PDN Photoplus 2011

[Murray Foote]

I checked out this trade show when it was on just over a week ago. One of the first things you saw was Nikon executives demonstrating the new Nikon 1 J1 and V1. Nikon seems to make different choices for its executives than Olympus.



I didn’t check out the Z1. It’s not really on my list of interest at the moment. It’s aimed at digicam users moving up so all settings are hidden in the menus rather than a button-and-dial design such as the Sony NEX-7.

I did have a look at the NEX-7. They had one there with the standard zoom. I asked to see a Sony 45mm f1.8 but they didn’t have them. I found it more awkward in my hands than I was expecting. You operate the top dials with your thumb and it seemed a little awkward, but then I broke that thumb playing cricket years ago so maybe that’s me rather than the camera. The electronic viewfinder is stunning. No optical viewfinder like the Fujifilm X100 but twice the resolution for the evf and no apparent lag. I also wanted to see the focus peaking and that looked quite useful. A customisable amount of red flare around the contrast boundaries in focus. Of course the main shortcoming here is the lack of genuinely compact lenses.

I had a look at a Ricoh GXR with the A12 module that allows mounting Leica lenses. This one came with a Voigtlander 30mm f1.4 (which therefore had a Leica mount). Quite compact and seemingly quite viable though the focus peaking didn’t seem as useful as that on the NEX-7.

I also had a quick play with a Fujifilm X10. That seemed to fit in the hand quite well and be a good choice for someone seeking such a camera. The controls were very familiar to me from my X100. One unusual and successful design choice was pairing the on-off switch with the zoom ring, so you turn the camera on and then select the focal length for zoom in one action.

The useful thing I came away with was paper sample packs for Canson, Innova and Epson. I need to revisit that again so probably worth the $50 entrance fee for that.

Outside it was a touch on the chilly side. Not really like Sydney weather at all.

[Murray Foote]

[ozimax]

it looks cold over there!

[Murray Foote]

It was just that day. It was either the coldest October day on record or the coldest since the 1920s. The trees in Central Park were filled with snow and usually by the time that happens they have lost all their leaves. Since the leaves were still there, the tress had to bear an unaccustomed weight of snow and large numbers of branches and trees collapsed. Probably wild weather due to global warming.

I'll put up a couple from Central Park the next day (though by then it had stopped snowing and most of the snow in the trees was gone).

[Murray Foote]

[surenj]

[Shudder]

Looks like an interesting visit. That X100 pictures look good.

[Murray Foote]

Yes, it makes a very good pocket camera as long as you're not too enamoured of extreme telephoto. I wasn't game to wander round the streets of New York with a D3s and lenses, knowing nothing of street prudence there.

New York, though is much safer than it used to be and the streets and the metro were fine at all hours, at least where we went.

[surenj]

I wasn't game to wander round the streets of New York with a D3s and lenses, knowing nothing of street prudence there

Fair call. I have a fear of being robbed whenever I travel even with my low-end gear.

[Matt. K]

Great Photos Murray! Looks like you had a fabulous trip. How is your relationship with the X100 coming along? Love to hear your comments.

[Murray Foote]

Thanks, Matt. I'll post some more in a little while in another thread.

I'd determined when I purchased it that it was for me the only high-quality coat-pocket camera. In those terms, it worked well and I was able to carry it inconspicuously and bring it out when required. I purchased both a lens hood and a case (both cheap on EBay) but found it more convenient to use it without either, though with a wrist strap.

Ozi said he sold his because the fixed focal length didn't suit his style of photography. I took the opposite view; it's what you've got and you make it work. It has essentially a normal lens because 35mm-equivalent is actually closer to normal than 50mm. It works very well in macro, you can stitch for wider and crop for some telephoto at the equivalent of a smaller sensor. What you have to forget about is long telephoto. Most of the time, though I just used it as at 35mm and didn't feel handicapped.

By and large it gives good colour and exposures and the live histogram is invaluable. Ergonomically it's very good, the dials work well and the menu system is reasonably simple and logical. You do have do be a little careful about inadvertantly moving the compensation dial.

There are some settings that were illusory for me, given that I shoot RAW. It has ISO and Dynamic Range bracketing but they produce three jpegs rather than three RAW files, so presumably no different to shooting a single RAW (though admittedly I didn't actually test that). The AE bracketing, though, produces three RAW files, although only three and with a maximum of 1 stop intervals.

There is I think no detailed third party manual that explains everything from a photographer's perspective. Some of the options of the camera I didn't explore, highlight tone and shadow tone for example. There are three dynamic range settings. Extended dynamic range (still available for RAW) seems to produce good images in difficult light but to be counter-productive in low light so I presume that works well (I didn't do systematic tests).

Low-light capabillity is probably about 1.5 stops behind my D3s though that's a pretty high standard of comparison. 3200ISO may need some noise reduction but is still quite viable; 6400ISO more so but still viable. I did have some difficulty with accurate focus in low light and I took quite a few shots of live music. There is a focusing beam option but I left that turned off, deeming it inappropriate when photographing people. I found it difficult to know whether I was assessing the histogram and the (aRGB) preview correctly in low light - there can be a big difference between what you start with and what you can easily pull out in Lightroom.

I'm not sure that I always made the right choices of camera settings. I tended to leave it on auto ISO in expectation of street photography when I usually didn't need to, sometimes resulting in higher ISO that necessary. I sometimes didn't assess my manual settings as well as I should as well. The camera actually has some limitations as a street camera because you have to use autofocus and can't quickly set manual focus on the fly.

Overall, though, the image quality is very good and I definitely got some good images.

[Matt. K]

Thanks Murray. I sense that it delivers the quality but the interface is not perfect. An interesting camera and very suprising that it took Fuji to design and release it onto the market. Imagine if Nikon or Canon decided to design a serious contender and put the required resources into it. They could build the perfect P&S camera if they really wanted to.

[Steffen]

Imagine if Nikon or Canon decided to design a serious contender and put the required resources into it. They could build the perfect P&S camera if they really wanted to.

I reckon they've both considered their options carefully, it seems like Nikon's answer is the "1". Before that they tried to put the P&S market under pressure with the D3100 and D5100 (conventional DSLRs becoming cheap enough to play in the P&S market segment). This leaves us to wait and see what Canon is going to do. They pretty much dominated the "better" P&S market before the new wave, so they must feel very much under pressure. I bet they'll surprise us with something soon.

EDIT Reflecting on what I wrote and considering the pricing ($1400 for a D7000 and $1200 for an X100 at Ted's) I don't think the X100 stands a chance other than as a boutique item.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Murray Foote]

I sense that it delivers the quality but the interface is not perfect.

It's true that the interface is not perfect but it's also really quite good. Most of the drawbacks are really quibbles. The external dials and buttons make the camera quite responsive and the menu choices are generally fairly simple and well laid out.

The main drawback is really that manual focus is not entirely compatible with the traditional manual-focus approach to street photography. That meant you would have an aperture selected, say f8, and manually quickly select an approximate distance directly on the lens. You can't do that because manual focus is much too indirect. The way manual focus works is that you hit the autofocus button on the back of the camera to get close then fine tune. That might work well for macro but for street photography you have to set the distance using autofocus, which is more cumbersome than it might have been.

[Murray Foote]

Reflecting on what I wrote and considering the pricing ($1400 for a D7000 and $1200 for an X100 at Ted's) I don't think the X100 stands a chance other than as a boutique item.

Ted's currently shows the D7000 as $1,500 (body only) on their website and with a 35mm f1.8 lens would be $1,850. The D7000 is a better camera but it's a different sort of camera and too big for a coat pocket. The D7000 is also an iteration of a long line of Nikon DSLRs whereas the X100 is a new product.

The situation may well change as new cameras come out but as it stands the X100 is pretty much the only coat-pocketable option with a DX-size sensor. (The Sony 16mm pancake has poor edge definition, the forthcoming Sony Zeiss 24mm is too big and the Samsung has an inferior sensor). I think in that context, the X100 is a practical choice and the price is appropriate.