Re: Nikon D200 (for alt)

I'll add a few comments. Nearly all (if not completely all) of my
commercial work is now done digital. I work in a few studios, so I get
to "play" with a number of different systems. I haven't gotten to use
the D200 yet. What follow is personal observations/beliefs, rather than
scientific testing. My personal day to day digital is a Fuji S2, I'm
still waiting for something with enough improvements over the S2 to
cause me to spend $$!

In todays digital cameras, megapixels are way over-hyped. It isn't how
many pixels you have.... it is how good the pixels you have are! I
really believe that noise, density range and "bleed" are FAR more
important for most uses than pixel counting.

Noise in digital shows up as incorrectly colored pixels. Think audible
noise in a stereo system, stuff that shouldn't be there. Noise
comparisons are available at dpreview.com. One important thing to
consider is how you shoot. If you are an ISO100 person, the current
DSLR cameras don't vary too much. If you are an ISO 400 to ISO 1600
person..... the difference between a Fuji (quiet/clean at 1600) and a
Nikon (huge rocks of incorrect color all over your image) can be scary.
Cannon falls in the middle. Kodak (now discontinued) was a
joke/disaster above ISO 80.

Density range is very similar to it's counterpart in film. Shooting
digital can be very similar to shooting slide film. Get the exposure
perfect and avoid high contrast images and all is fine :-(

Many digital camera (reportedly including the Nikon 200) give a very
short (high contrast) file in JPG mode. "Fun" looking, but very hard to
use in many situations. You end up with pure whites and blacks that
can't be photoshop fixed, just like slide film gave you. Currently
(from my experience) in the DSLR world Fuji S3 gives the most density
range, followed by the Canons (and my S2), followed by the Nikons in
last place. If you shoot RAW files, you can get around some of this
problem, but that does take far more post process time.

"Bleed" is what I "think" Pam was worried about. Unfortunately,
separating the three color channels won't fix the problem. When you
photograph a junction of very bright and very dark (backlit branches)
in digital you often get a "fringe" distortion in a green/cyan/purple
color. What usually causes this is that pixel set #1 (RGBG) gets the
backlit sky (very strong light) and pixels set #2 gets the edge of the
branch (very weak light). Some of the electrical charge generated by
pixel set #1 "bleeds/leaks" into the adjacent pixel set #2. This causes
the fringing.

In general, larger sensors have less of this problem. The little pocket
sized digital cameras use a chip about 1/8 inch, bad bleeding. The
DSLRs use a chip about 1 inch, much less bleeding, the really $$$
medium format chips (closer to 2 inches) are even better. I haven't
seen any great difference in the current DSLRs, even between the APS
and full sized versions :-(

Some folks claim this purple fringe is a lens issue. To a small extent
I agree. Wide angel lenses with small exit pupils and any truly poor
lenses with astigmatism (or is it chroma??) will, on a digital, often
give a similar looking error. In my experience, the sensor bleed issue
is the far bigger problem.

Lastly (and certainly not least) are the human factors. Do you own lots
of Nikon glass? If so, the Canons may be a very $$$ and silly choice.
Do you tend to shoot machine gun speed? The Fuji cameras (with a really
poor buffer size/speed) would be a silly choice. Do you shoot high
contrast scenes and adhere to the AA "edge of detail in Whites and
Blacks" philosophy, then the Fuji S3 may be your only choice. Do you
print 60 inch prints on a regular basis? The Canon 1dS (at $7500US) may
be your only choice. Well, actually you should be looking at a Leaf
back and Hassy body/lens, but that is wayyyyy off the $$$ we are
talking about.

http://www.dpreview.com (already mentioned) is by far the best source
of info out there.

Hope that helps.
--------------
Tom Ferguson
http://www.ferguson-photo-design.com
Received on Mon Feb 6 10:55:35 2006