After last week’s episode of The Grid, the office has been flooded with calls asking about our business class. Well, the next one is 29 Sept to 01 Oct at our office in Mammoth Lakes, CA. The price is $595 and has only one seat left (class holds 8). This is a hard core class starting off with your showing a 30 image portfolio, then going shooting for profit. After that, the work really begins because you HAVE to come to class with a 1500 word article already written! Understand the focus is the editorial market place and how to succeed there to grow your business. So, you wanna make money from your camera, here ya go! To grab that last seat, give Sharon a call 661.204.1506 (9-5PST).
A couple of weeks back, Nikon released a firmware update to the D5 bringing us two new AF Modes, G HL and G VL. I was intrigued by the two new AF modes so have set about seeing what problems they solve the other AF modes might not. From my own shooting as I have nothing official, one Dynamic Focusing attributes the two new modes have is Closest Focus Priority. How does this help make the G HL / VL worth putting in a new firmware?
As you can see above, when using the G HL mode, you have a “bar” of AF Sensors. With my feeling that they work on Closest Subject Priority, I’ve been using them as I would the S or Single AF sensor but knowing that only one of the AF Sensors of the 11 will grab onto the subject because of closest subject and focus. In other words, you have the selection ability of jsut one AF Sensor but the computer to assist in selecting that one. It’s bloody fast which I love. I was shooting in the cockpit with the D5 / 8-15Fish in G HL mode. When I hit the AF button, the camera instantly locked onto the closest control knob just as I wanted. It didn’t search, it just locked on and I shot. When you have a critter in the viewfinder, it’s going to find that face and eye real fast without your having to move the AF Sensor to that eye. I’m likin that a lot! I could be all wet on my opinion that the G HL / VL has Closest Subject Priority but that’s how I’m using it and that’s how it’s working … beautifully!
I have long loved the 28f1.4 AF lens! The original AF version was spectacularly sharp and the only way you could buy it was used (costing more than the new version). When Nikon announced the new 28f1.4 AFS I got so excited. I already have the 24f1.4, 50f1.4 and 105f1.4, I was thinkin this might just be the ticket for me! Getting right to it, it’s gorgeous! It feels great in the hand and is spectacularly sharp! I have it to shoot at f1.4 and at that f/stop, it performs, oh, does it perform! Already made 24×30 prints so quite sold on the lens. There is a whole lot more shooting to do but oh man, what a lens! mtc
B&H got the new Nikon 8-15 Fisheye just a couple of days ago and I’ve been dying to shoot with it ever since. Once upon a time I owned the 8f8 Fisheye and I’ve owned a 16Fish forever so the idea of having one lens that does all sounded really attractive to me. Then I went in my files and search how much I use the 16Fish and found it was real little. So I didn’t think I would buy this lens because simply, I didn’t shoot Fish enough to justify it. Then I shot with the 8-15Fish today ….
Here are just two examples from today’s shooting with the 8-15Fish. First, it’s real fun to use, the shade and lens cap system makes it simple to use and protect that front element. Then when it comes to applying its magic, that was pretty seamless as well. Lastly there is the file it produces. To say I’m very pleased with my results is an understatement. And now the lens I didn’t think I really wanted and had no need for seems to be worming its way into my bag. Something to ponder now .. mtc
Balance point, operational rings, filter, MFD, straight-line-rendition and many other attributes of your new lens need to be ingrained in your photographic toolbox. These and other thoughts are in the video. And here are some of the links mentioned.
• Added two new AF-area modes: group-area AF (HL) and group-area AF (VL). The user selects a row (HL) or column (VL) of focus points; when AF-C is selected for focus mode, the camera will give priority to the point in the selected row or column containing the subject closest to the camera.
• Updated the photo info display to show the color temperature for photos taken with Auto selected for white balance.
• Added an Exif tag listing the difference between the local time zone and UTC, part of the Exif 2.31 specification.
• Added the support for the following features of AF-P lenses:
– If the standby timer expires after the camera has focused, the focus position will not change when the timer is reactivated.
– In manual focus mode, the focus indicator in the viewfinder (or in live view, the focus point selected in the monitor) will flash to show that infinity or the minimum focus distance has been reached by rotating the focus ring.
• Changed the checks performed when Clean image sensor > Clean now is selected in the SETUP MENU. We recommend that you perform image sensor cleaning after updating the firmware.
• Fixed the following issues:
– The higher the amount of Active D Lighting selected when optional flash units were used with auto aperture (AA), non-TTL auto (A), or distance-priority manual (GN) flash mode, the more the resulting images would be underexposed.
– Changes to exposure (including exposure compensation) would not be reflected in the photo live view exposure preview while the display was zoomed in.
– Photo live view display WB could not be selected in the i-button menu while the exposure preview was displayed in photo live view.
– Taking long bursts of photos with On selected for Network > Options > Auto send would sometimes drastically slow the recording of data to the memory card.
• Reduced the amount of time needed to connect to hidden SSIDs when WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK is selected for Authentication.
• Updated some help text.
Notice
Users of the software listed below will need to update to the following versions to support the changes in this firmware update:
• Camera Control Pro 2 version 2.25.1 or later
• ViewNX-i version 1.2.8 or later
• Fixed an issue that interfered with pairing or resulted in unreliable connections when the camera was used with the Android edition of the SnapBridge app.
