Nikon 1 V1

​Nikon 1 V1

At first notice - the camera is a chunk -- and with the Fotodiox grip it becomes more of a chunk.  The grip provides some body protection - I like that, and I like the grip.

I wish I had a hood for the 10-30 - it needs a hood, or a filter…. and I would rather have a hood.  All I have is the 10-30.  This is a kit from Cameta - Factory Refurb.  It looks like a straight return with a white box and a zeroed out shutter.  There is also a press tape label on the battery charger - so it may have been a review unit.

AF was good - I was expecting a lot though - coming from all of the reviews - something short of a miracle AF machine - once I backed off my expectation and started shooting it like my D3s - I came back earth.  I had some miss focused shots, as most were shot either waist high or something other than thru the viewfinder.  I'm still shooting like this it is an NEX-7 with the flip out screen.  I need to use the viewfinder more.  The auto AF is something to get used too -- sometimes it does what I want -- and sometimes not.  Can I be specific no -- it just doesn't grab the pure subject in the scene.

The grain is wonderful - the colors are wonderful -- I basically don't have to do any post -- with the 7 I had to work my magic about 90% of the time - Always.  I'm also excited to shoot this as Monochrome.  This result is what brought me back to the way of Nikon - everything is just as it should be -- and not in between.

These are processed in LR - as it is convenient.  If i'm going to print I'll bring them into LR and then process to TIFF in ViewNX.  I really like that extra push from the OEM side of the house.

So -- all in all - I'm pretty happy -- I still have to figure out the best AF, as I'm not really satisfied with the camera driving the system - but when I hit the shutter - it fires - and that's damn cool.

Oh -- I can see myself getting the 18.5 f1.8 - for sure.  I'm really fatigued of the variable aperture lenses - and on that note - I really need to get used the "Rocker" -- as the aperture doesn't much stay pegged at wide open -- it stays somewhere in between

Big Camera or Small

Big camera or very, very small camera.

3 years ago this wouldn't even been a consideration - the advance of imaging, color rendering, and sensor sizes is moving so quickly I can't even give a decent answer when asked, "Hey, what camera should I buy" -- I literally have 3 models I'm keeping up on at any given time.  The competition, an performance value is that close.  Sometimes I find myself wanting to upgrade to a different model after only 6 months using the what is in hand.

Speaking of brands and models -- I have no loyalty - only economic loyalty and that stems from lenses on the big stuff.  

​Nikon P330

​Nikon P330

I'm invested in Nikon with the D3s - and you know what - I chose wisely - as I love the color and contrast the Nikon system produces.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  And -- the only competition at that level is Nikon itself and Canon.  

Everything else is the flavor of the day / week / month.  And I guess I should clarify -- that "everything else" is anything but a hulking pro body.

Here's what I'm getting at - I was in Paris last week - and I took the Nikon P330 point and shoot.  I've tried to anticipate the "what" of the trip - and it worked out well - that 90% of the time the P330 was better than expected - and the other 10% of carrying the NEX, it became evident the NEX was becoming long in the tooth.

​Nikon P330

The P330 is small and crazy convenient to pocket.   I could whip it out - select either "Green" for a quick shot - or I could go "A" and give the dial a spin for the aperture, get a focus point and go - or go User setting where I have it set up as Monochrome.  As a B/W shooter i love it - totally love it.  Blacks are really rich - everything pops - and I have the contrast + from normal.  And the most important part of all of this -- and I keep combing back to this one point - between the P330 and NEX;  The P330 is wicked sharp.  And i can get sharp just about all the time.  The NEX - well - that's  been a struggle for me.  And now that I have something to compare it too - my frustrations are even more real.

​Sony NEX-7

​Sony NEX-7

The NEX has become love/hate -- when it all comes together the system can be a bit magical - but when sharpness / ISO / or focus don't become a Trinity - then the images are DTM.  Dynamic range seems to be endless - I can pull detail for what seems forever.  Shutter speeds need to be twice focal length - although Aperture Priority pegs the min. at 1/60 so that's a mode which is impossible to maintain.  Focus "pogos" once in a while, ok, most of the time - single point is difficult to lock.  And -- the images just don't have a good "look" without much manipulation.  If focus isn't tack sharp - then the images is DTM.

I'm going to move on - selling the NEX and I just ordered the Nikon 1 V1.  If focusing performance is what everyone says it is, I'll be really happy - and Nikon's color rendering will be a nice change from the Sony - with the lack of resolution of course.  I will miss that.

​Sony NEX-7

Pointe Du Hoc

The Pointe was awe inspiring. I have no words. As was Omaha Beach. RLTW, Sua Sponte.

Paris Street

Great imagery here in Paris - everything is historical, and most architecture is really well done.

Mona Lisa

The Louvre was packed - many, many people. The most moving we're the classical artists.

Notre Dame was a surprise - celebrating the 850 year Anniversary. We paid for the Sacristy self tour and it was a special access and a look to an area of private access.

Day Two

Wifi is crazy slow - so updates and uploads are painful. The crowds are thick at the popular sites - but after 8pm most vanish the public squares. The Sony is disappointing without fast shutter speeds and the Nikon is a dream at all settings.

Pastry is difficult to find - Brasserie is too tempting more than once a day. Prices are the same for meals in printed price of Euro - once exchanged they are 40% more. Cheap wine = 4 Euro etc.

People are nice - some approach when we are confused with street maps - wanting to help find our way.

Many smoke - more than you would think - but are relegated to outside only.

Everyone dresses well - no Jazz Jerseys.

http://jsturr.smugmug.com/Other/Paris-2013/29255762_dMtpcC

Paris

One from last evening - M suggested this frame up, so I can't take all the credit.

This place is so different, so wonderful. Off to the interior of the Louvre today and then Eiffel.

Nikon P330 Black and White

Nikon P330 Black and White

An estimated manual focus point - grab shot at arms length - converted from NRW to JPG.

​Nikon P330 - f1.8, ISO 80, NRW to JPG

Sensor Colors - Nikon P330 Coolpix

​Nikon CoolPix P330 - Auto with Self Timer, f2.8, 80 iso

Returning from Las Vegas last weekend, a self/group portrait.  

I propped the camera on the dash - balanced on the middle speaker, with the 10 second timer, on Auto.  

I can't get over the color rendering coming straight out of the camera where it is on the verge of looking like film, and that's the of the great things about the Nikon P330 CoolPix.  

This image is untouched - and you know - maybe this is the way sensors are going.  Great color rendering - Fuji has it with their X series.  My Nex doesn't.

Seriously !?

On the way to Vegas -- gassing up, and who couldn't ignore the big green dinosaur ?​

​Nikon CoolPix P330 f8.0 iso 80 NRW to JPG

Anything to make you work

Moving subject matter is better than static - anything to make you work out better familiarization, camera settings, or forcing some problem solving.​

​Nikon P330 f2.5 200 iso 25mm in 35mm

Distracted with the P330

Lately I've been distracted with the Nikon P330 -- maybe I was smitten with the size - or the smooth square finish.  Today I needed the rez and versatility of the Nex-7 and I realize the error in my ways, of ignoring this piece.

When the 7 is on -- it is wow-ing.  It will be my heaving lifting travel setup - while I have the P330 in my front pocket.

I now have to ditch the early 80's 50m which I only shoot at 1.4 because I need the light -- else there is some ghosting and negative clarity inherently built it.  I need the new 50mm.

Nex, with 50mm Nikon, 30mm Sigma and P330.  Debating on including the 35mm Olympus shift.

And three 32gb cards.  Done.

​Nex-7 with 18-55mm Kit - Lehi Utah

Chicks

Never a dull moment at the brother in-law's house - this year it's chickens.  Too cool.​

​Nikon P330 - B/W - NRW to JPG with a contrast boost.

Takashi Sushi

​Takashi, Nikon P330 f4.0 ISO 400

Shot last night at Takashi Sushi (the best in SLC) - first with a Auto focus tracking - then when I missed the subject I went AF Manual.  I was missing the subject with the Auto setting.  Every time I learn a bit more - and getting your result is all about anticipating what Vincent Versace would call the "HairBall".​

All of this is happening and I'm trying not to look too freakish by taking the same picture over and over -- I framed it up 3 times... and then I quit.  Too much compulsion and I didn't want the subject to get uncomfortable.  Reference Zoo Animal.​

Critical focus is not at its most critical - but it still looks pretty good.  
Go with what you got at the end of the day.​

Eye's Wide Shut

The favorite of the day - at Starbucks SLC - using stealthy techniques to get the shot.  In retrospect - I should have dialed in the ASA to 80 or 100... at 320 there is a bit of grain - and actually the JPG is super clean.  Here is the JPG from NRW.​

​Nikon CoolPix P330, ISO 320, f4.5

Nikon P330 Prints

I remember the days when the printed 8 x 10 was the decided factor for judging good rez - and going bigger than that meant you were shooting something special like exclusive 25 ASA or Medium Format.  And not too long ago many enthusiasts were arguing about 4mp vs. 12mp.  There were those who lamented over the D2h which had 4mp but could shoot very high ISO and those who scoffed at anything less than the D2x 12mp but was crippled past 800 iso.

That was 2006.

Now I'm staring at the first prints from the P330 - and I'm flabbergasted.  The print is the proof - where you can stare all you want on screen - zoom in - zoom out, blah.. blahh.. blahh..

And here are the results

4x6 - Excellent - and that's a given.  Most everything will look good at 4x6

5x7 - Excellent - I had my doubts going into this - and I wasn't too sure but I had a good feeling the 5x7 would be ok.

12x18 - Excellent - hard to believe - I've looked at them more than once - and then I look again - and I say - I can really print at this size.

All were all 80 iso, except one -- so I thought I was setting myself up for failure thinking anything else would look poorly.  But the Barista photo was at 400, and it's slightly off of critical focus, and shows just a touch of noise / grain.

Printed at Costco - with Luster finish - and I'm not bagging on Costco by any means - they do an excellent job for a $2.99 12x18 print.  I can do better with the Epson R2880, and so can Miller's or MPix etc -- I just wanted to make it clear I know the difference.

I'm starting to wonder if this is all I take to France in a month.

So let's review:  

• This camera is f1.8 on the wide at 24mm and 5.6 on the long at 120mm
• Autofocus sometimes hunts before the lock
• It shoots RAW
• It is sharp as anything I've shot
• And it fits in your pocket.

Wow….

Digital tip of the day

Here's the digital camera / electronics tip of the day.

When  you've purchased that new system - point and shoot, D3s, 1Ds etc -- make sure to mark your batteries with a sharpie, with the date of purchase.

Time files - and before you know it - and there is no point of reference to how old those batteries really are, for replacement.

Nikon CoolPix P330 - Quick Review

This camera has been on my mind since the announcement a few months ago.  I have big cameras, the Nikon D2h, D3s, and medium sized cameras like the Sony Nex-7.  But I wanted a smaller and or small camera.

I've had Canons, and the early Canons were some of my favorites - the S410 for instance was an optical performer - and I loved it and then graduated to the SD780.  But I noticed that Canon's sensors were not performing as desired - and in the mean time I had to send that new SD780 to Canon for a sensor swap -- the skin tones were much too red and subjects almost became translucent.

I've thought about Nikon -- but never really considered it - until the P330 and what swayed me was the f1.8 lens.  And that's really about it - the lens - it's all about the lens.

And as it turns out -- this P330 is a Winner.  There I said it -- it's almost crazy good.  If it had the build quality of a Canon - it would be even better.

Here are some of my thoughts - with video.

1 - It's lightweight and the frame feels very flexible and cheap.

2 - The interface is un-intuitive. Use the wheel to move backward thru menus / don't hit menu to default back. Caveat - I'm ingrained to the Canon Powershot interface - shame on me.  There is an FN button on the front which is slightly programmable.

3 - Shooting indoors with low light - is slow - and not very "Snappy" - shooting everything at auto ISO although f1.8 is nice to have - most of what I shot was a iso 200-400. Maybe it wasn't a fast aquire of focus because I was using very challenging indoor light.

4 - Shooting indoors at 1030am skylight lit subjects -- focus is snappy and fast and almost impressive shooting at f2.8. Increasing to f4.0 and focus lock slows just a bit (enough to notice)

5 - Battery charging is confusing - their USB cable is proprietary - epic fail.  A plug adapter is included for the USB cable.  An individual charging adapter similar to Canon would have been a better solution.

6 - Bottom Left corner of the display doesn't display ISO dynamically - I can't see what it was until I hit the play button to review the shot.

7 - Movie settings are confusing - 1080p30*, 1080p30, 1080/60i, 720/30p, iFrame 540/30p, 480/30p, HS 480/4x -- so.. .where is 24p ?

8 - Instruction Manual is disappointing - there are more pages spent on setting date and time and no pages describing movie settings - epic Fail. There is no electronic version on the NikonUSA web site - Epic Fail.

9 - Images appear crisp and sharp - at 100% on screen they are excellent - at the higher ISO's they do show some crunch - considering this sensor size I think this is excellent.  Images are very, very impressive I'm really loving them.  Sharp - sharp - sharp !!  There is even some Bokeh - when shot wide open.

10 - From viewing in a quick download of Nikon's NX - the RAW appears to look the same as the JPG at 100% - I will have to spend some time with that. Raws are 25mb and jpgs are approaching 5mb.

11 - Write time speed to the card isn't impressive and actually pretty sluggish for both jpg and raw.

​(Click Thru Images for the Hi-Rez Gallery)

Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 80, 24mm in 35mm

Nikon COOLPIX P330 12.2 MP Digital Camera with 5x Zoom (Black)

Nikon

**** Update Mar 30 ****​

There was a request to publish images of higher ISO - so here are some at 800 and 1600.  Focus point is the cat in the left center.​

This exercise was interesting - as very quickly these images at this high iso became very "crushed" in the details and exhibited a "Plastic" look.  This 1600 looks very similar to what my D3s would be at 6400.  Interesting.  And -- 800 and 1600 look the same.  

Also -- I've had two malfunctions in the last 48 hours.  The first was when powering off and the lens would not retract -- the second was trying to figure out how to get past 800 iso in the menu.  I couldn't scroll past 800 -- it looped back to Auto.  I powered off -- removed the battery, powered back on - inserted the battery - and then powered up.  Same condition.  I had to reset all settings to default, from factory in order to get past iso 800 in order to get to the selections of 1600, 3200, hi1 and hi2.​

​(Click Thru Images for the Hi-Rez Gallery)

Nikon CoolPix P330, f5.6, ISO 1600, 24mm in 35mm

**** Update Mar 31 ****​​

I'm glad those on the DPreview brought up the fact that these first images are a bit crunchy because of the in camera settings of - Sharpness, and Picture control and Noise Reduction.

This set is with the following settings.
Sharpness = 0, Picture Control = Neutral, Noise Reduction = Low.

I have two sets of photos - the in camera JPG's and the Nikon NRW's or (Raws)  - and I'm a bit disappointed in myself where I didn't do this Raw and JPG comparison in the first place.  I have the DPreivew Nikon CoolPix forum to thank for keeping me on track.

This is all said - because these results are - crazy dramatic and I'm glad I didn't miss these results by not shooting NRW.  And in my opinion the performance of this very small sensor at these ISO's is really good. 

The NRW's were pulled into Nikon's ViewNX (free on Nikon's site) and developed with the following settings.

Sharpness = 5, and ColorBoost = 16 and then converted to JPG.

JPGS were left untouched.

Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 800, Shot as JPG in Camera

​Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 800, Shot as NRW, developed in ViewNX

​Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 1600, Shot as JPG in Camera

​Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 1600, Shot as NRW, developed in ViewNX

​Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 3200, Shot as JPG in Camera

​Nikon CoolPix P330, f1.8, ISO 3200, Shot as NRW, developed in ViewNX

​Nikon P330 CoolPix f3.2 ISO 80 50mm in 35mm, NRW raw to JPG

​Nikon P330 CoolPix f1.8 ISO 80 24mm in 35mm, NRW to JPG

Audio -- tame the beast

Audio -- another learning curve

Good Audio is a beast - and either it's there - or it isn't - so I've decided to get a handle on it.  But - I don't have any decent Mics -- other than my RODE Video Mic.  I always thought it was a bit huge - so I started some research for either dedicated for the Olympus LS-7 or iPhone.

I had the thought of a dedicated iPhone mic - and it seems RODE is the only one producing such -- http://www.rodemic.com/mics/smartlav

The RODE SmartLav -- from what I've seen, it seems to be "ok", yet I'm not convinced - hit the youtube's - some are good and some are bad.

So - instead of a dedicated device I decided to get a decent regular LAV -- from Giant Squid Audio http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/gs/gs-mono.html

He's a cottage business, but is off the charts for good bulletproof gear -- did I just say bulletproof -- oh, yeah... that's right -- his stereo lavs survived my tour in Baghdad.  But I digress... "they never got shot, for what it's worth"

This convinced me - ​

Then -- I decided to pull one of these - iphone mic adapter - no power needed... boom !  http://www.kvconnection.com/product-p/km-iphone-mic-ecm.htm

Why -- 'cuz I want to start pulling some good audio, either with iPhone or externally with my Oly LS-7 -- and then layering on video.

Now onward to homebrewaudio and to figure out Reaper.

Olympus Zuiko 35mm Shift

It has been a while since I've posted anything with the Olympus Zuiko 35mm f2.8 Shift.  

I never really plan to use a particular lens, and there are times when what I thought I was going to use, ended up not being the case.  Today was no different - and as luck would have it, I thru myself a curve and adapted the lens to the NEX versus the D3s.

I really wanted to capture the spired East facade of this building - but the impending storm clouds kept the Sun away - so I used the diffused light to showcase the dramatic interior lighting of the North entrance.

As I set up the scene - I knew I was going to shift it - and then I decided to use the NEX - and of course because of the cropped sensor, the 35mm became a FOV of 50mm.  With a few steps back - I was able to fill the frame, confirm critical focus - and boom.  Thats the short form - it really took about 20 minutes for it all to come together.

Lessons learned;  if you think you will need a tripod - you will need a tripod.

As I've said before - this is a good lens - critical focus is unforgiving, and micro contrast is about 1/2 of that of a state of the art lens.  Post processing eats up clarity and contrast and of course sharpening.  Bring all that in balance and the results are very good.  I've used this at 35mm many times on the D3s and this is really the first use Architecturally at 50mm FOV on the NEX.

I cropped square - and I'm pushing the envelope here - as I don't crop.  But -- for this view the crop reflects the subject very, very well.  And so I went for it.

​Salt Lake City County Building - Sony Nex-7, adapted Olympus Zuiko 35mm f2.8 Shift