Prime lens or zoom?

Inspired by having had a go with the Nikkor 45mm f2.8 pancake lens kindly lent to me by Tomek, I decided that a fixed focal-length (or prime) lens is worth getting, though one with autofocus. So last week I bought a Nikkor 35mm f1.8 lens.

Given the DX sensor on both my Nikons meant that whatever lens I was going to buy would have an effective focal length one-and-half times longer than its nominal length, I decided to go for the 35mm rather than 50mm prime lens. This would give me the equivalent of 52.5mm focal length on a full-frame camera, just a tad longer than a so-called 'standard' lens.

If you need shallow depth of field, a wide-aperture ('fast') lens of f1.8 or f1.4 is useful – for portraits. No good for street photography, where the you want to get a much into focus as possible. Being able to gather enough light at a fast shutter speed in dark conditions can be obtained by opening up the aperture (and losing depth of field) or by increasing the ISO (sensor sensitivity) at the expense of grain.

Digital camera are getting smarter. My 2006 vintage Nikon D40 produces decent images with a 6 megapixel sensor. Bear in mind that the new Nokia 808 PureView mobile phone has a built-in camera with a 41Mpx camera. Or, more conventionally (thanks Bob!) the Sigma SD1 Merrill DSLR with 46Mpx. Why so many megapixels , when a mere five or six gives you a decent image?

The answer is what you can do with such a huge number. Blow up the picture until it's big enough to cover your living-room wall from ceiling to floor. Now, assuming you don't want images quit that big, it means that you can zoom digitally rather than optically and still get outstandingly sharp images.

ISO ratings are rising; my D40 offers me 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 ISO. The latter, incidentally, is this highest ISO rated film you could commercially buy in the old days. Current digital cameras offer 6400, 12,800, 25,600, 51,200 and now (with boost) even 204,800 ISO on the new Nikon D4. That's nine stops more than the 400 film ISO that I used to use for street photography on my Leica M3. That grain on 204,800 ISO film would make it unusable. But image noise reduction technology makes digital high-ISO images visually acceptable. And nine stops... there are only seven between f2 and f32.

And vibration reduction (Nikon's VR) or image stabilisation (Canon's IS) allows you to hand-hold at three to four stops slower shutter speeds without signs of camera shake. VR/IS might reduce the effect of motion in the camera, but not of the subject. Here, you will always get motion blur if you shoot a moving subject, no matter how good the VR or IS technology gets.

These factors taken together (more pixels, higher ISO and VR/IS) means that the quest for ever-faster lenses has ceased to be mainstream. Unless you are hunting for a specific quality of image ('bokeh' – the quality of light points that are out-of-focus), fast lenses are no longer necessary for good low-light photography. In other words, I can no longer see the need (as I once did when shooting film) for an f1.4, f1.8 or f2 lens. That extra stop or two of exposure can be bought by using higher ISO or slower shutter speed. And

So what does the 35mm f1.8 do that either my 18-55mm or 18-200mm lenses don't do? Low light? Let's take a real-life situation... Below: photo taken on the corner of ul.Krucza and Al. Jerozolimskie. Nikon D80, 35mm lens (52mm equivalent) at f2.0; 1/15th sec; 640 ISO. Now, the shutter speed here is dangerously slow; it should not be shorter than 1/52nd sec for this lens (without VR, the reciprocal of the equivalent full-frame focal length is the longest shutter speed you can hand-hold without risk of camera shake). Depth of field with the lens focused out to around 15m is shallow - a mere 30m, so the detail in the distance is out of focus.

Below: The unmodernised underground passage at the western end of Warszawa Centralna station. Nikon D80; 18mm (27mm equiv. full-frame) at f3.5; 1/20th sec; 320 ISO. The VR allows steady hand-holding with this lens at 1/7th sec, so it's within the comfort zone. Depth of field is from 4m all the way out to 72m. Nothing's out of focus.

So - having bought the 35mm f1.8 lens, I shall have to find uses for it outside of night-time photography - despite it being a whole two stops faster than my zoom, it loses out on lack of VR. Please let me know if you have any practical photographic applications for a fast lens!

I would say that for 90% of applications, an 18-200mm VR lens on a DX-format DSLR is the one lens worth buying. Something at the wider end, though not going fisheye, zooming out to 16mm or even 14mm is useful for big architecture or cramped interiors; a lens zooming to 400mm useful for wildlife, aviation or sports. Nikon will soon be bringing out a 18-300mm lens - this shall be very interesting, although I think the company should have stretched the zoom at the wide end (a 16-200mm would have been even more useful).

This time last year:
Warsaw's failed bid as City of Culture, 2016

This time two years ago:
Stalinist downtown at dusk

This time three years ago:
The End of an Age of Excess?

This time four years ago:
Snowy Easter in England

Clean sensors for my Nikons

Regular readers may recall my refusal to leave my cameras for sensor cleaning at a camera repair place off ul Grzybowska - the lady at the counter told me to take the strap off my Nikon D40 before leaving it. Now, I found a much more amenable camera repairer, and having had the sensors on both my Nikons clean, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

The shop is called Serwisfoto, located on Al. Jerozolimskie 113-115 (up the steps past Grand Kredens and along the first-floor walkway).

I dropped my D40 off on Monday at 10:30 and was delighted to get an SMS at 14:30 to say that it was ready for collection. It cost not 125 złotys (as quoted on Grzybowska) but 60 złotys. My D80 was dropped off on Wednesday evening just before the shop closed, and I got an SMS shortly after 11 today saying it was ready. Also 60 złotys. And I didn't even have to take the straps off the cameras.

The difference before and after was startling - I no longer have to painstakingly remove blemishes using the clone-stamp tool in Photoshop, which is especially tricky in cloudscapes.

Above: before the sensor was cleaned, on my D40 (click on image to enlarge). The blemishes are most apparent on a clear sky, some more than others.

Modern Nikons (and most digital cameras you can buy new today) have some kind of sensor-cleaning device that vibrates dust away. Cameras of the D40 and D80 generation don't have this gizmo, and while care should be taken when changing lens (hold the camera's lens mouth face down in a dust-free environment) this is not always possible in the field. Plus - and this is most noticeable in the D40, when zooming a long zoom lens (like the 18-200mm Nikkor), air gets sucked into the body. I can feel the wind rush on my eye when zooming in quickly, this will also draw in tiny particles into the camera that may settle on the sensor. So a good cleaning every once in a while (when the blemishes become a nuisance when processing the image) is required.

I can thoroughly recommend Serwisfoto for outstanding value and service.

This time last year
Changing seasons and one's samopoczucie

This time two years ago:
Stunning late-winter beauty
[these are among my most gorgeous winter photos ever]

This time three years ago:
Lenten fare - Jeziorki gumbo

This time four years ago:
Digging up Dawidowska

My Nikon D80 five years on

Well, here's a piece of consumer electronics that's passed every test. My Nikon D80 is five today, and although it's a bit frayed at the edges (shutter sounds a bit tired), it's still working fine (as my photos of the Palace of Culture) will attest. While the D80's older and lighter brother, the D40 has become my camera of choice for carrying around on an everyday basis. However, the D80 works with my long 80-400mm zoom; the D40 won't autofocus this monster glass, and the D80 has a grid in the viewfinder than allows you to square up the verticals when composing a shot.

Most important to me is the way the cameras are perceived by passers-by. I do a lot of street photography; the camera's around my neck in crowds. The D80 with 18-200mm attracts attention; it looks like the equipment of a media professional. The D40 with 18-55mm doesn't. With the former I'm taken for a professional photographer, with the latter, for a tourist. Obviously, the latter makes it easier to move about a crowd snapping. Having said that, the 18-200mm is better for landscapes and architecture, the 80-400mm for aviation and wildlife (though I have issues with the slowness of its autofocus).

If there's one huge advance in photography over the past decade or so, it's Vibration Reduction ('VR' as Nikon calls it) or Image Stabilisation ('IS' as Canon calls it). VR allows you to take a sharp photograph with a shutter speed up to four stops slower than usual. The general rule (for 35mm or full-size sensors) is that the longest shutter speed at which you can take a sharp photo is a reciprocal of the lens's focal length. So for a 50mm lens, 1/50th sec will give you a sharp photo, a longer exposure (1/25th sec, for example) will result in overall blur caused by camera shake. Four stops means that you can hand-hold at 1/6th sec. With a 28mm lens, you can get away with 1/3rd sec. And zoomed in to 200mm, an amazing 1/25th sec. is still good. Now, for DX sensors, where the effective focal length increases 1.5 times, it means that you need to multiply the above times by 1.5, so for 200mm it will be 1/38th sec, for 18mm it will be half a second. Still very impressive. For night-time street photography without a tripod - that makes a huge difference to image quality.

Above: photo taken at 1/5th sec, f3.5, 320 ISO, Nikon D80 with 18-200mm VR lens zoomed out to 18mm. Below: a crop on the detail, more than five times magnification. Neither photo tweaked in Photoshop or Lightroom. Click to enlarge and look at the crispness of the word odjazdy ('departures'). Incidentally, from the departures board below you can see that the photo above was taken during the height of the evening rush hour.

Unfortunately, the 18-55mm kit zoom that came with my D40 does not have VR. I am toying with the idea of buying a 16-85mm VR zoom to go with both Nikons; this will offer the much-needed VR for night photography, plus it gives a wider angle (equivalent to 24mm on a standard 35mm film camera). This lens should do for me; the D80 should do me for many years as a body for use with the longer lenses. As for the D40... there are rumours that the D40 current replacement, the D3100, is due itself to be replaced by the D3200, with 24 megapixel sensor.

I had been contemplating Fuji's raved-about Finepix X100. Being a rangefinder enthusiast (a Leica M owner since 1981), I love the inconspicuous retro appearance (it looks like some old FED or Zorki to the average passer-by) and ease of use. However, it feels flimsy compared to a Leica M, a lens filter is an expensive and non-standard add-on, its battery is poor compared to those found in Nikon DSLRs and the software is non-intuitive. I've taken several shots with the X100 and I'm not immediately impressed. Maybe a longer test is in order; right now I feel that sticking with a light-weight Nikon DSLR with a VR lens as standard is the way forward.

In the meanwhile, if you are thinking about buying a second-hand D80 (or indeed its successor, the D90) - if you can get one for a good price (ie half the price of a new D90, for example), it's a reliable and thoroughly decent digital camera, if a bit heavy for carrying around your neck all day long. The batteries are long-lasting (on a scale of 0-4, where 0 = factory fresh and 4 = spent, after five years, mine is 1). My main gripe about the 18-200mm lens - that when carrying vertically, the lens zooms out to the longest focal length - has been addressed by the newer 18-200mm VRII lens, which can lock into the 18mm position.

This time last year:
My Nikon D80 four years on

This time three years ago:
My Nikon D80 two years on

This time four year ago:
My Nikon D80 one year on

My Nikon D80 four years on

It's four years to the day that I bought my first proper DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera. It's been one of the best purchases I've ever made. Four years on, the camera's getting a bit tired (the shutter sounds a bit wheezy, the rubber grip's long come off the lens*), but essentially my Nikon D80 (below) is still rugged and reliable. The battery is as good as new. I'm so satisfied with it that I'm not hunting around for a replacement.

The camera is used heavily. Maybe not as intensively as before I bought a used D40 as a lighter back-up, but nonetheless I reckon I've taken over 35,000 photographs with the D80. I have a camera with me at all times.

The world of serious photography is divided into two camps: Nikon and Canon. Never 'twain shall meet. We sneer at one another, looking with pity at that camera around one another's neck. (There are some odd people who for some reason use a Sony, but then they don't work for global news-gathering agencies. Buy what the pros use.)

Since the D80 came out, it's been replaced by the D90, still on sale, though now quite antiquated. I'm not tempted - it's not that great leap forward.

My second DSLR, a Nikon D40, is lighter and more portable, to be worn around the neck for bike rides. Handy and fun, it's has about two-thirds of the functionality of the D80. Now, the D40's current replacement as Nikon's entry-level DSLR, the D3100, is phenomenal. 14 million pixels, high-definition video shooting facility and a host of other improvements make me wonder about getting one... but then my D40 is still absolutely fine, working reliably (even though it only boasts 6 million pixels). Still, for these cameras' principal purpose - taking photos for this blog - neither will be replaced until they finally give up the ghost.

Essential accessories for the D80 and indeed for any DSLR camera: A second battery (I bought mine second hand at Warsaw's Stodoła camera fair), a polarising filter (for when it's sunny), a UV filter (for when it's dull), a portable memory card reader.

If you're in the market for a DSLR, my recommendation would be to buy a Nikon D3100 and upgrade the 18-55mm kit lens (quite decent, actually) for a 16-105mm or an 18-200mm zoom.

Above: Comparison of the D80 (left - with 18-200mm lens) and D40 (right - with 18-55mm lens). Both lenses set to widest (18mm setting), and a 10x blow-up from the centre of each frame. Both have UV filters on. Note difference in colour temperature (crisper, bluer light with the D40). Click to enlarge to see how 10.2 million pixels on the D80 compares to 6.1 million pixels on the D40.

* The lens grip has been replaced by six Royal Mail-issue rubber bands. As any Londoner knows, the streets of the capital are not paved with gold but with rubber bands dropped by postmen. They can come in very handy.

This time two years ago:
Nikon D80 two years on

This time three years ago:
Nikon D80 one year on

To Warsaw, from Yerevan

Above: not a scheduled visitor at Okęcie, but an aircraft that's been here before; Armavia's Bombardier Regional Jet CRJ200 (EK20014). If you click to enlarge, you'll see Armenian script on the lower front fuselage; exotica indeed (it says Արմավիա - Armavia). The airline has only recently launched its Yerevan-Warsaw service, which flies Mon-Tue-Sun and is usually served by an Airbus A319. So this sighting's a rarity.

Spotter's bonus: just before the Armenian plane's arrival, some Polish-registered general aviation over our garden (below). Beechcraft Super King Air SP-DSA coming in to land.

Today I started shooting RAW format photos (rather than JPEGs). These need to be processed in Lightroom before going to Photoshop for cropping and final processing as low-res JPEGs, but the difference in quality is appreciable. JPEGs of aircraft are too contrasty; detail is lost in the undersides. From a RAW (or 'NEF' as Nikon's proprietary version of the format is called), you can extract more shadow and highlight detail. Uses up more disk space, but I'm happier with the results. Aircraft photos will be shot in RAW henceforth.

Above: Polish Air Force PZL M-28TD. Below: KLM Cityhopper Embraer ERJ190-100 PH-EZL

Below: my favourite jet airliner flying daily into Okęcie - the Avro RJ85 (this one operated by Brussels Airlines). A reasonable fine-weather weekend's spotting without having to leave my garden.

Nikon D40 - ideal digital SLR for everyday use

Earlier this year, I felt the need to acquire a second Nikon digital single lens reflex (SLR) camera, mainly so that I would not have to keep swapping lenses on my main body (a Nikon D80). A researched the question, and found, as ever, the website of Ken Rockwell, extremely useful.

It was Ken's review of the D40 that led me to seek one, rather than one of its newer, better featured and more mega-pixelated replacements, the D40x, D60 or D3000.

The D40 ceased production at the end of July this year, having outseen two of its replacements. It is being replaced by a new entry-level Nikon DSLR, the D3000.

But the D40 will remain, second hand, a sought after camera. Its main attributes are that it is light, robust, versatile and quick. It has become my camera of choice for toting with me every day; it does not weigh heavily around my neck as the D80 with 18-200mm zoom does. With 18-55mm lens it weighs just over half a kilo, while the D80 with the big zoom weighs over twice as much (1.1kg). On a long walk or cycle ride, that's quite a difference.

Right: The D40 in tricky exposure situation; strong contrasts; where to expose for? One shot, got it. Unretouched. (Our house today.) For general shooting, the 18-55mm covers most situations that don't require telephoto. The range of exposure modes (auto, program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual), are exactly the same as in the D80. And, like the D80, the D40 accepts old Nikkor manual-focus lenses; in practice, this means my stunningly crisp 55mm f3.5 macro lens. The light meter does not work with the old lenses, which just means a bit of trial-and-error shooting and looking at the results on the LCD, which for macro work, is no problem at all. The EN-EL9 lithium battery is incompatable with the EN-EL3 that powers the D80, but it's an excellent battery that lasts for weeks at a go in daily use.

It's robust enough not to be carried round in a bag, it goes everywhere with me around my neck. No (n)ever-ready case required. Switched 'on' all the time (the battery doesn't drain), I'm always ready to point-and-shoot. Reaction time is miliseconds, compared to the long warm-up needed on digital compacts. And what you see though the lens is what you'll get. The SLR design is more responsive and photographer-friendly than a camera where you depend on the image on the LCD to show you what you are actually seeing.

Drawbacks? The D40 does not have dioptre adjustment in the viewfinder; as I wear +2.25 reading glasses, this means the viewfinder image is not as crisp as in the D80. The viewfinder also lacks a grid option. In my D80, the viewfinder grid is there full time, so I can align horizons and verticals correctly. I miss this feature in the D40. ISO sensitivity - only goes down to 200 ISO (as opposed to 100 on the D80), and the increments are full stops - 200/400/800/1600 ISO, whereas in the D80, you can select one-third of a stop increments all of the way. There's no autofocus motor in the body, which means my 80-400mm lens will only work as manual focus (no problem here - if I need this lens, I take it on the D80 body). The metering and autofocus system is not as sophisticated as on the D80; I need to bracket exposures more often than on the D80 because at first shot they've come out too dark or too light. But with the LCD screen on the back, you see what you've got and immediately correct.

And while the battery is decent, the battery power indicator offers insufficient information. The D80 goes from five bars (full) to one bar (prepare for imminent power failure) and is backed up by 'battery info' from the 'tools' menu on the rear panel, which tells you in percentage terms how much power's left. The D40 goes from only three bars to one, and there's no battery info available on the menu, so you never really know once you're on two bars how long you've got.

The difference between the 6 megapixels of the D40 and the 10.2 mp of the D80 is not noticeable on a 17" computer monitor, nor on 6x8" prints.

All in all, the D40 is a perfect all-round digital camera for everyday usage. And, now it's been discontinued, second-hand prices will fall. I bought mine second hand in May for 1,050 zlotys (around 200 quid at the exchange rate at that time). I thoroughly recommend as a take-everywhere digital image notebook.

Homage to Ansel Adams

As I pointed out a few posts back, April marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Ansel Adams, my favourite photographer. Today's walk was in his honour. Below: the Jeziorki wetlands, taken from the ul. Dumki side.

Whenever asked which camera he used, Adams would always reply, "the biggest I can carry." He tended to use the 10"x8" view camera, always on a tripod. The negative, some 60 times larger in surface area than a 35mm negative, yielded results of the highest possible quality.

Above: Silver birches on ul. Trombity. To ensure the pictures were in as sharp focus as possible, Adams would opt for fine-grain, low-sensitivity film, long exposures and small apertures. Which is what I aimed to do today. All these pictures were taken with the camera on my sturdy wooden tripod, exposures from 1/5th to 1/20th second at f22 to f25. ISO on the Nikon D80 only goes down to 100.

Above: Narrow potato field alongside ul. Nawłocka. I wonder what Ansel Adams would have made of digital photography; whether he would have adapted to it or stayed true to large format film. And if he'd made the jump - when. Would he have been satisfied with 10 megapixels?

Above: view from ul. Nawłocka looking towards ul. Trombity. Adams was a perfectionist. It's much easier perfecting images digitally than chemically!

The Nikon D80 offers the option of shooting in B&W. Why would anyone wish to do that? Well, one thing it can do is in-camera filtering. I had this set to 'red', which darkens blue skies and makes red objects (such as the poppies in the foreground) lighter.

A long night in church

Moni had her confirmation last night at the Dominican abbey in Slużew. And quite some ceremony it was too, starting at eight in the evening and finishing well after 1 am.

She had been attending confirmation classes for the best part of two years; the lead up to the ceremony is not taken lightly (skip too many classes and you're name's off the list). Confirmation takes place on the eve of Pentecost and the sacrament is administered by a bishop.

Although the Dominican Abbey is a modern building, bereft of the built-up trappings of centuries - holy paintings, miraculous statues, etc, the Dominicans still know how to Put On A Show. To quote John Betjeman: "Church and Stage have always been closely connected". The music is staggeringly good at putting the congregation into a deeply spiritual mood (helped by first-rate accoustics), the ritual, steeped in symbolism, the incense, the vestments are traditional and As They Should Be, yet never have I heard a dodgy message from the pulpit (re: politics, the EU, Jews, masons, cyclists); sermons stick to Christ's Love. The congregation itself it is in good measure young (many students) and intellectuals. The first non-communist prime minister of modern Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, worships here.

The sermon from Bishop Pikus, finished with the words "True human happiness is impossible without Belief"; words to ponder upon, an idea worth lengthy contemplation.

The picture above was taken with my Nikon D80 (the battery memory issue seems to have mysteriously cleared up!). I used my 105mm f1.8 Nikkor wide open (640 ISO at 1/40 sec). Being able to use my old Nikkor lenses is one reason why I chose to go digital with Nikon rather than Canon. Click to enlarge and see the detail.

If you are wondering why the shops are shut* today, it's because it's Pentecost and the nation is commemorating the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles (Zielone Świątki in Poland, Whitsun in England).

* Last year, a radio journalist called a prominent PiS politician and mischievously asked him whether he was going shopping that day. Hearing the answer 'yes', the journalist told the politician that he couldn't. "And why's that?" asked the politician. "Because you lot voted to close all shops today", replied the journalist. Collapse of stout party.

My First Nikon D80 Problem

Two years, three months and over 25,000 exposures after buying my Nikon D80, a fault. A small, intermittent, easy-to-work-round fault, but a fault nonetheless.

After taking a photo, sometimes, the 'battery low' icon flashes in the viewfinder, and there's a black screen on the back of the camera. The LCD readout on the top of the camera confirms a dead battery. But it's just been charged! I switch the camera off, then back on - and everything's fine, battery meter confirms a 98% charge.

This can happen after one shot, after three, or ten, or four - a seemingly random fault.

It started happenening after a series of night time bulb exposures (catching lightning strikes) last week. Never happened before, now it's occurring at least once in every shooting session.

Annoying, because there's no rule to it, not a fault bad enough to have to take it in for immediate service, but still a fault and irritating.

Has anyone else had this problem with the D80? Is there a fix? (I've not attempted to do anything to isolate the cause of the fault such as swabbing the electrodes of the battery pack etc in case it does more damage).

My Nikon D80 two years on

The camera continues to behave impeccably, not a missed beat in nearly 24,000 frames (still shooting at 1,000 frames a month). The battery indicator still reads '0' (on scale 0 to 4, where 0 is factory fresh and 4 is 'replace now'). I've lost the viewfinder eyepiece, which fell off when I was cycling with the camera around my neck.

I'm still learning to use features after two years! The camera is so packed with advanced technology that the user's manual still needs to accompany me wherever I go. Every now and then I stumble upon some more useful features which I then add to my technical repertoire.

The 18-200mm lens - two issues, one fixed. I noticed a growing unwillingness of the lens to autofocus to infinity at longer focal lengths. Googling this, I found a chap on a forum who'd identified the solution. Screw the inner ring around the face of the lens back in - it has worked itself loose (there are two notches in the ring that help you do this). The second issue is the rubber grip on the zoom barrel. This had started to part company with the lens. The rubber had stretched, and was too slack to glue back in position. The only solution was to remove it altogether and replace with Royal Mail issue red elastic bands with which the streets of West London are paved. The red rubber look makes the lens look like one of Canon's deluxe lenses.

This past year I've acquired an SB600 speedlight flashgun. Looking at all the pics I've taken with it, I see one common factor - they've all been taken for work. Used together with the Nikkor 80-400mm lens, I'd say it's too weak to light distant talking heads (what I use the flash for mostly - conference shots). I should have gone for the more powerful SB800, but when I bought it I didn't yet have access to the 80-400mm lens. The SB600 is a versatile and intelligent piece of kit.

And on to the much-written about (on this blog) 80-400mm lens. It's big and magnificent and is excellent for wildlife, aviation and conference photos. Drawbacks are but three. Its autofocus is slow. I missed a shot of a hare in full pelt as it couldn't latch onto the subject fast enough. The autofocus is noisy (wzzzzZZZZZ) and it consumes much more battery power than the lighter 18-200mm zoom. Otherwise, I'd say its optics are better than the 18-200mm, less vignetting, no pincushion or barrel distortion. The lens has vibration reduction, which is absolutely necessary given its long focal length (equivalent to 600mm on a 35mm film camera).

Changing lenses is a chore when in the field (especially in sub-zero temperatures with gloved hands), and when the lens is off, dust and moisture can get onto the sensor, leaving visible marks on the photograph. A second body would be a good idea...

Since last year, Nikon has released the D90, with a 3" screen, 12.2 megapixel sensor, the ability to shoot high definition video, a device that shakes particles off the sensor, and a preview feature ('Live View') that allows you to see the image on the screen before you release the shutter, like on point-and-shoot digital compacts. Until recently, it was actually cheaper in the UK than the price I paid for the D80 (in kit with 18-135mm lens). The D90 comes in a kit with 18-105mm VR lens, less focal range, but with vibration reduction. With a weaker pound, the price has gone up, and you'll no longer be able to buy for just £620.

This time last year:
My Nikon D80 one year on

First snow, winter 2008-09

It snowed overnight, for the first time this year. As the Polish saying goes, 'first snow is shy snow', so I doubt if this lot will be hanging around for long. Above: view from my bedroom early this morning.

While in London, I acquired the use of an 80-400mm Nikkor lens for evaluation purposes (though something tells me I'll be parting with cash for it!). For the purposes of aviation and wildlife photography. Full test to come, but here are some early snaps. Below: Filling the frame at 400mm (600mm equivalent on my DX format Nikon D80) is LOT's Boeing 767-300ER (SP-LPB) coming in to land at Okęcie through a flurry of snow.

Below: Another shot from the balcony - houses on ul. Sarabandy in the weak late autumn sunlight, snow on the rooftops. Houses I'd not noticed before through shorter lenses! This lens has twice the focal length at maximum telephoto of my usual 18-200mm zoom.

What will this winter be like (mirrors thought: what will the economic downturn be like)? Short and mild? Long and harsh? Short but harsh? Long but mild?

My Nikon D80, one year on

A year ago today, I went digital, buying a Nikon D80 (above). Here are my thoughts on the camera after 12 months with it.

My first proper camera was a Leica M2 rangefinder (which I still have). Bought in 1981, this was later joined by an M3 and an M6, also still in my possession. I used a Canon F1 SLR kit at work, but this was replaced by Nikon equipment which offered sharper lenses. Since the late 1990s I’d been thinking about Going Digital. Indeed recently, I dug out a digital photography supplement to Amateur Photographer that I'd bought in 1997, singing the praises of the New Medium. The best camera of the time, offering 660,000 pixels (yes, 0.6 megapixels), was from Sony and cost well over £800.

For ten years I kept my eye on developments in digital photography. I took my first tentative steps with a Nokia 6300 mobile phone with a 1.3 MP camera built in. Double what the tip-top Sony from only eight years earlier could offer, but still nowhere near 35mm film quality. After a while, the gadgety nature of this phonecam ceased to be of interest. I needed something much, much better. But I could finally see the benefits of digital.

After ploughing through innumerable websites and photo magazines, I made an informed decision. Although a lifelong rangefinder fan (compact, discreet), I decided on a single lens reflex (SLR) camera (bulky, ostentatious); I already had several Nikon manual focus lenses (which still fit the latest digital autofocus Nikon bodies) and so I went for Nikon. The D80 SLR was the one for me. Better featured than its smaller brother the D40X, much cheaper than its semi-professional bigger brother, the D200. All have the same 10.2 MP chip. I did some price comparison – best deal in either Poland or the UK was to buy it at Dixons Duty Free at the airport, as a kit, complete with 18-135mm Nikkor zoom lens. Pricewise, this was around 1,000 zlotys cheaper than the best online deal in Poland! I paid £647 for the kit, passed on Dixon’s grotequely over-priced memory card, buying one in Poland the next day for less than half the price.

After a few weeks I bought a better lens, Nikon’s 18-200mm zoom, which as well as having the extra focal length range, also has vibration reduction, meaning you can hand-hold at longer exposures. The 18-135mm lens I sold at Warsaw’s Sunday camera fair at Stodola (now a shadow of its former glory). Two filters – an ultraviolet one that’s basically a transparent lens cap, and a circular polarising filter to accentuate blue skies – and that’s it. Here's an entire camera bag's worth of kit in one body and one lens. My old habit of staring into camera shop windows looking for what to buy next is over. (Incidentally, I do know what to buy next – an 80-400mm zoom for even longer telephoto reach, useful for aviation photos, and a Nikon D300 body, the 12.3 MP successor to the D200.)

Digital photography beats film photography on two counts: Time and Money.

Money first. Since buying the camera, I’ve taken 12,000 photos. That’s an average of 1,000 a month. That equates to 28 rolls of 36 exposure film. Buying Fuji or Kodak films, developing the negatives and having them scanned to CD (as I used to do), costs 43 zlotys or nearly 9 quid a roll. Monthly, that’s 250 quid, annually, 3,000 quid or over 14,000 zlotys! That’s how much I would have spent had I rattled off 12,000 exposures on a film camera. In other words, for a serious film photographer, going digital with a high-end camera will pay for itself in months rather than years.

Time. I go out with the camera, take 40-50 photos per shoot maybe more. I return to the house, connect camera to PC, within minutes I can have photos up on my blog. With film, I’d have to wait to Monday until the photolab was open, drive there (Plac Lubelski), park, wait in queue to drop off, wait a day or two for the job to be done, return to the photolab, wait in queue, pay, go home, slip CD into PC, then finally get to work.

Digital’s other main time-related benefit is to see what you’ve just photographed. Tricky stuff like multiple exposures, long exposures (lightning flashes, fireworks) would be purest guesswork. But with digital, you can see what you’re doing and take immediate steps to correct – too short, too long, increase or decrease ISO (sensitivity). Being able to alter sensitivity with every shot rather than altering by changing rolls of film is also incredibly useful.

So – onto the Nikon D80 review. I’d kick off by saying this is the perfect camera, with a few drawbacks. The positives are all so strong I won’t bother enumerating them, but will just list the things I don’t like.

I’ll start with the lens. I’m asking a lot of a lens to replace the entire battery of prime lenses I used to drag about with me. The 18-200mm covers the equivalent of 28mm-300mm on 35mm film cameras. That’s a huge range. Something wider – like my 21mm Super Angulon I have for my Leicas – would be nice; I’ve needed this a few times, mainly for skyscapes with rainbows and tight interiors. And longer – like the 80-400mm Nikkor zoom I mentioned above. My criticisms of Nikkor 18-200mm lens boil down to abberations – barrel and pincushion distortions and vignetting, especially at the long end. Nikon has proprietary software (Capture NX it’s called), which digitally corrects the abberations of each Nikkor lens. A partial solution, but a good one. The other criticism is that when you’re walking around with the camera over your neck or shoulder, the lens slips from ‘wide’ to ‘tele’ due to the weight of the front elements. Annoying when you lift the camera to your eye for a grab shot to discover the lens has zoomed itself out to 200mm. And after a year, the rubber grip around the zoom barrel has slackened. Otherwise, I’ll back the online reviewers who call this lens ‘a miracle’, ‘life-changing’, ‘a breakthrough’, etc.

This is the perfect all-round, general purpose lens. OK, it’s not particularly fast (f3.5 to f5.6), but the VR (vibration reduction) allows you to hand-hold down to ¼ sec at the wide end and 1/50th sec at the long end without visible motion blur.

The body. This is everything I ever dreamed of in a camera. I’d like a more solid body (the D300 has a magnesium chassis rather than the D80’s polycarbonate build), a larger screen would be nice (D300 has three inches compared to two and half on the D80). I’d like to edit my own menus (the two things I’m constantly checking/changing are battey life and ISO), and I’d like not to have to scroll far between sub-menus to find frequently-used menu items.

And a propos the battery, it’s excellent. It usually lasts a week, interspersed with three or four shoots, between charges. And after one year/12,000 exposures, the battery meter rates the battery ‘0’ on a scale of 0 to 4 where 0=new battery and 4=replace instantly.

For the first two months after buying the camera, I spent all my spare reading time poring over the manual. There’s much to learn if you want to use the camera to its full potential, especially if hitherto you’ve been using manual, mechanical film cameras with manual focus lenses.

So – summing up – this camera has brought me a vast increase in my pleasure from photography. I love it to bits. I thoroughly recommend the Nikon D80 with 18-200mm lens. Though if you have the extra cash, the Nikon D300 with 18-200mm lens would be even nicer.

My film cameras – Leica M2, M3 and M6 – have acquired thick layers of dust. Expensive classics though they may be, fine male jewelry, I no longer have any inclination to waste time and money shooting film. (One day some enterprising engineer may wish to create a digital back/base for the Leica M-series. Then they come out of mothballs.) I also have a vast library of b&w negatives, colour slides and colour negs, which one day, in my retirement, I shall scan, edit and upload the best ones.

Camera phones - the 1.3 MP Nokia 6300 has been replace by a 5 MP Nokia N95 (used to take the photo at the top of this post). Now this does the job for a pocketable, with-me-at-all-times camera for use when I'm not lugging the Nikon.

For me at least, film is dead. (Although Moni has opined that ‘film is the new vinyl’)

See also:
My Nikon D80, two years on

Flat tyre

Left the office to take my English class this evening to find a flat rear offside tyre (above). This happens to me at least once every year, but only when driving with winter tyres. For some reason, winter tyres are much more vulnerable than summer ones. Worst case was returning from a conference (of tomato growers!) in Sandomierz two years ago. It was six pm, 45 km from Warsaw and -26C when a tyre went. We hobbled to a nearby roadside hotel and pulled into the car park. In the cold, the cable to the boot gave way. The boot could not be opened. The spare tyre had to be hauled out over the back seat. The job was done, but what a struggle. This time it was easier, Daniel kindly popped out of the office to lend me a hand (below).

Now I need to find a local wulkanizator to fix the flat tyre (typical charge 20 zlotys, around four quid). There seem to be plenty about. Now where in the UK would one find a 'vulcanisator'? There's not even a word for one! You'd need to go to a Mr Tyre, Tyreland or Kingdom of Tyres where the standard response would be "Nah mate, you need to change all four. Tell you what, hundred quid the lot."

Incidentally, notice the horizontal lines on the photos. This is image noise. These snaps were taken on the Nokia N95. The EXIF file says 1/17th sec at f2.8, 800 ISO. The Nikon D80 has noise reduction software for removing this digital shortcoming.


SUPPLEMENTARY: The very next morning I took the tyre to a wulkanizator. The tyre was fixed in 12 minutes - the cost, as I rightly surmised, was 20 zloties, slightly over four quid. The chap who did it, mid fifties, black leather cap, bushy 'tache, was - and here's another one of those little differences - quite a regular Pan Heniek.

SUPPLEMENTARY 2: Friday evening, leaving the office - flat tyre no. 2. This time front nearside. A seemingly random coincidence. You can just make out the tyre brand: Semperit. There, you have been warned. A big thanks to Adam and Tessa for stopping by to help me change the wheel in double-quick time.

SUPPLEMENTARY 3: Back to the wulkanizator again - flat tyre no. 3. I'm informed that the tyre was torn horizontally and the rim badly bent. Evidently another hole on the dreaded ul. Poloneza, scene of more bangs and knocks than any other Polish road our poor Nissan's driven on. Cost of repairing tyre and rim - 35 zloties - slightly over seven quid.

Okęcie dusk

Boy was it cold out this evening! I drove down to Okęcie, over the cart tracks and unmade roads to the railway sidings, just under the final approach as the planes go 'over the fence', seconds before touching down. Arriving at ul. Karnawal just before sunset, I caught this Alitalia Express Embraer ERJ-170-100LR (EI-DFL) inbound to land. Incidentally, I note that ailing state carrier Alitalia is registering (or leasing) its aircraft in Ireland.

Above: I crossed the tracks in time to catch this early evening train from W-wa Wschodnia to Radom on its way between W-wa Okęcie and W-wa Dawidy. This livery - grey/silver/maroon - looks rather fetching on the EN-57, lending the air of French SNCF in the 1960s. The rear four-car set was the more frequently seen light blue and yellow.

It was getting dark - time to set up the tripod. To my left, the continual sound of bird distress calls, broadcast at twilight roosting time to scare flocks of birds away from the airport. Above: A Eurolot ATR-42 inbound to land, flies over the 12:03 Kraków-Olsztyn train passing on its way to Warsaw. It will arrive in Olsztyn at 21:03. My hands are getting cold.

It's now gone quarter past five and -4C. Above: This 30 second exposure captures the light trace of a Boeing 737 landing overhead. The battery in my trusty and generally excellent Nikon D80 does not like cold. It's not got long to go. And my hands are now very cold. Time to go home.

Incidentally Google Earth users, the above two pics were taken exactly here: 52° 8'34.12"N, 20°59'20.99"E. Switch on Panoramio and you'll see an outstanding shot taken from the same point taken by Paweł Prokop, which inspired me to come here.

Eddie's giant soap bubble

One for the record. While washing his hands with liquid soap (Palmolive Naturals Nourishing Odżywianie, all you bubble fans out there), Eddie discovered that this stuff has the potential to make rather large bubbles. Earlier attempts to capture this phenomenon with my mobile phone camera failed, as the Nokia N95 has extremely slow reaction times when you're trying to nab spontaneity. Nikon's D80 DSLR did the job, and the image stabiliser on the 18-200mm Nikkor lens helped keep the image steady at a full quarter of a second exposure.