last found a resolution in the form of the fabulous D80. I’m very impressed with this camera and although not quite as robust as some of the more top line digital SLRs it is never the less a very nice piece of kit.
I got a Nikon DX 18 – 70mm lens with this camera, another fine piece of gear, all of the hand rings have that unmistakable Nikon feel, as if they are gliding on oiled silk and the auto focus servo is virtually silent. I was quite impressed by just how fast the servo focus system works – it is almost instantaneous. The camera has many very useful features as well as some that I will probably never use such as multiple exposure. As with all pro digital SLRs it can accurately replicate a wide range of ‘film effects’ including colour filter enhanced contrast in black and white. Now I’m looking for opportunities to test out the ‘red filter’ mode and go a bit Bill Brant – ish with my B&W— again! The D80 has a very ingenious feature that lets you select focus areas within the frame, literally steering the focal point around the frame with the positioning control. With this feature you can bias focus to subjects that may be outside of the central area leaving the rest of the frame in soft focus. Another handy feature is a proper ‘scientific’ approach to white balancing that lets you specify the reference colour temp in Kelvin. I really do like this as most cameras offering preset WB still appear to produce incorrect chromasticty in incandescent lighting but I suppose this is just one of my strange ‘obsessive concerns’. Although the D80 is promoted as an ‘intuitive’ camera there is a heck of a lot to learn and operation requires a fair amount of learning. Many of the controls have ‘soft features’ according to program settings though I found that operation of the camera does become almost automatic after a day or two of experimentation. All important parameters are clearly displayed on an illuminated OLED sub screen within the eyepiece viewfinder. It seems to be expected that most users will prefer this mode of viewing as I have not yet found a way to make the very large rear TFT monitor display a through the lens view.
The menus are really nice and clear, though there are a lot of them! The rear screen resolution is superb and it is also very bright with good contrast. Another handy feature is a setting which lets you trim down these menus so the camera will only display the features you need in the ‘my settings’ mode. It is worth getting to know the whole range of menus though as much of the really interesting and innovative stuff is quite deeply buried in sub menus.
The only gripe I have thus far is a very minor concern with the stiffness of the front and rear command wheels, they are rather difficult to turn and after a short session you can end up with a very tired hand. Though they do move in a solidly incremented way rather than continuous rotation. Generally it is quite a fab camera. All I need now is some time and inspiration to go out and use it as intensively as possible.