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The Year in Photography

<div style="text-align: center;">T.O.P. Camera of the Year 2006: Nikon D80 </div> <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/987810/nikond80.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/320/778092/nikond80.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Winner Nikon D80 (introduced August 9)—Despite stiff competition, the Nikon D80 nosed out in front of the pack as the best all-around camera introduced in 2006. More than a mere upgrade of the popular and competent D70[s], the up-to-the-minute, 10-MP D80 is a careful and thorough all-new design, with superb Nikon ergonomics in a body that is even more ideally sized and shaped than the D70. Nikon is on a roll with its outstanding recent camera designs, and continues to win points among camera buyers—and plaudits from the likes of us—for its unstinting downward migration of features and capabilities from its more professional models: the D80 inherits a surprising amount of technology from the D200, which in turn provides a surprisingly large dose of the capabilities of the full-tilt-boogie D2Xs. Build-quality is a cut above for the price-point (the Sony A100 and Canon Rebel XTi feel flimsy in comparison), responsiveness is excellent, and, importantly, there is evidence in the D80 that Nikon is giving serious consideration to the viewfinder, which remains a serious if somewhat under-criticized weakness of many entry-level DSLR designs. Although some (not us) may fault the D80 for having an APS-C size sensor, and others (including us) might still wish for in-camera VR (vibration reduction) at least as an option, the D80's astutely-judged mix of high image quality, responsiveness, ergonomics, and in-the-field usability mark it, if only by a small margin over its capable competition, as the year's standout. <div style="text-align: right; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Furl%3Dsearch-alias%253Daps%26field-keywords%3DNikon%2BD80%26Go.x%3D0%26Go.y%3D0%26Go%3DGo&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;tag=theonlinephot-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Buy a Nikon D80</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=theonlinephot-20&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.bythom.com/d80review.htm">The best internet D80 review</a> </div> Runners-Up <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/615239/leica_m8.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/200/866255/leica_m8.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Leica M8 (September 14th)—Although plagued with early problems, the first digital Leica M is an important bridge to the past, a much-needed rangefinder alternative to the SLR-style design that's becoming ubiquitous, and a step forward in terms of applying traditional controls and very high mechanical build quality to serious modern digital cameras. That it can be used with most Leica (and other M-mount) lenses is exciting and a huge plus. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/678643/E-330.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/200/310556/E-330.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Olympus E-330 (January 26th)—The compact consumer 4/3rds DSLR is the first to offer full-time live preview on its LCD screen. Although not sufficiently appreciated by some reviewers, this is a feature that many photographers miss when switching from digicams to DSLRs. Olympus continues to lead the way when it comes to thinking creatively about digital camera design. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/265440/K10D.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/200/750329/K10D.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Pentax K10D (September 13th)—The first pro/semi-pro body from Pentax in many years and the first semi-pro DSLR from the company, the beautifully sculpted and very well-made K10D earns our admiration for its in-the-body SR (shake reduction), anti-dust mechanism, accessory grip, and weatherproofing—the only current 10-MP DSLR with all these features—and it gets extra points for its accompanying set of very useful, designed-for-digital compact primes. Tomorrow: T.O.P. Technical Book of the Year 2006 Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON, with thanks to dpreview.com for its "<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/timeline.asp?start=2006">timeline</a>" of new camera introductions

The Year in Photography

T.O.P. Camera of the Year 2006: Nikon D80 Winner Nikon D80 (introduced August 9)—Despite stiff competition, the Nikon D80 nosed out in fron...

10:21 AM

Merry Christmas!

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/327640/santas.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/424007/santas.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Photo by Jodi Cobb (National Geographic) 2001 </div> T.O.P., which publishes 363 days a year, is officially on hiatus Dec. 24th and 25th in observance of Christmas. See you on the 26th, when we will begin our countdown to January 1 with our Offbeat, Indefensible and Highly Unofficial Best of 2006 Awards. (We're taking the two days off to try to think up a better name for the awards.) In the meantime, Merry Christmas* one and all. Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON *Or Happy Hannukah, Season's Greetings, Good Kwansaa, Grievous Festivus, or any holiday salutation of your choice—whatever, we wish you and your loved ones luck, health, good cheer, togetherness, blessings, contentment, and long life.

Merry Christmas!

Photo by Jodi Cobb (National Geographic) 2001 T.O.P., which publishes 363 days a year, is officially on hiatus Dec. 24th and 25th in observa...

9:46 PM

Computerese

I know a lot of readers of this blog are a lot more computer-savvy than I. With CS3 hull-down on the horizon and my hard drive full, it's becoming obvious that my sturdy old eMac is getting due for an update. Any expert opinions on what Mac a photo-stylin' cheapskate should buy at this point in time? Used or new? Mini or iMac? G5 or Macintel? Two-piece or all-in-one? One Gig or two? I'd sure appreciate input from wiser brains. Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON UPDATE: THANK YOU for all the great replies. The strongest consensus recommendations seem to be: a) Wait until after the MacWorld Expo; b) Get a Core Duo iMac (with 20" being the main recommendation, 17" to save money and 24" for a "dream machine"); c) Go for 2GB of RAM minimum. With weaker but still prevalent recommendations being: 1) Choose the Core 2 Duo (I'm not quite sure what this refers to, but I'll find out); 2) Seek out a refurb, or an educational or employee discount to save money. Bruce McL points out, "Since you have an eMac, you'll be pleased with the performance no matter what you get." I agree, although have to admit that the eMac has been the best computer I've ever owned—the monitor is beautiful, with very accurate color (albeit with the benefit of frequent calibration) and the box has been largely trouble-free. Just as a curiosity, I might mention that I learned to use computers on some of the very first Macs ever sold, original 128k Macintoshes, which I was using even as the original "Big Brother" TV commercial still ran over network TV (or so I thought, anyway—my memory may be of re-runs of the commercial on news and information programs). A gallery owner named David Adamson bought six or eight of them for the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. where I was a student (thanks again, David, wherever you are) and taught a course in computers that I took as an elective. My parents then bought me a 512k "Fat Mac" as a graduation present when those were the latest thing. That "Fat Mac" and its dot-matrix printer, which I believe was called an Imagewriter, is still the most expensive computer I've ever owned, although I believe it had less computing power than my current digital SLR. I've had one-piece Macs ever since, with the exception of a G3 desktop I used at home for two years that belonged to an employer (it was probably the worst Mac I've ever used). For most of my tenure at one job I used a Quadra 604 in the office. It wasn't even new—I inherited it from a predecessor. That Quadra 604 failed exactly once—when the battery on the motherboard that kick-started the monitor ran out of juice. Apart from that, it worked for me 9 hours a day, 5 days a week for five years without so much as a single crash or screen-freeze (when I'd say that to PC users of the era, they look at me blankly and blink rapidly, about like you'd look at someone with a serious mental defect that had just become painfully evident. Such a thing did not compute with them. But it was true.) My next one will be my seventh Apple Mac since 1984.

Computerese

I know a lot of readers of this blog are a lot more computer-savvy than I. With CS3 hull-down on the horizon and my hard drive full, it...

7:50 PM

Encore Data Discount

Encore Data Discount

Cool! Anyone ordering gold media from Encore Data Products from this site can get an extra 5% discount by using the special T.O.P. coupon c...

1:29 PM

Weese on Anti-Shake

by Carl Weese Readers have been asking for word on my new camera's Shake Reduction function, so here it is: It works. But how well it works, how many steps of shutter speed it buys you compared to your unassisted hands—that is turning out to be a difficult thing to determine. Between my own tests (which come out slightly different each time I repeat them) and tests of other shake systems I've looked up online, I am forming the conclusion that this feature may be impossible to evaluate objectively because it is in fact user-dependent. Specifically, I think that if hand-holding slow shutter speeds has always been a problem for you, this feature is going to make your day, or even your year. But if you were already really, *really* good at this form of photographic sharpshooting, you'll see a much more limited benefit. A benefit to be sure, certainly a full stop, which is nothing to sneeze at. <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/81265/wholepic.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/654494/wholepic.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Above, a picture taken at Hidden Valley in very dim light at 1/6th second, handheld. Below, a center crop from the same file. </div> <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/994664/crop.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/703728/crop.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a> So stay tuned; I'll report more when I have a better handle on this. In the meantime, I'd like to hear from anyone out there who is working with an anti-shake system. How many stops do you think your anti-shake system is buying you, under what conditions? <div style="text-align: left;">Posted by CARL WEESE <form method="LINK" action="http://www.carlweese.com"><div style="text-align: right;"><input value="Carl's Site" type="submit"> </div></form></div>

Weese on Anti-Shake

by Carl Weese Readers have been asking for word on my new camera's Shake Reduction function, so here it is: It works. But how well it wo...

1:08 PM

More on SR/AS Unmeasurability

I don't want to distract commenters from Carl's question, but another idea regarding Shake Reduction came up in conversation last week with the guys at my local camera store. Unlike Carl, who was an expert competitive archer in his youth, I have always had trouble with hand-holding slow shutter speeds. In fact, I think I suffer from a form of what golfers call "the yips": a certain spasmodic tension that occurs just as I will myself too consciously to be calm—a tendency to get "shakey" precisely when—indeed, because—I'm trying not to. This isn't something arcane—I can feel myself doing it, and observe it in the viewfinder. Oddly, this has shown up for me twice in objective camera-motion tests—but in an unexpected way. In the 1980s, following instructions in a Popular Photography article by Burt Keppler, I poked holes in a large sheet of black cardboard and lit it from the back, creating "points of light" that would show motion-blur very clearly. I then shot the setup with a variety of shutter speeds. I ran another camera-shake test in outdoor conditions using ND filters with a Canon EOS RT in the early '90s. In both cases, strangely enough, I did very well at hand-holding—in the second test, in fact, I was rock-solid to a half of a second! This is greatly at odds with my long experience as a photographer: I know I have trouble hand-holding 1/30th, and once, when shooting a perticularly upsetting assignment (the accident scene of a young black professional who had committed suicide by jumping from a bridge in Washington, D.C.), I had trouble hand-holding 1/125th. (Appallingly, the young man had jumped from right beside a non-working suicide hotline phone.) So what accounts for my performance on both tests? I think it was simply that I was perfectly relaxed. Because there was no picture, there was no pressure. Because there was no pressure, I was able on those two occasions to hold the camera steady at shutter speeds I am absolutely sure I can't hand-hold in real life. So what does this have to do with Anti-Shake? Simply that this camera feature also helps make my "yips" go away. I don't worry any more about whether I can hand-hold a 30th, because I know the technology is helping me. So I relax—and hold the camera steadier. This probably makes the technical feature work better for me, and increases the improvement the feature gives me. If I'm right about it—and I'm pretty sure I am, though only in my own case—it also underscores Carl's suspicion that the real, practical, in-the-field effect of anti-shake systems is not really possible to measure with perfect objectivity. Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON

More on SR/AS Unmeasurability

I don't want to distract commenters from Carl's question, but another idea regarding Shake Reduction came up in conversation last we...

12:56 PM

$10 Digital Camera—How Does It Perform?

by Ctein <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/360948/blog10figure1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/200/201795/blog10figure1.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Two posts ago <a href="http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/12/10-digital-camerahow-do-they-do-it.html">I showed you the innards</a> of this cheapo wonder. So can it make pictures?! Well, yes, after a fashion. But first, some warnings. • There's not enough smarts in this camera for it to look like a regular USB storage device, so you need special drivers to download the photos into your computer. The camera only comes with drivers that support recent flavors of Windows. Mac users are likely out of luck. I've had erratic results under Virtual PC. You ought to be able to use a Macintel that's booted into Windows. • Photos are stored in 2 MB of SDRAM, which requires constant power. If anything interrupts the power to the camera, your photos are trashed. The RAM sucks down the AAA battery even when the camera's off. A fresh alkaline battery lasts at most three days, sometimes considerably less. Once it dies, forget about retrieving your photographs. I lost a helluva lot of photographs before I figured that out. I finally started getting reliable results when I got to the habit of downloading the photographs as soon as I got home after making the photographs, preferably the same day. Remember to take the battery out of the camera as soon as you've successfully downloaded the photographs. Otherwise, it won't be very long before you've spent more on replacement batteries than the camera cost! OK, finally we get to the photographs! I can't decide if they're really lousy or surprisingly good. Whatever, it's fun. My friends get a real kick out of seeing me with this. As I joke, "Yes, it looks just like a camera...only smaller." You'll get best results with subjects that don't have a lot of important fine detail; a bit of sharpening can really help. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/349856/blog12figure1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/725927/blog12figure1.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><blockquote>Pictures from the $10 digicam are helped by a bit of sharpening. On the left is the straight photograph; on the right it's been sharpened with Focus Magic. All the other photos in this column were sharpened using Focus Magic.</blockquote> There are only 288 x 352 pixels to work with, and that ƒ/2.8 lens quality isn't going to cause Zeiss to lose any sleep, especially at the edges: <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/735957/blog12figure2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/803999/blog12figure2.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><blockquote>Fine detail is not this camera's forte, especially outside of the center of the field of view. Observe how smeared the Christmas lights are.</blockquote> Photos taken in moderately bright light are pretty clean... <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/685815/blog12figure3.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/779152/blog12figure3.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><blockquote>In medium bright light the $10 digicam does pretty well!</blockquote> ...although the sensor tends to blow out in direct sunlight. The camera does amazingly well under dim indoor light; the on-board circuitry just keeps upping the gain until you get a usable, albeit very noisy, image. I've had a lot of fun figuring out tricks for cleaning up those low-light photos. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/928836/blog12figure4.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/726733/blog12figure4.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><blockquote>I made this photo at a dimly-lit Christmas party. The $10 digicam amplified the signal enough to produce a decent exposure, but image noise went right through the roof and the color's awful (upper left). Figuring out how to clean up this photo was fun! First I upsampled it by 2X and ran it through Neat Image, which did an amazing job of eliminating the noise (upper right). Next I applied Digital ROC (lower right) to restore the color. Finally I used Focus Magic to restore the fine detail that Neat Image had smeared out (lower left). A masterpiece, no?</blockquote> What's on my wish list for the next generation? How about non-volatile storage and a little LCD on the back so you can get some idea of what the picture looks like, since the camera's viewfinder is nearly nonfunctional? <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/1600/526789/blog12figure5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5406/570/400/909490/blog12figure5.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><blockquote>The $10 digicam has a nearly-nonfunctional view finder. Composition is hit-or-miss; this one came out pretty close. It's really a shame there's no way to see what you're actually photographing until you get the camera home and plugged into the computer.</blockquote> Happy holidays, and maybe you'll find of these little wonders stuffing your stocking! <div style="text-align: left;">Posted by CTEIN <form method="LINK" action="http://www.ctein.com"><div style="text-align: right;"><input value="Ctein's Site" type="submit"> </div></form></div>

$10 Digital Camera—How Does It Perform?

by Ctein Two posts ago I showed you the innards of this cheapo wonder. So can it make pictures?! Well, yes, after a fashion. But first, som...

4:45 AM