2012 News and Comments

Front-page articles from 2011 are here
Front-page articles from 2010 are here
Front-page articles from 2009 are here
Front-page articles from 2008 are here
Front-page articles from 2007 are here
Older articles (2006 and earlier) are here

Reminder: since October 2011, all news about mirrorless cameras, including the Nikon 1, is now posted on my other site, sansmirror.com: Mirrorless camera news.

Maybe I Should Ask for More Things
May 10 (commentary)--Let's see, I asked for a large sensor compact camera, and now we have five (Leica X1/X2, Sigma DP1, DP2, Canon G1x). I asked for a monochrome camera and today we got just that (Leica M-Monochrom). Even "Communicating" seems to be the word of the day for new camera intros (still waiting on Programmable and Modular, though). I guess I'm going to have to think further into the future and ask for more ;~).

Nikon is a Growth Company
May 10 (news)--Nikon is probably the most transparent of the camera companies in terms of information about camera sales, probably because most of their sales are in cameras (64% this year, compare that to Sony's 8%). Today they reported their full fiscal year numbers (fiscal year ended March 31st).

While Nikon was impacted directly by the Thailand flood, they actually reported an extraordinary gain (due to insurance proceeds), though this doesn't include the impact it had on DSLR sales.

Surprisingly, Nikon managed to beat their previous estimates (made only a couple of months ago) in the Imaging group. They finished the year with 587b yen in imaging sales, and a strong 54b yen profit. Nikon sold 4.74m DSLRs and mirrorless (compared to 4.29m last year; and remember, most of their DSLRs are made in Thailand), 7.13m lenses (compared to 6.36m last year), and a whopping 17.37m Coolpix (compared to 14.26m last year). Nikon claims 29% of the interchangeable lens camera market (DSLR and mirrorless), 17.5% of the compact camera market, and 19% of the overall camera market. Nikon described sales of the Nikon 1 model as "brisk."

Nikon also makes forward predictions. They expect camera sales to increase 24% and profits 48% in the coming year. Yeah, you read that right. Nikon thinks they're a growth company. Let's put that in numbers: DSLRs and mirrorless sales in the coming year: 7m units (up 48% over last year). Compact camera sales: 18m units (up 3.7% over last year). Coupled with the CIPA estimates for industry wide sales, that would put Nikon's market share for DSLR/mirrorless at 37% and their overall camera market share at 22%, both significant gains in what is a flat camera market. Heck, if that weren't enough, Nikon expects to sell 10m lenses in the coming year (another 40% increase).

Because yen value is an important part of forward estimates, here's Nikon's numbers there: 80 yen to the dollar and 105 yen to the Euro: basically no substantive change expected in the coming year, which implies no yen appreciation price increases in the coming year.

Botswana Workshop
May 9 (news)--My August 2013 workshop and safari in Botswana is now open for registration. Other than the changes in park fees and internal airfare (over which we have no control), we've been able to keep the costs from rising from the 2010 workshop. I think it would be tough to top this trip at the cost.

If you want details, you can find the PDF description of the workshop here. Pretty much everything you need to know is in that document (if there's something that isn't that you need an answer to, either call the number in the document or drop me an email with the question).

Hurry, because as I write this the workshop is already half full. Wait, how does that happen when I'm just now announcing the details? Simple, I gave my former workshop students a couple of days head start. I do try to reward my former customers, and I'll be doing more of that in the future, as I think it's the right thing to do, especially when the resource is scarce.

If you want to know about my other planned workshops, here's the current 411:

• South Africa is an extremely small trip (6), and already has a wait list, so I'm not going to promote it except to former workshop students at this time.
• Galapagos is slowly moving towards some final decisions. We've changed boats, we've changed the itinerary, we've changed a lot of things, but it's all starting to lock down now and I should be publishing that itinerary and opening up registration within a month.
• Patagonia and New Zealand are both at stage one of planning, and it will be some time before I have any details. Given that we're talking about workshops at the end of 2014 or start of 2015, there's no rush; I'd rather get things done right rather than lock into something I later decide isn't optimal.

I can't really promise anything other than those four. Here in the US, I really don't like to do large scale workshops (more than 6 students) and small ones have turned out to be economically unfeasible. I can't really do lots of big International workshops, as they chew up large chunks of time. So I'll continue on the two-international-workshop-a-year schedule for the foreseeable future. I'll continue to look at other options, as well, but for now, what you see is what you'll get.

Users versus Units
May 7 (commentary)--I called Engadget on the carpet for sloppy reporting (small part of next story). Some of you have tried to call me on the carpet for that. So let me restate things.

First, I wasn't picking on Engadget, per se. They just were the first of what how has become several to commit the sin I was pointing out. Most of the stories about this problem that have appeared to date appear to be paraphrases of the original PDN story. Why a paraphrase? Because then it looks like you're doing your own reporting, not quoting someone else's story verbatim. Worse still, Engadget lists their source as Nikon Rumors, who correctly and clearly quoted the PDN story. Bonus points for Nikon Rumors; Negative points for Engadget.

However, in doing all that paraphrasing, a key word got changed by Engadget, and now by Galbraith's site and others, too: units are not users.

The original PDN story wrote "a small number of users." Engadget wrote "a 'small number' of units." There is a difference, and the nuance is important here in understanding what the problem might be.

Highlights and RGB Histogram are set to a default setting of Off. If you leave your D4 or D800 set to the defaults, you won't experience a problem. If you turn those things on (which is one of my recommendations in my books and something a pro would tend to do), some of you will lock up your camera eventually. Nikon used the term "small number of users" in their response to PDN very pointedly, I think. They meant users who turn those features on, and even then a subset of them.

There are two possibilities: (1) it indeed is a "units" problem, which would tend to imply that there's a part failure in some cameras; or (2) it is a "users" problem, likely meaning that it's a firmware issue that won't be triggered unless you set those two Display settings off their defaults. I'll vote for #2, as I don't think there's a separate part involved in the Highlights and RGB Histogram display.

So let's do some real reporting. I took both my D4 and D800 and ran 2000 shots on both, 1000 first with Highlights/RGB Histogram off (default), then 1000 with those settings turned on. I performed random reviews, different camera settings, shot a variety of subjects, and a few other odds and ends I'd expect people to do in shooting that many images. Neither camera locked up.

So what does that prove? Nothing, really. It still could be "users" or "units." That would be true regardless of whether my camera locked up in my test or not.

However, Nikon is generally careful in their wording, so I'll continue to use the word "users" in the same context they did. That's what the original story that started this all had as the quote, after all. Like me, PDN seems to think it's a firmware problem (they write "[firmware update] seems likely").

This all gets me back to my next story: one problem with the Internet is the tendency towards false positives. Everyone wants to beat everyone else to stories. Plus, because once you start a news site it becomes a black hole (e.g. sucks up all news content constantly), the tendency to jump on a "story" is doubled.

The problem is that the original expression of something might not be fully accurate. Certainly paraphrasing the original ex per es si on can lead to inaccuracies. By the time an actual, accurate statement verifies something, the Internet is often filled with plenty of conflicting information derived from that first "gotta publish" spurt. This is one reason why I believe camera companies need to be more forthcoming when they discover problems: the Internet vagaries can be worse than the actual problem. Nikon probably needed to issue a "Don't use Highlights/RGB Histogram until we fix the firmware" statement. Followed by a "remove the battery and put it back in" statement "if you do encounter the problem." There, done. If someone misquotes it on the Internet, jump on them to fix their mistake. No serious user is going to be upset by that type of problem on a brand new complicated camera, especially if a quick fix is promised. They're going to thank the camera company for making it less likely that they miss a key shot.

I'm not 100% accurate. I don't know anyone that is. But I try to wait until I have real information that's useful before passing it on. I try to correct previous misstatements and those of others, as well. I'm not perfect at that, but I think I have a pretty good track record there.

All those asking for me to verify production issues therefore will have a bit of a wait: I can't actually do that until they're really verified, after all. That was the point of the next story. I test, I research, I ask questions of others (including the camera makers), I report what I find when I'm sure of what I've found. Simple as that.

In terms of the problem being reported, this user and his units have not triggered, and thus not verified, the problem yet.

Production Issues or Not?
May 4 (commentary)--I usually stay quiet on possible production issues when a new camera is released. The likelihood that there will be some on a product as complex as the D4 or D800 is near 100%, especially given the way (the limited) field testing occurs these days. In essence, first purchasers will almost certainly find some issue that needs addressing. Historically, Nikon addresses such problems with real fixes. Maybe not instantly, but with reasonable haste.

Some online sources are now reporting issues that are known with loose journalistic standards. For example, Engadget wrote "a 'small number' of units can lock up and become unresponsive." That's actually incorrect, I believe. There appears to be a firmware bug in every D4 and D800 that, when you have Highlights and RGB histogram active (my usual recommendation and what most pros would have set), the D4 and D800 will experience random lockups. The quick fix is to turn those things off. The long term fix will likely be a firmware update. Nikon has acknowledged a problem, and I have no doubt that they'll act quickly to put together this and a few other "fixes" into a firmware update soon.

Then there's the usual "doesn't focus right" complaints. I say usual because as we've gotten higher resolution cameras we're finding more people who aren't handling their cameras right or understand the autofocus system correctly. We've had this complaint now about the D3/D300, the D7000, and now the D4/D800. Yet the vast majority of those complaints actually turn out to be user misunderstanding or AF Fine Tune tolerance differences. Yes, I'm aware of the "left side doesn't focus same as right side" complaints. I can't verify them on three bodies I've tried, so short of actually getting a body in hand that displays this problem, I can't really say anything. At the same time, I know that if you do experience a real issue and can report it to Nikon clearly and show examples, they'll definitely look at your problem and fix it if they find it is real. Ranting online won't fix your problem, should you actually have one. Sending your camera and maybe lens back to Nikon with a clear report of the problem and how it is triggered will.

Finally, let's put some numbers on things. At this point Nikon has produced at least 25,000 D800 bodies. A typical early run manufacturing problem rate would be 5-10%. That means that of the 25,000 bodies first shipped, we'd expect 1,250 to 2,500 of them to have an issue reported by the user, of which not all of those will turn out to be real manufacturing or QA problems (see previous paragraph). That's normal. Over time, problem rates go down.

This last week I've had to write the following many times to people who've emailed me: if you decide to live on the bleeding edge of technology, you'll sometimes get cut. That's why they call it the bleeding edge. If over 40 years you buy 10 new camera bodies right at introduction, the law of statistics say that probably one of those will have a real manufacturing problem. Likewise, complex software (e.g. camera firmware) never ships with no defects at version 1.0.

If you don't like those odds, don't buy the first product that comes off the assembly line, simple as that.

Moreover, here's the other thing I've had to write in email responses to a lot of people this week: never, ever rely upon new equipment until you've had a chance to thoroughly and completely vet it. If you sold your D3s in anticipation of getting a D4 and then ran out the next day after getting your D4 to do a for-hire job, any problems you encountered are due to your decision making, not Nikon's manufacturing or QA. You should have kept your D3s and did the job with that. You should be testing the new camera in parallel with your old, and only switching when you're convinced that it's production ready.

That last bit brings up a problem for Canon: just how soon before the Summer Olympics is the 1Dx going to actually appear? If I were shooting the Olympics for hire this year (unfortunately, not happening though I'd love to), I'd be vetting the equipment now. No way would I want to get a camera in July and head to the stadium within a few weeks after that. While CPS and NPS have service and loaner centers at the Olympics, I want to know that my gear is top notch and I understand it perfectly long before I rely upon it for a one-off event like the Olympics.

The Pre-Order Mess
May 3 (news)--Just prior to Pennsylvania deciding that the US Supreme Court couldn't possibly be right and that the state should ignore the established law and change affiliate nexus interpretations on their own (which caused me to be dropped as a B&H affiliate), I was invited by four different affiliate programs to post "pre-order" links.

While I eventually did post a couple (since removed), I balked. Why? Because I knew that we were about to proceed into the unknown, and the unknown has a reputation for biting you in the butt. Hard.

My hesitation has now proven prescient. While the problem I anticipated happened with a number of cameras (D4, D800, OM-D, etc.), it has been particularly problematic with the Nikon D800. Here's what my hesitation was about: did the companies taking these pre-orders have any notion of how many units they'd receive and when?

The answer to that question was "no." Basically these companies were counting on their largeness, believing that their high volume would compel the camera companies to move product through them. As it turns out, that sort of worked with Olympus, who doesn't have as strong a regular dealer network in the US (the dealer I use still hasn't seen an OM-D body, by the way, though he did get a grip for the camera). But it didn't work with Nikon.

When I asked representatives at two of the large pre-order takers why they were doing it if they didn't know when they could deliver, the response (both representatives did not want to be identified for obvious reasons) was the same: "because our competitors are doing it."

I'm going to use some back-of-the-envelope numbers here to suggest how big the problem turned out to be. Nikon says they can make 25,000 D800's a month. One of the large US vendors is reported to have received over 5,000 D800 pre-orders. The US is about one-third the overall sales of any given photography product, so those pre-orders represent about 60% of the US first month shipments. And remember, we've got at least three big affiliate programs that were taking pre-orders. If they all did equally well, that's 180% of first month shipments.

Here in the US early deliveries for products in shortage are compounded by two things: NPS Priority Purchase (PP) and US law. Nikon did not allocate all of the initial D800's to NPS PP, but this most decidedly took a chunk of cameras from initial US shipments. The two dealers I talked to at length reported a total of 5 NPS PP bodies and 10 for regular sale in their initial shipments. The other aspect—US law—says that you have to treat all dealers on the same contract level equally. If you send 4 units to dealer #1, you have to send 4 units to dealer #2 through n. (Yes, there are few things that modify this slightly, like a dealer being on credit hold, but overall, NikonUSA appears to follow the letter of this law.)

So how many US dealers are there?

I don't know for sure. The addition of outlets like Best Buy has muddied the overall waters a bit, but we're talking hundreds, if not into the thousands. I'm not privy to how NikonUSA would allocate between local dealers and the few big volume NYC and online outlets, but even if we put 60% into dealers and 30% into the big boys, our back of the envelope calculations now say those pre-orders represented over 500% of the first month production deliveries. With no assurance that they'd actually receive them in any particular time frame.

Before you go blaming the big stores and online sources, though, you might want to look within. Here's the other part of the problem: how many of you actually "pre-ordered" from more than one source? I know of quite a few people who put their names in at all their local stores, and at all the online sources taking pre-orders. These people figure that they'll cancel all the other sign-ups the minute the first one ships to them. (Worse still, these customers rarely cancel their order at local stores, as there's no deposit required and no likelihood their credit card will get charged. At some point that local dealer will end up with extra inventory because of that. That's one reason why the smaller market shops are your best bet for picking up a body quick.)

It doesn't help that Nikon is relatively conservative in its approach to building products. I can't think of any higher-end product they've not underestimated demand on since the D2h in 2003. It's not difficult to guess that Nikon isn't going to meet initial demand on any pro product, ever. Those that say that Nikon should be more like Apple and have plentiful supply on day one are missing a point: Nikon makes lowish volume niche products (the more pro it is, the more niche it is). Many of these products have life cycles of two to three years or more, and lots of them have very low overall volumes. A D4 might only achieve 150,000-200,000 units in its lifetime. There are only two realistic possibilities, therefore: make one huge batch up front and when it sells out, it sells out (and the factory then shutters until the next product comes along); or balance the factory size and production levels out over most of the life cycle of the product(s). Nikon has elected to do a form of the latter, and I believe that's the right choice. To choose the first option would be to have inventory buildup that kills some quarterly financial results.

To put things in perspective: Apple sells 35 million iPhones in a quarter. Nikon sells 20 million of everything in a year (that includes Coolpix, lenses, DSLRs, and more). Nikon isn't currently in a place where they could do what Apple does. Not many companies are.

So where does this leave pre-orders? In a waiting queue of indefinite length, as I suspected when I was asked to link to pre-orders. The queue will clear when it clears. Nikon certainly has done what they can to build more D800's, though that has only a modest upside to it given the size of the Sendai plant and staff. D800's appear to being expedited in delivery (air instead of boat deliveries, for example). But I don't know of a single dealer that has worked completely through their pre-order list and all the above still applies.

As I've noted elsewhere, I no longer will link to pre-orders (unless I get some assurance that the company in question has a firm commitment of both quantity and delivery date, and agrees that they won't take pre-orders beyond what they can guarantee delivery on). There's just too large a likelihood that the customer won't be satisfied with the result. While this certainly hurts me in affiliate revenue (I know of no other Web site that has taken the stance that I have—most seem to be doing pre-order links for everything these days), I think it's the right thing to do.

I've gotten a lot of emails claiming that Company A or Company B is at fault for the pre-order fiasco. Not really. The D800 is a high-demand product produced in relatively small volumes each month. It will take some time to clear the initial demand. Heck, it'll take a long time to clear demand, as the more people who get a D800 and find out what it can do the more demand there will be just on word-of-mouth alone, let alone reviews.

My advice is still the same as it ever was. If getting the latest and greatest is really so important to you, it's beneficial to be loyal to a dealer. In particular, a dealer that appreciates and reciprocates the loyalty. I have no doubt that my current dealer does his best to keep me happy, and I do the same for him. The big NYC and online stores aren't going to suddenly be prioritized over local dealers for deliveries by NikonUSA. The same scenario as has played out will continue to play out: NikonUSA will continue to fill orders to all dealers (who have orders in with NikonUSA) in basically the same proportions. It's the small market dealers that will clear their wait lists before the bigger market dealers, who will probably clear their wait lists before the biggest of the biggest.

I've written that several times before, the last time was when the D3 shipped. It took about six months to clear demand with that camera to the point where you could buy one off the shelf. It may take as long to clear the D800 backlog. The only way you're going to get a D800 sooner rather than later is to establish a good relationship with a Nikon dealer that will in turn prioritize you, or to be opportunistic and try to grab one of the unclaimed D800s wherever that turns up (again, typically smaller market dealers first).

One final thought. So why can you find a Canon 5DIII more easily than a D800? Several reasons. I believe Canon built up a bit more inventory before shipping, the demand is less, and the difference between the 5DIII and the previous model is not as extreme as it is with the D800 versus the D700. But I note the big NYC dealers seem to be out of it, too.

So let's take a different approach at the problem: we're living right now in a time when we've been presented with quite a few significant steps forward for serious cameras fairly close together. The Canon 1Dx and 5DIII, the Fujifilm X-Pro1, the Nikon D4 and D800, the Olympus OM-D, and the Sony NEX-7 and A77 are all arguably very interesting and high-performance cameras. Is it any surprise that they're all in short supply? Being angry at some vendor is, I suppose, a way of channeling your frustration at not getting what you want when you want it. But being angry at not getting something you want when you want it is also a form of narcissism.

In short, all parties are guilty, not just one. Being angry won't change that. I hereby apologize to those of you who used one of the few pre-order links I posted (before I took them down). I'll try not to be one of the guilty parties again in the future.

Recall the Recall
May 1 (news)--From a discussion with a Nikon executive: "You're going to let us have it (deservedly) on this one."

Here's the deal: batteries did indeed start getting to customers today on the EN-EL15 recall program. But here's the bad news: Nikon apparently shipped a few hundred replacement batteries with an E in that lot number. In other words, bad batteries.

I became aware of this when one of those customers emailed me with a "hey, I gave the UPS guy a battery with an E on it and got a new battery with an E on it in return" message. Yep. That was a mistake on Nikon's part. They'll be notifying those people shortly and shipping them a new battery overnight. So now the recall has a recall. Embarrassing.

Update: so no sooner do I get the above posted when the UPS delivery person shows up with my replacement battery. Which, as it turns out, is another defective battery ;~(. However, Now I can see the whole process and describe it for you, even if I don't have a proper replacement yet:

Delivery happens via your usual UPS delivery truck at the usual UPS delivery times (I tend to get UPS deliveries in a narrow one hour window here). You'll be getting a big UPS envelope. If the courier is paying attention to their tracking device, they'll see a very long message there that tells them what to do. This was the first my UPS guy had seen the message (won't be the last time ;~).

Inside the envelope is a sealed box (new battery), a piece of packing tape, and a label. The instructions are this: take the new battery out of the box and put the bad battery into the box in its place. Re-tape the box, put the label on, put the box on the truck. A simple enough procedure, but the delivery folk haven't been trained on it. Mine walked halfway back to his vehicle before he started to comprehend that he had a long set of instructions he needed to follow. Basically, I knew more than he did at the start of the process.

But it's a simple enough process. Once you've done it, it becomes easy to repeat. Out here in the sticks I suspect I'm the only person who my driver will see that message for, but in more populated areas I'll bet the drivers get very quick in following the instructions.

Software Updates
May 1 (news)--With my Internet absence I got a bit behind on updates, so let's catch up on what's been happening.

Nikon released View NX2 version 2.3.1. Not a big update, as it mainly added some new Coolpix support. Nikon also released Wireless Transmitter Utility 1.3.1, which every D4 or WT-4/5 owner will want to get.

Photomatix Pro updated to version 4.2, adding new options for thumbnails, a Finishing Touch palette, 20 new presets, better handling of bright windows for interior HDRs, plus raw support for additional cameras, including the D4 and D800.

Akvis released version 5.5 of Magnifier, a plug-in and standalone combination that uprezzes images for large prints. This new release is CS6 compatible.

Eye-Fi released firmware 5.0008 for the X2 card series, which fixes a Direct Mode bug and makes general wireless handling improvements.

In the Macintosh world, Apple released Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.11, which added D800 support. Raw Photo Processor (RPP) hit version 4.5, adding support for the D4 and D800 as well as a number of recent Olympus, Panasonic, and Canon cameras (including compacts using CHDK). This was a relatively big update for the program, with quite a few other improvements, as well. Limit Point introduced Panorama 1.0.3, yet another Pano program for the Mac, available for US$20 in the App Store. Pixelmator updated to version 2.0.3, adding some performance and stability improvements. Snapseed 1.1 adds support to save to TIFF.

For iPad/iPhone Snapseed Mobile 1.4 improves compatibility with the new iPad and can open images directly into Instagram. Decosoft's free Photo Borders 1.1 is also aimed at Instagram users, and features 60 customizable frames. TrueDoF-Pro is yet another depth of field tool (US$6), with a straight-forward and useful one-screen interface. Shuttersnitch got an update to version 2.2.2 to make it compatible with the D4. Pholium is a new $10 digital photo book design app for the iPad.

Finally, a project called Triggertrap Mobile (US$10+US$20 cable) looks very interesting, as it provides triggering mechanisms that haven't been seen before, including things like Distance-lapse, and Eased Timelapse. If that weren't enough, we've got HDR up to 19 exposures, HDR timelapse, and Star Trail modes (plus others, including a number of trigger releases). Indeed, this is the sort of stuff that we all wish the camera companies would actually be doing. The camera companies seem to have no imagination about how the computing power within their cameras could actually be used in imaginative and new ways to provide useful tools like this. It's as if they don't actually try to use their products except in ways that they've been used before. Frankly, some camera company should gobble up these guys and integrate this stuff into their lineup fast.

Anyone Recall the Battery Recall?
May 1 (commentary)--72 business hours later (the statement at Nikon Canada) the only person I know that's gotten their battery exchanged in Canada did so directly at Nikon's offices. Here in the US the stated time was 7-10 days, and we're in that window now. Let me know if you hear anything about your recalled battery or actually get it swapped.

Battery Recall Redux
April 26 (commentary)--For some reason, a lot of people are either mad or confused by the battery recall instructions here in the US. A couple of additional comments are warranted.

First, on the NikonUSA page that describes the recall, don't call the phone number as it'll add a step. Instead, use the subdued click here link just before the phone number. That'll get your information directly into the queue.

The "mad" part seems to come from the 72 hours (or 7 to 10 days) and need to be around when the UPS courier drops off your replacement battery. I've talked to Nikon managers about the recall, and I'm convinced that they're trying to do the right thing.

The affected batteries are assumed hazardous. You shouldn't be sending them willy-nilly through the post or shipping services. Because the casing has deformed on some of the batteries and because a short circuit is involved, the batteries have to be assumed to be an explosion and fire hazard. Lithium is volatile when exposed to air. Nikon is trying to get the batteries back in a responsible and reasonable way, and as quickly as possible. They can't just send you a new battery and ask you to dispose of the old one. And you can't just stick these batteries in a box and put that on a plane, either. Essentially, the recall forces the batteries to be treated as hazardous material, which they are.

From my discussions, it appears that Nikon acted nearly instantaneously when they confirmed the problem. This caused a bit of a problem in that the service advisory and procedures were put together very quickly at all the subsidiaries, basically over the weekend. It's clear that the Dominican Republic call center wasn't 100% prepared for the recall, especially for Canadian customers, but I know that steps have been taken to try to get every tech representative up to speed. I've forwarded customer emails that indicated problems to the appropriate Nikon personnel and they've acted immediately on them. I'll continue to forward problems I receive via email so Nikon can continue to try to refine the process.

The delay in getting new batteries out is a dual problem. First, Nikon has to get an adequate supply of replacements to the right places (in the US, that would be UPS distribution centers). If I'm not mistaken, two-thirds of the batteries just made are impacted by the recall, so there aren't a lot of extras sitting around, and they aren't all in the right places yet. Second, when the program started there was no way of knowing just how fast couriers would get to customers (thus the 7 to 10 days or 72 business hours figure being cited by Nikon). I'm convinced that Nikon is trying to expedite the process. Given all the moving parts, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Which brings us to the biggest bone of contention: the need for someone to be around when the UPS courier delivers the new battery. Again, Nikon needs to get the hazardous batteries back and dispose of them properly. They can't drop off a new battery and hope you ship the old one back via whatever's convenient to you. That would be irresponsible. Lithium has been responsible for fires on planes, after all. Here in the states, that's the reason why TSA doesn't allow lithium batteries in checked luggage.

A lot of the "required to be present" complaint seems to center on "I need to be home." Not exactly true. Nikon's site doesn't make it clear, but you could specify your business address for the courier pickup. If you do, however, you're going to have to make sure your front desk knows what's going on and has your original battery handy. If your receptionist is off having a lunch or whatever when the courier stops by, someone still needs to know what to hand the courier.

Recalls are never pretty. When they involve potentially hazardous materials, they need to be done quickly and with monitoring capability. I'm personally convinced that Nikon is trying to do the right thing. Yes, things were rushed, but that's a small price to pay for getting the hazard out of the system quickly. I've seen other companies act less responsibly with similar issues, so I'm going to be on Nikon's side on this situation. Long time readers know that I'll call fault on Nikon quickly when they do something wrong. Other than some clarity that got compromised due to the rush, they're not doing anything wrong here that I can see. I'd challenge any other company to do better.

More on Being a Camera Company
April 25 (commentary)--My comments on the D3200 and 28mm lens announcements provoked a deal of feedback, enough that I think I need to make a few of my thoughts more clear.

Nikon is a camera company, first and foremost. Nikon's continued success as a company now depends upon how they do in the camera business. That's because two-thirds of their sales and a similar high degree of their profits come from cameras. Nikon is unique amongst the Japanese manufacturers in that. While cameras have produced some of the largest profits for other companies (e.g. Canon), no other Japanese camera producer is dependent upon cameras as their main business. Not Canon, not Sony, not Panasonic, not Olympus, not Ricoh/Pentax, not Fujifilm. Those companies all have much larger businesses that have nothing to do with cameras, even when you add in incendental-to-photography products (pro video divisions, etc.).

Overall, the "camera business" is flat. There's almost no one predicting any meaningful overall growth in cameras, mainly because cell phones now account for a majority of "camera" sales and use. Yes, there are pockets of growth, such as mirrorless (essentially higher end compacts or smaller/lighter DSLRs depending upon how you look at them). But even factoring the mirrorless growth in, all you get is a flat market.

Nikon has four lines of cameras: Coolpix, CX (Nikon 1), DX, and FX. All need to be successful for them. Overall, Nikon produces a bit over 20 million units (cameras, lenses) a year at the moment, and they've actually looked like a growth company in a flat market (thus, they're stealing market share), and that's despite the quake and flood. That's been an incredible achievement.

Nikon's recent success does bring up some questions, though. They've had a string of body hits (D3, D3s, D4, D300, D7000, D700, D800) at one end, solid perennial sellers at the other (D3100, D5100, a number of Coolpix), and even the unusual Nikon 1 has done okay for them, at least dulling the m4/3 and NEX mirrorless juggernauts temporarily. But as I've noted many times, supply is not meeting demand for many items, and that's a dangerous proposition as you always leak sales to competitors when that happens. Nikon is fortunate that the Canon 5DIII didn't push the bar particularly far forward from the II, but I'm still sure that a few potential D800 sales turned into 5DIII sales because of supply issues.

Lack of lenses is one of those supply issues. Both CX and DX are impacted by this (CX in lack of lenses that competitors already have, DX in lack of lenses that users want). Personally, I judge this to be one of Nikon's biggest problems: users are buying bodies on faith that lenses will appear. That faith has not been rewarded lately, especially for DX users. Consider the DX lens announcements over the last two-and-a-half years: 40mm Micro-Nikkor, 85mm Micro-Nikkor, 55-300mm. Did that round out the offerings for DX users particularly well? Not at all. Indeed, it's puzzled the DX users completely and sent them to third-party lenses.

I have this fear about Nikon: that they believe that their recent results reflect right decisions. It's always dangerous to equate "more sales" with "right decisions." While Nikon's DX and FX bodies have been quite good as of late, these are systems cameras, and bodies can't stand alone for long. Thus, we can extend my fear to this: that Nikon thinks the system is okay because the bodies are selling well.

We'll know later this year what Nikon is up to in DX. The overdue D300s replacement is a critical clue (a D5200 is as predictable as the D3200 was). But the clues we've gotten so far aren't exactly encouraging:

• CX was crippled from the start. The removal of controls that might appeal to enthusiasts and the Coolpix-like marketing messages all seem to point to a design decision that goes like this: it's an all-automatic Coolpix type of camera but with focus and low light performance. Oh, and some lenses.
• DX stopped growing with the D300s. 2009 was the last big push in DX. In the 2008/2009 time period we got the 16-85mm, 18-105mm, 35mm, 10-24mm, redesigned 18-200mm, and the strange 85mm Micro-Nikkor. The D300s itself is now a year overdue for replacement. The D3000/D5000/D90 line made the expected move to D3100/D5100/D7000, and has started the expected move to D3200/D5200/D7200, but this is just basically "rising with the tide." A simple DX line that consists of only three consumer DSLRs would be a serious mistake.
• FX has gotten super serious, except for some lenses that look like they're targeted for something else. Love the D4 and D800 (so far ;~), but how to explain the 28-300mm or even 24-120mm, let alone the upcoming 24-85mm vari-aperture? Is Nikon's notion that you should put compromised lenses on uncompromised bodies? This (plus the inexpensive 28mm f/1.8G) argues that there is a missing FX model, possibly an FX D400 that replaces the DX D300s and FX D700.

Yuck. The net net of all that, if I'm right, is that Nikon sees a Coolpix user growing into a CX user growing into a DX user growing into an FX user. What's wrong with that, you ask? Nothing as a secondary strategy, but everything as a primary strategy. Not all camera users upgrade upwards. Some just want a product that works at the size/weight they desire.

I'm a believer in "best possible product." You can still upsell from a great Coolpix or Nikon 1 or DX DSLR. Bigger sensors have real advantages, and physics isn't going to change in your or my lifetime to disrupt that. I don't believe you should compromise a product line in order to have a "more natural upsell." A more natural upsell is simple: you make the best products, at all levels. Compromising any product at any level in order to make a higher end product more enticing is just wrong thinking. If you compromise DX, don't you think the customer will wonder if you've compromised FX, too?

What Nikon needs are uncompromised Nikon 1 models that are the model of choice for anyone who decides they want a small, mirrorless camera. They need uncompromised DX models that are the model of choice for someone who needs a higher end system but can't afford FX. And those uncompromised cameras need a full line of lenses and accessories that are uncompromised, too.

Apple doesn't care if you buy an iPod Touch, an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook Air, or a higher end Mac. They only care that you buy an Apple. They know if they give you a great product at the level you buy at, you'll come back to them when you have a different need.

Nikon does seem to care what you buy. If you're an enthusiast, Nikon has one Coolpix for you (P7100), no mirrorless camera for you, and a range of four DX cameras, the highest end of which is sadly outdated and most with significant limitations...but the FX D800 seems like what they really want you to buy. If you're a pro, Nikon wants you to buy an FX body only (sorry about that Bob Krist). No, Nikon's strategy isn't to sell you the great camera you want/need, but to direct you to a line of cameras that they've decided you should want, even if the accessories you might need/want aren't available.

The good news for Nikon is that no other camera maker has figured it out, either. Sony has decided that EVFs are your only choice. Canon decided that all still users were actually closet video shooters in disguise. Fujifilm seems to think that lots of performance issues can be overlooked if they just make everything look like old rangefinders from the 1960's. But really, Nikon, is that all you aspire to be: better than an inept group of other players?

Industry in crisis (camera sales are flat at best) is the perfect time to execute perfectly. Basically, you end up owning the market when you do that. To keep growing, Nikon is going to need to own the camera market. To do that they need no compromise systems at all four levels. At the moment, they only have that at one level, FX.

And if you don't believe me, perhaps this reader comment will prove my point: "I cling to my D80. I have the money to upgrade/update (this only happens every five years or so), and I love the D7000, but I won't spend it until I have clarity on Nikon's commitment to DX -- or until I decide to switch brands, probably to Olympus mirrorless." That's not the only such response I received, and it's highly indicative of what's happening when users think about DX these days. Nikon has a problem with DX (and CX). The customers are aware of it. Is Nikon?

To All Those Trying to Compare a D800 and D800E
April 25 (commentary)--Just remember, resolution is not equal to acuity (or vice versa). Just because you believe something is sharper and more defined doesn't mean that there's more resolution. What a lot of people are seeing is that the anti-aliasing is gone and edges have more acuity (and potential other issues, like stairstepping or moire).

That said, an AA filter will "fuzz up" resolution right around its filter point, so there can be some modest measured differences in resolution between a non-AA and AA equipped camera. In my experience, that difference has been below the threshold of visibility in normal image presentation (it takes at least a 15% resolution increase to be visible to most people, all else equal).

Add a Recall to the Accessory Woes
April 24 (news and commentary)--Nikon today announced a battery "service advisory" for EN-EL15 batteries. If you've got an EN-EL15 with an "E" or "F" as the 9th digit in the 14 digit part number, you should stop using it and follow Nikon's instructions to return it and have it replaced. Apparently there are multiple reports of short-circuiting that causes that battery to overheat and become a fire hazard.

Frankly, "service advisory" is too polite a term and too easy for people to ignore. This is a recall by any stretch of the imagination and should be labeled as such in the headline on Nikon's site. And to further label it within the text as a "voluntary" recall additionally softens the language. The bottom line is simple: continuing to use one of the affected batteries is a severe risk and should be avoided.

Unfortunately, EN-EL15s are in short supply at the moment (the V1, D7000, and D800--all popular cameras--use them). The affected batteries appear to be in two of the three latest production batches (starting in March 2012), thus D800 purchasers are getting them, but those owners also tell me that they've been having a hard time getting additional batteries. This recall is just going to exacerbate that problem. Still, the fire risk is too high to continue to use a D800 and charger with an affected battery.

Nikon has a supply problem, short and simple: they can't make bodies fast enough, they can't keep lenses in stock, and they haven't supplied enough accessories for the new products into the chain. Thus, a recall like this is disruption on top of disruption. While it is easy to blame short supply on last year's quake and flood, supply meeting demand is a systemic problem for Nikon. We've had a constancy in all three of these problems pretty much since the D3/D300 announcement in 2007.

Nikon Announces the D3200
April 23 (news and commentary)--If you ever want to know when Nikon will announce another DSLR, just look at my travel schedule. Virtually every Nikon announcement seems to come while I'm on the road, and the D3200 announcement last week was no exception.

The low-end DSLR body has come a long way since the D50 introduction in 2005. From the humble class-trailing 6mp and 10mp D50, D40, D40x, D60, and D3000 versions, we've now catapulted up to a class leading 24mp entry body. With a kit price (with 18-55mm lens) of US$700, the D3200 becomes the Nikon DX body with the most pixels (6016x4000, which is another odd masking choice by Nikon).

D3000 and D3100 users will find a lot hasn't changed. Most of the external body and basic functions are unchanged. What has changed is this: (1) 24mp sensor (not Sony supplied it appears); (2) new video capabilities (1080P/24/25/30, 720P/50/60); (3) EXPEED 3 image processing; (4) optional (US$60) WU-1a WiFi capability; and (5) the 3" LCD is now 921k dots. Other changes include a slight bump to frames per second (to 4) plus some modest menu updates.

The camera will be available in late April, with the WiFi adapter following a month later. The WiFi adapter will ship with an Android (2.3 or later) app for controlling and transferring images, with iOS support to come later. Given Nikon's historic inability to keep up with multiple, iterating operating systems, I'm a little leery of the Android-first approach. I expect a lot of footnotes in their support documents.

It's clear that WiFi is coming to virtually all cameras, even DSLRs, in the near future. This is happening with either built-in (as with the recent Samsung mirrorless camera announcements) or external options (as with the D3200's dedicated WiFi controller and the D800's Eye-Fi card support). The question is whether the camera companies actually understand what users want and can create a simple, integrated workflow. The lack of details coming from Nikon on the WU-1a aren't promising in that respect. Unfortunately, it looks as if we're once again entering the land of everyone-doing-it-themselves-in-some-proprietary manner.

The problem for users (remember them, they're the ones buying the products, guys), is that there are three entities in the workflow that are now in constant change: the hardware (camera and its connectivity), the media hub (iPhoto, Lightroom, View NX2, etc.), and the ultimate destination (cloud, Facebook, Flickr, myPictureTown, etc.).

Nikon obviously wants to play in all these areas (witness the WU-1a, View NX2, and myPictureTown), but frankly, they're not nearly close to state-of-the-art in any of them, which produces a kludgy, unsatisfactory sum of the parts. Moreover, because they want to own the whole workflow, it's unlikely that they'll cooperate closely with others with a similar goal (e.g. Adobe). I'll just go out on a limb here and predict that while the WU-1a may be popular, it won't be used in the way Nikon expects and most of us will find the software support lacking in some way. Let's hope that some enterprising entrepreneur gets in there and develops the software to do the right things for users.

Where are We?
April 23 (commentary)--Nikon has introduced three new DSLRs in 2012, with at least one more DSLR announcement to go this year (likely the D5100 or D300s "replacement"). Curiously, the low and high end of the interchangeable lens camera lineup is reasonably current and highly competitive:

• Low: J1, V1, D3200
• Mid: D5100, D7000, D300s
• High: D800, D4

As I noted before, it's that middle that seems to be perplexing Nikon somewhat and may be subject to some change. If the D300s becomes an entry FX body as many expect, that makes the DX lineup look a bit anemic (not to mention the still missing DX lenses).

I personally think that Nikon needs to be here:

• CX: J1, V1, Z1 (the Z1 being a more enthusiast tailored version). The prices need to be pushed downward from their current points so that CX clearly lives below and up to DX (e.g., Z1 being top of the line and priced at the D3200 price point).
• DX: D3200, D5200, D7200, D8000 (the D8000 being an integrated vertical grip pro caliber DX). The price points are okay, but there are a considerable number of missing lenses to keep DX living healthily (see next article).
• FX: D400, D800, D4 (the D400 being an entry FX body that replaces the D700's current position in the lineup).

New 28mm Lens
April 23 (news and commentary)--In addition to the Nikon D3200, Nikon announced a new lens, the 28mm f/1.8G AF-S. Suggested retail price is US$700, a lower price than many expected.

Okay, so WTF? We've now got a complete modern set of historical fast lenses (24, 28, 35, 50, 85). That's for FX bodies that already excel in low light. What's the DX user to think? Right, they've got basically two of the five, none wide (35mm f/1.8DX, 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 as a somewhat short substitute for an 85mm equivalent).

Nikon's lens announcements of late have been bordering on absurd. The 28-300mm has no body on which it performs great (well, okay, it makes a decent 42-450mm equivalent for DX bodies, but that's not how Nikon marketed it). The lens doesn't make Nikon's own D800 recommended lens list, and it seems a bit bizarre as a possible D4 lens. Meanwhile, the unexpected 40mm DX macro works okay on a Nikon 1 body (with FT1 adapter), but wasn't really necessary for DX once the 60mm macro appeared. Lately it really feels like the wrong folk are designing the wrong lenses for the wrong cameras.

Meanwhile:

• CX needs something wider than 28mm equivalent, and it needs it yesterday. It also needs a couple of small, fast primes (particularly portrait).
• DX needs a whole range of things: true wide angle primes at 24mm and 35mm equivalent at a minimum, a PC-E wide, a true portrait lens for DX, a 70-200mm f/2.8 equivalent (preferably 50-135mm f/2), a far better 18-200mm, a faster and fixed aperture 24-120mm equivalent, and more.
• FX is still missing a few primes, most notably 18/20mm and 105/135/180mm, plus the PC-E lenses really need redesign so that they work fully on a D800 body and have switchable tilt/shift.

Let me put things a different way. When I go out to shoot events, sports, or wildlife (with FX bodies), I don't have any lens compromises I make. None. I'd like to see a really fast moderate telephoto (e.g. 105mm or 135mm f/2 AF-S), but I don't feel like I'm short lenses: what I need pretty much exists.

But when I go out to shoot FX landscapes, I miss the 20mm f/2.8 and have to make a choice between the 14-24mm (no filters) or less capable 16-35mm, and I've got a 24mm PC-E that has a fixed tilt/shift orientation while all my Canon buddies not only have changeable orientation, but they also have a wider tilt/shift option. Bzzzt. Someone asleep at the wheel, especially for a company with a state-of-the-art 36mp body that screams landscapes.

Heaven help me when I go out to shoot DX. I make lens compromises all over the place. Basically, I have to pick a zoom to go wide at all. I have no PC-E option that's reasonable. I end up with bigger FX lenses than I need, and bastardized focal lengths from what I want (e.g. using a 50mm f/1.4G when I want a 58mm f/1.4). Bzzzt. Not only someone asleep at the wheel, but the vehicle's veering off the road and about to crash.

Things don't get better when I go CX. Compared to my m4/3 kit, I have compromises all over the place except for one (the 30-110mm, which is a sterling performer). Bzzzt. Still asleep at the wheel, and the competition's got the pedal to the metal and pulling away.

So, welcome the 28mm f/1.8G if you will. But it doesn't exactly fill a large hole (the previous 28mm f/1.4 sold about 7000 units in 13 years, though it was considerably more expensive). It's as if the road crew came and laid some oil over a small crack, but ignored the nearby potholes.

Didn't Know I Knew Italian
April 3 (news)--The Italian paper La Republica interviewed me about the surge in mirrorless camera interest. Can't vouch for whether my comments held up in translation, but you can find the interview here.

byThom Gallery-in-a-Box
April 1 (news)--Today byThom announces Gallery-in-a-Box. This new product effectively solves four problems. First, it provides an outlet for my images in a way that provides some meaningful revenue without a lot of investment of my time. As you all know, when the state of Pennsylvania changed its laws regarding affiliate income, the loss of B&H's support took away a substantive portion of the income this site makes. Second, Gallery-in-a-Box allows pro photographers with a gallery to deal with the issue of too many places, not enough time or money. Next, it gives art gallery owners the ability to pick and choose amongst a huge array of options to sell. And finally, it allows collectors to finally get access to my images.

Here's how it works. I've taken terrabytes worth of images in the 30+ years I've been photographing. From that collection, I've taken a selection of my best original files (mostly NEF, a few other raw formats) from 200+ worldwide scenic locations and put them all onto a 1TB drive. I will sell 100 of these drives for US$2500 each. Each drive includes a declaration of rights to the purchaser that allows them to print and sell these images (they may not be subdistributed or sold to stock or for editorial purposes; the rights granted only include the right to print and to sell that print for display purposes, in other words, gallery rights, thus the name of the product).

Why would another photographer or an art gallery want such a product? Well, let's start with the galleries: normally relationships with a photographer are a constant negotiation. Both sides are trying to extract benefits for themselves, the negotiations change over time, and it's rare that either the gallery or photographer get what they want in the end, thus the relationship crumbles quickly. The photographer spends a lot of time and energy trying to forge a relationship that brings in money, but the return for effort is minimal. For the gallery, it's a matter of image selection and cost of acquisition. Gallery-in-a-Box solves both problems. The gallery gets to select the images they want and, other than the initial cost plus actual print and framing costs (which are the smallest cost of the puzzle), pay nothing else for each print they sell, thus maximizing profits.

Many photographers have galleries of their own. To keep up with the Mangelson's of the world, they either have to specialize (thus reducing their potential market size) or they need to constantly update the images in their galley with new material, preferably material that goes beyond what they've been shooting and exhibiting. Traveling to any of the many exotic locations represented by Gallery-in-a-Box would set a photographer back far more than the US$2500 they spend on the product, thus to a photographer with a gallery of their own, having the ability to add fresh new images to their walls without taking costly trips is a large benefit.

A few collectors might want Gallery-in-a-Box, too. There's been strong demand for prints of my work, to which I have not responded. An excellent large gallery print would sell for US$800 or more, so for little more than the cost of a few such prints, a collector would be able to not only get Thom Hogan prints, but be able to choose which of my many images to display. When they get tired of one, they could print and rotate in another. To facilitate this, I've included several dozen Photoshop files with my full set of corrections and printing instructions.

When all 100 drives are sold, Gallery-in-a-Box will be removed from the market and no longer available. Because some will want to create "limited editions" from this product, for an extra fee (variable with location of purchaser due to travel expenses) it can be arranged to have Thom come by and sign up to 100 prints made from the collection.

To order Gallery-in-a-Box, click here.

Grumbling
March 29 (commentary)--It happens with every new camera introduction: people get their hands on the new camera and they start grumbling about "issues."

The interesting thing is that all of Nikon's warnings about lenses and camera handling on the D800 seem to have done their job: I've seen very few "it isn't sharp" grumbles so far. Fewer than on almost any previous Nikon DSLR resolution bump. Perhaps Nikon will learn from this that much of their problem has been lack of expectation setting in their marketing messages.

That leaves the "other" grumbles:

• Build quality complaints. Not a lot of these yet. A battery door that fell off because a pin was missing (this, by the way, is why cutting off parts to only authorized repair centers was a mistake--it'll take longer and cost more to fix). A miscentered viewfinder or two. Complaints about the plastic quality of the shooting method selector. But the big winner in this category is the LCD: I've seen a lot of miscalibration complaints, with color tints and brightness issues being the common ones. The camera has some ability to change brightness (and hue in Live View), but the Auto setting appears to be the culprit most of the time.
• Functional complaints. I haven't been able to test this one yet, but there's a prominent complaint about wireless flash reliability using camera's flash as master. There are definitely issues with tethered shooting, and I've already pointed out the missing functions in Camera Control Pro. Noisy long exposures once you jump above the analog gain limit (ISO 1600 or higher). The return of amp noise (visible at bottom of frame at high ISO, visible as horizontal bands at long exposures). "No crop" movie is actually a 1.1x crop horizontally (91% of the horizontal width of the sensor).
• Design issues. Why no WT-5 support? Why no RCA video out? Why do the PC-E lenses hit the flash housing in some orientations? Why no camera-wide "setting" ability (still only shooting and custom settings banks)? Why do we still have the 1EV bracket limit outside of the built-in HDR?
• Documentation issues. Uncompressed HDMI video out seems impossible if all you do is read the manual, yet it works if you know the secret spell and wave your wand correctly (Relashio! Engorgio!).

Personally, nothing so far seems like anything other than the usual product launch noise level. A few things will need to be addressed by firmware fixes. Quality control will get better with each new wave of shipments. The design issues are typical Nikon, where they seem to have blinders on to things that are obvious to serious users.

All in all, a quiet post-launch, as far as post launches go.

Balance Points
March 26 (commentary)--As often happens with the popular Nikon camera launches, first deliveries have been made and the product is sold out. Now we get the grumbling about "why didn't Nikon make more?"

It's a delicate balancing act that Nikon has to go through. We're not talking mass market consumer item here, where you build huge, permanent capacity to meet insane demand (the current Apple model). A D4 is going to sell a few hundred thousand copies in its lifetime, a D800 maybe a million+. Sendai's current capacity is 5,000 D4's a month, 30,000 D800's a month. Best case scenario (assuming that the parts are actually available, which is a huge assumption considering we're talking about precision sensors here), is that they could double production by doubling staff or making everyone work double shifts.

It should be clear that initial demand was far greater than what Nikon delivered. Let's assume for a moment that what Nikon delivered was two months of production. How many months do you think Nikon should make a product before actually delivering it to a customer? Three? Ten? Initial demand on these units was probably 3-4 months worth for the D4, 6+ months for the D800. Would you be willing to wait until June in order to guarantee a D800 on day one? Didn't think so.

There's a risk in building months worth of production and having it sit in warehouses: the product doesn't get user tested. As much as every tech company wants to ship a product that's perfect on day one, it's unusual that something wasn't caught. It's a numbers game. Even a few hundred testers testing round the clock aren't going to hit every last nook and cranny that tens of thousands of actual users will.

Nikon faced this problem more than once in the past. The D1x shipped initially with a real issue. It was already heading to user's hands when the problem was found. Nikon had to scramble to fix the problem in the field and it took a few weeks to get every unit dealt with; the volume back then was far lower than it is today, and that was without piling up many months worth of units before first ship.

Let's look at the other end of the demand chain: when the product's three years old the demand is low, because people are waiting for the "next generation" (which builds a new initial demand stream). You don't want to have a factory that can build far beyond late product cycle demand, otherwise you have idle capacity and lots of workers you're going to put into furlough.

Overall, Nikon tries to balance the problems it faces in delivering a new, high-demand product like the D800 (and to a lesser degree, D4). Build enough so that there's not a tickle at launch, but a significant number. Don't build and sit on too many and risk bigger problems and idle capacity afterwards.

If we look at Nikon's factory numbers, they add up this way: D4 will likely have a total product build in the neighborhood of 120,000 units (5k * 12 months * 2 years); the D800 might manage 1.44 million units (30k * 12 months * 4 years). That's assuming they stay popular enough during their entire life cycles to keep the factory at full capacity. Compare that to the Apple iPad's 3 million units delivered in the first three days. So all those writing me saying that Nikon should just do what Apple did are a bit off in their objection: the iPad is a mass market item with a one year life cycle that sells in the tens, maybe hundreds of millions of units a year. It's worth building additional factory capacity for that kind of demand. On the other hand, Nikon professional cameras are niche products that take a long time to reach even a million units (and that's assuming they're popular and state-of-the-art through their life cycle). It's not worth building huge capacity for that because it will go unused after initial demand dissipates.

Personally, I think Nikon has chosen a reasonable balance point. That doesn't make those waiting in line for a D800 any happier, obviously. I'm confident that Nikon will make some short term adjustments to try to quell some of the thirst for product. I noticed that they seem to be sending weekly shipments by air out of the factory at the moment, for example. They're not trying to amass a large number and put them on a slow ship to the customer. Instead they're delivering them hot off the line as fast as they can. They're likely to run some overtime and speed up their parts supply chain, too. They may even shift some D4 work to D800 work. What they won't do is try to meet all demand instantly.

Given what I'm hearing from dealers and users, I'm betting that D4 cameras will loosen up in supply within two months to the point where you can find one here in the states if you really want one. D800's, on the other hand, are going to be in relatively short supply for a longer period, especially once people realize just how good the camera is. There was always a stronger demand that went unfulfilled for a D3x at the D3 price, but we received a better-than-D3x-at-half-the-D3-price. Demand is high simply because of that, let alone the pent-up D700 upgrade demand.

Hello? Anyone There?
March 26 (commentary)--You learn something every day. Where you learn it from is a different matter.

I mentioned my issue with looking up serial numbers while doing Nikon software updates in a previous story. Turns out there is a way to keep those handy while you're traveling: register them in your Nikon online account. Yep, the same way you register camera and lens serial numbers with Nikon online, you can register software serial numbers.

Now why no one at Nikon thought to mention that to me after I wrote what I did I can't say. It turns out that one reader of this site had stumbled upon that possibility and started using it. Basically, Nikon doesn't seem to publicize this anywhere that I can find (I'd be happy to stand corrected).

But why the heck don't they just automate this? When you install, give the user the option of adding the software license number to their Nikon account registry ("Would you like to register your license number with your Nikon account so that it's available to you in a convenient fashion when you update software?"). Plus, when you create an update just give the user the option of filling in the serial number from their Nikon account.

Solve user problems, don't create them.

Clarification on Video
March 24 (commentary)--It seems a lot of folk are confused about what the HDMI output of the D4 (and D800) is. The manuals aren't any help. The answer is a bit convoluted: it depends. If you take the cards out of the camera and use LiveView, you'll get uncompressed HDMI output (with audio) that matches the Movie Settings. No wrappers, no interpolation, but straight video matching what you selected. I hope you have a big storage device attached if you try that, as that's one heck of a lot of data coming down the pipe. Indeed, I'm not sure how I'd record that short of bringing a small and very fast RAID farm with me on a shoot. Even just testing this in my office I chewed through a lot of drive space.

The better choice is to use an Aja Ki Pro Mini or an Atomos Ninja and record the HDMI uncompressed output directly into 4:2:2 ProRes (Apple's native compression for Final Cut Pro X, and a very high quality compressor). But you'll have to press a lot of buttons and jump through a lot of procedural hoops to do that (which is what books like mine are for ;~), plus you'll have an HDMI cable between the camera and the recorder. Who's going to do that? Dedicated high end videographers who post grade their footage. If you're never going to go beyond Blu-Ray quality and don't do a lot of post grading, then just record to the cards and use the built in AVC compression.

Waiting for Version 12
March 24 (commentary)--One gets the impression that Nikon's software coders haven't yet caught up to the cameras. For example, in Custom Settings of Camera Control Pro, the C, F, and G groups aren't there for a D800. For a D4, one G setting is there and three aren't and the C and F groups are missing.

Oh, and if you're traveling or visiting a client, make sure to update your software before you head out the door. If you're moving from Camera Control Pro version .9 to .10 or .11 you're going to find it asks for your serial number. If you've upgraded that software, you're going to be asked for both serial numbers (same thing happened with the last Capture NX2 update). I know this might seem beneficial to Nikon, but to a working pro who travels a lot, more often than not we find ourselves needing to update a system on the road.

It's a big pain in the butt to get hit with the double serial number query when you're not expecting it. Even dropping back to trial mode isn't always a solution: I have three trips in the coming year that are longer than trial mode and where I'll be out of Internet access and need to rely upon what's on my computer.

How to Mess Up a Successful Launch
March 24 (news and commentary)--Numerous British sources are reporting that Nikon UK has raised the price of the D4 and D800, apparently due to a "systems error."

Okay. How the heck did a "systems error" persist for more than 45 days? Well, because you promulgate it, that's how. The only question is whether this was caused by mismanagement or by intentional postponement. Neither are the measure of an organization that's on top of their game.

The change Nikon is making isn't trivial. In US dollars it amounts to a price change of US$778 on the D4. A British purchaser will now be paying the equivalent of US$8394 for a D4. Let's see, US price is US$6000. The UK 20% VAT is US$1200. Not sure what UK duties are on cameras these days, but I doubt it's another 20%. But even if it is, you'd think that Nikon UK would know what that number is and wouldn't promote a wrong number right up to the day they start shipping product.

The net overall price increase just made measures out to a bit over 10%. Hard to figure how you miss by that much and not notice it somewhere in your organization the first week, let along the second, third, fourth, fifth, right up to the 11th week.

But wait, they did it twice. The D800 was also changed in price this week by Nikon UK. So six weeks after its price was announced, we suddenly have a realization on Nikon's part that their numbers are wrong?

UK Nikon users are noticeably (and understandably) upset at the moment. Many who haven't yet received their cameras don't know exactly what they're going to be charged (though Amazon UK has a relatively clear policy of matching the price quoted when ordered).

In the UK Nikon has now messed up what otherwise should have been a successful launch. Moreover, what they haven't done is be forthcoming to Nikon users. You don't change product price by 10% without making a statement to users, up front and no later than when you make the change. PR 101 says this is a major credibility issue for an organization, and that they will continue to suffer from upset users spreading the word. Nikon UK needs to step forward to make it clear what happened and why, clarify what price people will pay for their preorders, and vow to fix whatever problem caused this so that it doesn't happen again.

Feeding Frenzy in Full Force
March 23 (commentary)--With dealers getting D800's out to customers today, and with DxO ranking the D800 as the best camera yet in their tests, the Web is ablaze with D800 chat.

• For those of you who pre-ordered from B&H: my understanding is that those orders are being drop shipped from Louisville. The lucky winners should be getting email notifications about that today.
• For those thinking that the D800 is better than a D4: maybe. Depends upon what you use it for. At base ISO the D800 has more dynamic range than a D4. At above ISO 1600, the D800 lags the D4 by about one stop in dynamic range. Signal to noise is nearly identical according to DxO (still doing my own tests, but I haven't found anything yet that would contradict that). But as with everything, there's no free lunch. I note a high red channel boost on the D800 and a slightly lower one on the D4, but still higher than previous cameras. This ties into an observation I made with early D4 samples: equal to the D3s but not always and sometimes different color detail. Bottom line, Nikon made the decision to boost color over letting noise propogate. I still don't know everything that means in practice, but there is no free lunch.
• Overall, both the D4 and D800 are impressive in my initial testing. Impressive enough that it may change my decision of which tool to use when.
• Lots of small details are starting to emerge. I'm not able to get the USB 3.0 capability of the D800 to work with my Mac, and neither have some others (we're stuck with USB 2.0 speeds). The D800 uses a different USB cable connector at the camera, so we've got yet another cable to add to the travel kit. Meanwhile, the standard RCA out is missing (hadn't noticed that before) on the D800, meaning you'll be using HDMI if you want video out.
• Nikon posted another technical guide for the D800 (see http://nps.nikonimaging.com/technical_solutions/), which seems to be bits and pieces from the PDF they put out. Apparently they're really worried about potential "doesn't get sharp pictures" complaints. They should be. My article the other day prompted another half dozen such complaints from D7000 users. Two of them I asked details from are on Auto Area AF, Dynamic Area AF. In other words: camera gets to decide where to focus, completely. Hmm. And they wonder why the camera didn't focus where they wanted it to?
• Warning: it appears that the original Nikon Transfer doesn't like D4 raw files. Make sure you're using the latest version of Transfer or another software product that understands D4 files for transferring. Either that or just bring them across manually.

Trickle Shipments
March 23 (news)--From conversations with dealers here in the US, they've received as many as two separate D4 deliveries and are expecting another small D800 delivery before NikonUSA closes for inventory. I'm guessing that Nikon is using air delivery from Japan just as soon as there are enough units manufactured to allow a one-for-every-dealer (or more) shipment to occur. That will likely stop next week for the year-end inventory process here in the US. But before that happens, it appears that Nikon is pushing everything it can out the door, which should help its year-end financials.

Also, dealers should be getting the MB-D12 grip on Monday, so Nikon appears to have gotten all the significant parts into the chain about the same time for a change.

While the flow of new cameras and accessories is now a measurable trickle, lenses still seem to be very very tight in supply. We seem to be back to where we were before the quake: high demand not met by supply.

This Week's Common Question
March 22 (commentary)--With D800's popping into users' hands this week, a new common question seems to be flooding my In Box: is a D800 any more averse to hand holding than a D7000?

Short answer: no.

Nikon's technical paper on the D800--which warned about shot discipline--plus the comments of others, including some here on bythom, have scared a few potential D800 users. A few should be scared. You shouldn't be spending US$3000 for something to make casual snapshots with. You don't need a D800 for that, and you might find that you've chosen a bigger hammer than you're comfortable lifting if you approach photography casually. Most of the rest of us shouldn't be scared, at all.

But my D7000 versus D800 answer does need a bit more explaining. If you recall when the D7000 came out there were quite a few "it doesn't focus" comments. While I'd judge from the data I have that yes, D7000 bodies did seem to leave the factory with a bit less precision on focus tuning than some previous models, a lot of those "can't focus" comments were actually "not getting sharp images" comments. That's an important difference.

A few things have changed over the years, but some users didn't note the change. For example, the old 1/focal length rule of thumb for hand holding. On a 35mm film SLR with a 200mm lens, 1/200 or faster generally was a good starting point for getting sharp images handheld (assuming good technique). On a DX DSLR with a 200mm lens, you really should use 1/300 as the new rule of thumb. Moreover, as pixel densities go up, you might want to push that further.

While I don't want to get into complicated age arguments, I'd also point out that all those folk that remember hand-holding their N90s film SLR at 1/200 and getting sharp images probably can't do the same today. They just remember getting steady shots at 1/200 and assume that nothing's changed. They've lost muscle mass and sometimes fine coordination, but that happened so slowly that they are probably wrong when they think they can still do what they did 30 years ago. I know I can't hold a camera as steady at 60 as I did at 30. I doubt you could, either.

As I noted at the time, the 12mp cameras needed a bit more attention to shot discipline than the 6mp cameras. Likewise, I noted that again with the 16mp D7000, and those moving from 6mp to 16mp got a double hit. As I've also explained (see my VR article), VR isn't a solution to every problem in terms of handling a camera, either. Throw in a bunch of auto settings that can make wrong decisions and a new autofocus system, and the D7000 was a challenge for some to master. Add cameras with a factory-tuned focus system that was a bit off, and there's no wonder we got a lot of complaints about sharpness.

All that said, the D800 has almost exactly the same pixel density as a D7000. If you can get sharp shots with a D7000, you'll be able to do so with a D800, especially if we put the same lens on and just look at the central area of the shot, where all lenses perform best.

The notion some people have that the D800 can't be handheld is wrong. It can. It just takes the same level of technique that D7000 users have had to attain.

What People See
March 20 (commentary)--It'll be a bit longer before I can finish my own controlled tests, but all the D4 and D800 samples now starting to appear on the Web allows us to make some preliminary observations.

I believe I wrote this before, but I'll repeat it: the D4 images look a lot like D3s images. The D4 has some dynamic range benefits at the lowest ISOs, while the D3s still appears to create the HI ISO values slightly better. The operative word for the most part is "slight" (Base ISO dynamic range may be the exception). In my opinion, not enough to make a tangible difference to decision making.

Image quality-wise a D4 is visually an awful lot like a D3s with 16mp instead of 12mp, and more dynamic range at base ISO. That's a very nice jump in sensor capability considering that the D3s was essentially state of the art. But it doesn't truly dethrone the D3s as a low-light camera. Technically, you could downsize the D4's 16mp to 12mp and get a slight benefit, but in practice I'll bet that most D4 shooters will just consider the change in pixel count a "cropping flexibility."

I believe some slight differences in channel response between the D3s and D4 exist, as I'm seeing higher blue channel WB shifts on the D4, and thus different light types could trigger slightly different response. But that difference, too, is small, and I'll need more time with the D4 in my hand to figure out how to describe this. Overall, the D4 is turning out to be more impressive than most of us were guessing it would be given the pixel count boost. Good job, Nikon.

That said, the D3s doesn't immediately go into the garbage bin. It still is an amazing camera, just 12mp. If you can pick one up cheap (doubtful, but there's always those who are quick to abandon good for good+), it'll still take great shots tomorrow. To put it a different way: if someone were to invite me to shoot the Olympics this year I wouldn't worry if all I had was a D3s.

Meanwhile, the D800 is a slightly different story. To date, most of the discussion has been about D700 versus D800, but I think we now have to compare D4 versus D800. Here, things are going to settle out just about as they did with the D3x and D3s, I think. If you downsize a D800 image to D4 size, the D4 image is visibly better at some ISO point. Again, I need much more time trying to quantify and explain the differences, but they are clearly apparent to me.

So let's rewind back to the D3 era. What I wrote about the D3/D3x combo boiled down to this kind of gross simplification:

• With the D3 I'd shoot with a complete disregard towards ISO up to about ISO 800. It's a camera that you can shoot at Auto ISO 800 without seeing any high level visibility in image differences.
• With the D3x, I always wanted to shoot at base ISO, and always pulled the ISO down as low as the situation allowed. Any bump in D3x ISO basically undercut dynamic range and increased noise production, and it was marginally visible at any 2x increase in ISO, and definitely visible at a 4x increase.
• Thus, I tended to shoot with my D3x only up to ISO 800, at which point I always felt that it was better to use the D3 (and especially D3s).

So here we are with a D800 and D4. Did anything change? So far, I'm betting no. Substitute D4 for D3/D3s in the above, and D800 for D3x, and I'll bet I'll end up writing something very similar to those three bullet points.

Oh, I might change that third bullet to ISO 1600 (or 1000 or 3200 or whatever the number turns out to be), but so far in every sample I've seen, whether it be from Nikon, from a pro shooter I know, from a Web test sample, or the few samples I've been able to shoot myself under uncontrolled conditions, I keep seeing the same thing. (Before anyone says "well, you're seeing what you expected to see," no, that's not the case at all. If you recall, I wrote not too long ago that I didn't think that Nikon could match the D3s while increasing pixel count. The D3 was state-of-the-art when it appeared, the D3s trumped that by almost a stop, now the D4 moves beyond that mark yet again. That's one hell of a sensor parade, and wasn't what I expected.)

Now let's get to the title of this little article: "What People See." Here's where things get noisy (pardon the pun). Some of us have been trained in low-level image analysis. Most people posting on Internet fora are not. I see mostly hyperbole and exaggeration ("OMG the D800 is as good as a D4"), as well as a few pixel peeping party poopers ("OMG look at all that noise at the pixel level").

Comparing image samples is not an easy thing to do. Looking at JPEGs on the Web created from converted raws of not tightly controlled shooting is not conducive to making high quality analysis. I can make many cameras "look like" other cameras if you give me that many loose variables. It's one reason why I went more to a "read what I write" versus "here's some samples or numbers" approach in my reviews.

To be truly equal, cameras would have to have the same resolution, same dynamic range, same noise propagation, do so under a wide range of test conditions and lens settings, and be post processed exactly the same. I currently do see equality between the D4 and D800 at the higher ISO values.

Just like a D3x had an advantage over the D3 at low ISO values when downsampled to 12mp, so will the D800 have an advantage to the D4, I think (again, very early analysis; I reserve the right to change my mind after a more thorough examination). At some higher ISO value, there will be a crossover point where the D4 image will be better than the downsampled D800 one. I've seen people speculating that this could be really really high, like ISO 12,800, but when I look at their samples, I don't see what they see (plus the samples themselves have issues). Moreover, be careful about what you're looking at. The same test at f/2.8 might show something slightly different than a diffraction impacted f/16. That's why some of us have to spend days running a complicated series of tests before we come up for air with an answer. Until you see the white smoke coming up from the chimney of my office, I haven't elected a new leader yet.

There's no doubt in my mind at this point that the D4 and D800 are going to be great cameras to shoot with. Compared with the D3 and D700 that kicked off the last generation, the bar has been clearly and tangibly raised. Just be careful of people who aren't seeing differences between a D4 and D800, or are stating that a D4 is vastly superior to a D3s, or are making other claims that aren't quite supported by the evidence to date.

The news is good (the D4 and D800 are excellent). Just not necessarily as good as some people are writing in haste. Heck, they may be better. I don't know for sure yet, other than to say that Nikon is continuing to make fantastic progress tuning their sensors and getting results that make for great photographic images in a wide range of conditions. It's going to be fun pressing the D4 and D800 as far as they can go. Indeed, they're good enough that I think they'll challenge my photographic skill.

D800 Ship Date
March 20 (news)--Here in the US it appears that the first D800 shipments will hit dealers on March 22nd. With both the D4 and D800 shipments, NikonUSA is apparently using overnight services to make sure that all dealers get as close to simultaneous delivery as possible.

Thus, by the end of the week, the following things will have started shipping in the US: D4, D800, EN-EL18, and WT-5. Almost certainly, all except the WT-5 will be sellouts in the initial deliveries. According to several dealers I've talked to, almost none have gotten all the D700, D800, or D4 bodies they have on order. FX is in short supply for awhile.

One other bit: in the US the warehouse closes the last week of each quarter for inventory, so nothing is likely to go out next week. I don't yet have information about when the next shipment hits the US, though in previous back order situations like this, it appeared that Nikon did a new shipment within two weeks of the original. If I had to guess, that means Ides of April is about when we'll see the second small batch hit the US.

We Aren't There Yet
March 19 (commentary)--The recent camera news has all been interesting and even a bit tantalizing. High resolution captures. Possibly connected cameras. iPads with better than HD screens. Cloud image storage that pushes to any device you'd like. In an ideal world, putting all those things together would make me very happy.

We don't live in an ideal world. Consider this scenario: I put an 8GB EyeFi card in my D800's SD slot and capture images to my iPad. At the settings I use, that's 103 images. Now, my iPad is used for more than just photos. It's got apps, books, references, sketches, mockups, databases, contacts, calendar, and usually a movie or two on it. Even with my 64GB iPad it's rare that I have 16GB of free space. So two D800 card's (8GB) worth of images, or 206 images.

Now the 206 images sit over on my iPad. That's not really where I eventually want them. They should just migrate to the cloud automatically in the best of worlds. The software to do that isn't all there yet. But we run into another problem: 16GB is 12GB more than my data plan allows in a month, let alone in the day or two I'd shoot 206 images.

Thus, my images have to wait until I've got a reliable WiFi connection to move off the iPad. Of course, when I get back to the hotel or office or wherever I've got WiFi, I need to do some other things on the Internet, so the downloads steal some (maybe all) of my bandwidth. If you've used WiFi at hotels/airports/etc., you'll know what I'm talking about: the shared bandwidth you get is usually good enough for slow, casual Web browsing and email, but guaranteed to frustrate you if you try moving big files.

Yes, this is a US centric view of the world. There are parts of the world where bandwidth is more reliable, but there's still usually the issue of cost.

The bad news is that the camera companies and the photo software companies don't really have any say in what happens in that "in between" world (the wireless world between our cameras and our computers). Worse still, the mantra of the service economy, which does define that world, is fees, fees, fees. Preferably big fees for little actual service, with tack-on fees for more services.

So let's see, I've got an Internet provider, a mobile wireless provider, a cloud provider, and more all wanting a monthly tithe (plus overages). No wonder I prefer to do my workflow manually.

Still, we can't change the world for the better unless we can dream up that better world. That's how those of us who were involved in the emergence of Silicon Valley in the 70's and 80's thought: dream of a better future, then try to invent the things that make it real.

The problem, of course, is that you can dream ahead of reality. That's where we are today. Quite frankly, anyone who thinks the communications infrastructure in the US is good, let alone optimal, is having a different kind of dream: delusion. We got to our duopoly and oligopoly mess under the mantra of "free enterprise." Sorry, but it's a loosely regulated oligopoly at best, and oligopolies aren't good at anything other than increasing the money coming to them.

For we photographers to get what we need, we require what we used to have in the FCC: an agency that regulates a restricted resource for the public good, not for the business good. In the current political environment, that won't ever happen, so getting to the dream is going to take longer than it should, and the dream is going to be watered down (and expensive) when it arrives. At least here in the US.

Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Lens Announced
March 16 (news)--The wraps are off the new Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon ultra wide angle lens. At almost US$3000 and 15mm, it isn't for everyone, but it gives another strong wide angle choice to FX shooters.

The lens is chipped for exposure automation on Nikon bodies, and weighs in at about 26 ounces (730g). The front element is big (95mm filters), and it comes with a petal-type lens hood. Near focus is about 10" (0.25m). Zeiss claims a low (2%) barrel distortion figure.

Some will want to know what I meant by "15mm...isn't for everyone." Lenses with really wide angle capabilities aren't exactly used for their "wideness." If you're trying to frame a very wide subject, you're probably better taking a pano approach with a longer focal length, because just using a wide angle lens will give you a very flat look and include huge areas that aren't important to you. You get a very flat, distant look if all you use a wide angle for is to frame wider.

Where ultra wide starts to have great use is in altering perpsective: getting really close to foreground subjects and letting the perspective push depth into your subject. To that end, the 10" minimum focus distance is a good thing. With lenses like this new one, you need a really strong near, a solid middle, and a decent far to pull off a great shot.

Android is Not the Answer
March 15 (commentary)--With Engadget's reporting that Samsung is developing an Android-based camera, I'm seeing more and more people saying Hallelujah, here comes what Thom asked for.

Sorry, I didn't ask for that.

I love some of the comments I've read about the Android camera possibility:

• There's a big universe of Android photography apps that could be run. Uh, no. If you talk to any Android developer they point out that they pretty much have to do a custom compile for every Android device they support. There is no perfect common code base you can deploy in the Android world. Thus, a camera would have to become incredibly popular to attract developers. Unfortunately, compact cameras sell in far lower volumes than even the mediocre smart phones. So when the developer of Super Android Photo App With Angry Birds is looking at which platform to next spend time and energy to get it working, it's going to be on Mediocre Smart Phone Ten, not Android Camera One.
• We'll edit on our cameras! Do you really think we're going to edit images on 3" VGA displays? Not very useful, IMHO. So the Android camera has to either grow a few pixels on its display (like 4x) or I hope you like crude. Oh, and the display will need to be touch, plus we need a fast CPU with a lot of internal memory. Hmm, all this on a cheap compact camera? While smart phone prices look cheap, they're subsidized by the carriers. Are you really willing to pay US$700 for an Android compact camera?
• Users will start programming their cameras. After all, Android is an "open" environment, right? Less open every day, but that's not the point. How many of you actually program? And how many of you who program actually know how to do "camera things" or "image editing things" in the Android environment?
• Cameras will start talking directly to the wireless phone networks. That'll be fun to watch. A couple of the camera companies (Panasonic, Samsung, Sony) do have divisions that work with the network carriers, but again we run into that volume thing: if Android Compact Camera can't outsell Mediocre Android Smart Phone, what network is going to give a darned about it? And who wants an AT&T logo on their camera with AT&T exclusive features, because I don't think networked Android Camera will happen without the phone carriers getting into the design act. Oh, and can you imagine the firmware update issues with an OS (Android), carrier (AT&T), and camera company involved?

The simpler solutions are twofold: first, the one I showed last week (camera add-on to the phone) or just WiFi to the phone and have an app that understands the camera on the phone. Both are simpler to do and cheaper to the user.

All that said, someone will be first. First to fail with an Android-based camera, that is. I forget where I read it recently, but one of the wiser Web writers wrote something akin to "the sad thing about bad products or poorly considered products that come out of R&D is that the company decides they have to sell them anyway." Note to consumer electronic companies: that's not what Apple has been doing, and it might actually be part of their success. Just a thought.

When I first wrote about Communicating, Programmable, Modular cameras, I wrote about a manufacturer starting and controlling its own new ecosystem, not drinking the Kool Aid of someone else's.

D4 Shows up Tomorrow
March 15 correction (news)--It appears that the first NPS (Nikon Professional Services members) Priority Purchase orders for the D4 will arrive at dealers tomorrow along with some additional cameras. Included with the camera for those orders is a free Sony 16GB XQD card and card reader. That's the good news.

The bad news is that it appears that not all NPS Priority Purchase orders will actually ship tomorrow, only the first batch of them. Dealers appear to be getting a small number of non-NPS D4s as well. So far, most dealers I've talked to have not gotten the full number of bodies they ordered initially. But there are a few D4's out there if you look hard enough. As I suggest during any Nikon shortage: because Nikon has to supply all US dealers equally at each level, it's usually the smaller market dealers where you'll find an extra body. Philadelphia, no. Harrisburg, maybe.

Short story: D4 bodies are going to be in very short supply for a while. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure we'll go through the same thing with the D800.

Wrong!
March 12 (news)--TechRadar reports a quote from the UK Marketing Manager for Nikon saying: "...ultimately, we want pros to be buying our DSLRs...I'm not sure [a pro Nikon 1] would help us to be the number one brand."

Sorry, but very wrong thinking. Indeed, completely bungled thinking. The correct thinking would be "we want every pro to have a Nikon 1 in their bag along with our DSLRs." The Nikon Marketing Manager's quote is a bit like saying "we won't make minivans because we want our contractors to buy trucks." No, you want your purchasers to buy any and everything Nikon. If you think a pro only carries one DSLR, you're badly mistaken. Moreover, you absolutely, positively, tremendously want that pro to be shooting with your Nikon 1 for casual shooting. You want them to tell all the people that ask "yeah, it's a great little camera for casual shooting."

Myopia can become not only viral within an organization, it can prove fatal, too. So let's help Nikon along here by doing a little survey.

Speaking of the Nikon 1
March 12 (news)--My Complete Guide to the Nikon 1 is now available for US$19.99 as a download (yes, I wrote download). Over 500 pages of detailed information on the J1 and V1 cameras written in the easily understood language you've come to expect from me.

Did you know that the V1 takes different sized still images when you're recording video depending upon the frame rate you've set for 1080 recording? You would if you read my book. One thing that took me a little longer with this work is that there are lots of these little arcane details where Nikon did something different than usual. Moreover, they didn't catch some of their own changes! For example, you can attempt to set 1, 2, 3, or 4 seconds in the Interval shooting method, but the camera won't use them. Catching and documenting all these things without creating too much complexity in the resulting work took me a little longer than usual.

And Speaking of Buying
March 12 (commentary)--When you make a purchase of a new piece of equipment for your photography there are a number of elements which you can use to dictate whether to buy or not. Do you know which ones you really value? Let's find out.

• Price. Some people buy primarily on price. A product at US$X gets an immediately higher ranking than one with a price of US$X+Y. The bigger Y gets, the more that these folks buy the former over the latter.
• Performance. Some are more attuned to the low-level performance of the product. The pixel peepers tend to fall into this category, as small differences in noise, dynamic range, resolution, etc., are important to them. Unlike price, it sometimes only takes a very small difference for someone to decide that product A is worth buying over product B.
• Quality. This is the old Yugo versus Toyota thing wrapped into a different product category. Why buy a product if it is likely to break, or if you might get a sample that's less than perfect?
• Brand. A relative of the quality argument, but it goes further. Brand loyalists will buy Brand J over Brand K even if the price is a little higher, the performance a little less, and the quality a little less. Why? Usually one of two reason: (1) they bought into a brand in the first place, and they're constantly trying to validate that choice; or (2) they bought into a marketing message and are now a "believer," even when evidence might contradict their choice. Essentially, a brand purchaser has bought into a first premise (belief), and it's near impossible to break someone of that. When you do, they're clueless and have to start from scratch in their assessment, which makes them defend their first premise more.
• Newness. Hey, ain't capitalism grand? New is always better, right? This is another first premise thing: somewhere along the line the marketing folks managed to program your brain into believing that a newer product is more valuable and capable than an old one. Sometimes it is (though not always in every way). Often it's just new. (Companies can't claim the term "new" after certain time periods elapse, usually 12 months in most jurisdictions, so they change something small and claim it's new.)
• Feature. A specific aspect of the product that you were waiting for and wasn't available to you before. Unfortunately, some get the feature/performance line so blurred that they misinterpret one for the other. One good case was the move from 10 to 12mp sensors. 12 is better than 10, right? More resolution is a feature, and it's a performance gain. Well, yes, it's a feature, but the question these days is "just how much performance gain?" And is that gain worth paying for?
• Size/Weight. Really a feature, but I've broken it out for a reason. Here's a category that some of the camera makers are partially ignoring. I say partially because they are coming up with lesser cameras (Nikon 1, for example) to achieve the size/weight difference. Why the camera makers are ignoring one of the top requested features and one of the things that would provoke the most upgrading amongst existing users I don't know. They seem to fear something about selling a 24mp FX DSLR that's the size of an FM2n and not the size of an F100 or F5. Or even a 16mp DX DSLR that's the size of an FM2n. But it's clear to me that a good deal of buying is now being considered with size/weight in mind, and the world around me just amplifies that. I can't carry even a full DX kit to Africa without hitting the 30 pound mark, a mark that goes beyond virtually every airline and bush plane limit I'll be exposed to getting there.

So in the context of all the new product launches earlier this year we get:

• 1Dx v. D4, 5DIII v. D800, Canon v. Nikon: this is really the Brand argument, though people keep trying to wrap in the Price, Performance, Quality, and Feature arguments. Personally, I don't see enough differences in those latter four arguments to make a strong call one way or another, thus the discussion is really about Brand. I just don't understand the brand switchers. We've had at least four measurable migrations in 13 years, and really only the first two had enough difference in the other factors to be remotely justified. If you're switching brands now, it's because you're switching brands, period.
• OM-D: Olympus has threatened to make good on the Size/Weight argument for almost nine years now. With the OM-D it looks like they may finally be able to say "smaller with near equivalent performance."
• Fujifilm X-Pro1 or Canon G1x: Here we have a Feature doing all the talking. For the X-Pro1 it's a hybrid viewfinder, for the G1x it's a big sensor in a compact body. If either is what you've been waiting for, then you're good to go: you now can get what you want, so pony up the dough, boy.
• Panasonic: I'll be posting a bunch of Panasonic reviews on sansmirror.com shortly, but one thing I'm struck by is this: Panasonic thinks New is the way to go. The GH1 and GF1 were fine cameras. Not a lot to critique about them other than some nits about m4/3 sensor performance. GH2, G10, G2, G3, and GF2, GF3, GX1 later, and...there's not a lot to critique about them (because they are refinements on the originals) other than some nits about their sensor performance. Now, if you ask Panasonic, they'll say the new cameras are all about Features and Performance. Sorry, but the Features are gimmicky (e.g. touch screens) and the Performance didn't move much from, oh, say the GF1 to the GF3. Even the 16mp versus 12mp sensor change didn't move the Performance bar much. So I'm personally just left with New as the primary driver. Only problem with that is that, here in the US, Panasonic barely manages to deliver the New before they've launched a new New.
• Closeouts: Meanwhile Price is driving a lot of the m4/3 uptake here in the US. We're seeing E-PL1 and other older bodies on incredible closeout sales, and that's finally moved some market share from DSLR to mirrorless here in the US.

Return of the Fans
March 7 (commentary)--I thought we were mostly through with the brand rah-rah (or is it raw-raw?) Internet chatter regarding high end cameras. Silly me. Apparently the fan folk were just catching up on their sleep while the quake and floods delayed key products.

So which is better: a D800 or a 5DIII? A D4 or a 1Dx?

Trick question. None of the above. They're tools. How well you'll do with one of those tools depends upon how well you study their capabilities and how good you are as a tool user. Simple as that.

Yet every hour I get new emails from one camp or another touting how much better X is than Y, or how terrible the things they see in a pixel level view in a poorly captured sample look, or how a missing setting ruins the whole product, or sometimes just outlandish (and often incomprehensible) claims that appear to be fueled by to much H and OH bonded to their carbons.

Of course, you'd think by now that the camera makers would know that they probably ought to really think through their sample image production. When you pick a location with stained, peeling, and bubbling paint, some people will mistake those things for "pixel defects," after all. And if you miss your focus point, even by a tiny amount, the AA filter must be tuned incorrectly.

Still, the simple truth is this: at the levels the high-end cameras (and even some of the lower- and mid-level ones) are today, there's little to separate Brand A from Brand B. That doesn't stop even some knowledgeable pros from seeking out even one smallish push forward in performance, whether that be in dynamic range, noise, focus, frame rate, lenses, or whatever. Frankly, planning, preparation, and patience tend to gain me more than what the camera makers are gaining in their latest tweaks. Don't get me wrong, I'll always take improvements, but is there any chance I care to switch brands to gain a small improvement in Items A,B, and C and lose it in Items D, E, and F? Nope. Heck, not even for reasonably big gains. Both Nikon and Canon have user interfaces that some of us have decades of experience with. Just the handling change alone is often enough to make me lose a shot.

I do shoot with the competitive brand from time to time, usually borrowing it from a pro friend or two. But I try to make sure I only do that on work that isn't for pay, as I've sometimes found myself staring at the camera wondering where the heck a button or menu choice is, or worse still, what some item's name in the menu system actually means. Do that at a paying gig and you won't have many more paying gigs to worry about.

So let's boil some of this down:

• Does it make a difference whether I can shoot at ISO 6400 or 12,800 in getting the same noise level? No. Not to me it doesn't. First, I'm not shooting at those levels except under exceptional conditions where there is no other choice. I'm already at least three stops better than I was with film, and I managed that kind of shooting in some pretty tough conditions without ISO 102,400. Or even ISO 3200. Even where a camera is indeed a stop better (and I doubt that these pro cameras are that far apart), at high ISO values I'm having to apply noise reduction anyway, and with care the difference is mostly moot.
• Does it make a difference whether I have 51 or 61 or 135 or some other amount of AF sensors? No. What matters with autofocus is how well I know the system, period. Autofocus isn't a crutch. It's a nuanced tool that needs to be embraced. Do I miss shots from time to time? Yes, but almost always because of something I did or didn't do.
• Do I need 1 or 2 more fps? Absolutely not! In fact, I'd argue that there's evidence that these gains tend to come at the expense of autofocus performance more often than not. For what? At 1/500 second, which is usually the minimum of where I'm at when I'm shooting any kind of burst, the difference between "getting the shot" at 4 fps versus 12 fps boils down to not a lot of advantage: 1 in 125 of a chance of getting "the shot" versus 1 in 42. Meanwhile, if I actually use my senses to carefully time a single shot, I find my odds go up significantly, to something like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4. Which do you think I prefer?
• Is 36mp better than 22mp? Or 18mp better than 16mp? I suppose if I were blowing my images up to compete with Peter Lik's galleries, I might prefer 36mp. But then again, I'd probably just shoot MF if I were going that big on non-moving subjects. I have plenty of resolution in the 16-24mp range. Most of my clients need less.

I've written it before and I'll reiterate it here: we're at the peak of DSLRs. I can't really think of a shot I'd like to take that can't be taken and produce good results with this latest round of cameras. I'll be happy to argue the nuances at the pixel level with anyone, but we're definitely in the realm of nits. So don't be a nit-come-poop: either you need top level capabilities or you don't. If you don't, why mouth off?

That said, as usual both Nikon and Canon have managed to include enough irritations in their new products that there's definitely something to complain about from everyone. I'm still convinced that the camera designers don't really know how people are shooting (or perhaps trying to dictate how people shoot). I'll cite one example: HDR. On the Nikons, you have exactly one choice: create a two-shot HDR JPEG or not. If you choose not, the bracketing system will fight you in setting up exactly the sequence you want. Neither option (automated or on your own) gives you any help in defining where the "edges" of your scene's brightness are. In other words, none of the engineers seem to actually have shot an optimized HDR sequence. They do know how to combine a dark and light image, though, thus the JPEG two-shot combo. I'll reiterate my offer: I'm willing to take a dozen Japanese engineers out shooting for a few days and show them the way things are actually done in the field. My only goal would be to make sure that the camera engineers actually here real user demands.

Meantime, the Canon and Nikon pro shooters are doing just that: shooting. All they need to know is whether the new stuff gives them any advantage in actual use than the stuff they're currently using. The answer is almost certainly yes in both camps. D4 users, for example, get more pixels and more reliable autofocus. Who would balk at that? Not me.

I'm Just Saying
March 7 (commentary)--Someone asked me how the camera companies could survive in the cell phone era.

Just twist and shoot baby. Any other questions? (Link to this here.)

My New Gig
March 6 (news)--I'm writing a column for a new iPad-based magazine edited by Michael Freeman (one of his books, The Photographer's Eye, is on my recommended book list).

I'm awed by the talent writing for the magazine: Bob Krist, Steve Sint, Jay Maisel, Douglas Dubler, as well as Michael and a host of other very talented folk. The images inside will give you the shakes. The range of topics and styles covered is amazing. The photographic talent on display is nothing short of sterling. My humble contribution is a column entitled Optimal Data, my mantra when out photographing. I hope to explore how to achieve just that when photographing, and all the ways in which photography's entropy works to stop us. Eventually those columns will make it to my site, but probably not for months and well after the rest of the world has had a chance to enjoy them.

The new magazine is called The Photographers i, and you can find more about it at www.photographersi.com/. The second issue with my debut column is now out. Look for it.

Software Day
March 6 (news)--The big news is Adobe Lightroom 4.0, which ships today at a new lower price (US$149, US$79 for updates). D4 and D800 owners--hey, wait, are there any yet?--will be happy to know that Lightroom 4.0 supports the new cameras.

Lightroom's changes aren't monumental, but they're scattered throughout the product and very important. The Develop changes alone are probably worth the price of upgrading. If you're a video shooter, the fact that Lightroom now deals with organizing and working with your video is also a key feature. The book creation ability (through Blurb) has improved significantly. Throughout the program you find that Adobe has reworked, augmented, and supplemented key elements. XP users need not apply, though, as that decade old OS is no longer supported. At the new price, Lightroom is almost a bargain.

Meanwhile, Adobe also released the US$9.99 Photoshop Touch for the iPad. While it's not everything Photoshop is on a desktop machine and it can be a little sluggish on big files, it's really the first iOS photo editor that feels robust and works the way we're used to. Definitely a bargain.

Elsewhere in software we've got Nik's Snapseed now available for Windows, which makes it pretty available on everything now. It's a completely different approach than Adobe's in terms of image editing, but also one that resonates with a lot of users.

In the Mac App Store convert 1.0 is a batch image conversion program for photographers dealing with large numbers of images; Camera Awesome is SmugMug's contribution to the camera and dispatcher realm, and quite a good one at that; Panorama 1.0 is another in the long line of panorama stitchers; Graphic Converter 7.6.2 adds some minor features and tweaks some of the interface; and PhotoStyler 6.3 is another of those Polaroid/Lomo/et.al. image transformers.

Site Slowdown
March 5 (news)--The next ten days or so probably will be a bit lean on site updates. I've got a gaggle of product reviews I'm trying to get completed, and I'm spending most of my time doing product and sample shots to finish them up. The first batch will be reviews for sansmirror.com late next week. The second batch will be catching up on DX lenses, probably the following week.

What about FX lenses? I decided that it was appropriate to wait until I've had time to double check those products with the D4, D800, and D800E. We're moving from 12mp to as much as 36mp in FX, and that's going to bring small things more to the fore on many lenses. Indeed, I believe I'm going to have to run everything back through the wringer just to verify that all those pixels don't change anything substantive in my Rationalizing Lenses article. All that extra work is going to take some time, and I need cameras before I can begin (no, I don't get advance copies of products from Nikon; I usually buy my equipment just like you do).

What Would You Do?
March 2 (news)--IC Insights published information on what they thought the compact camera marketplace will look like versus the cell phone camera (over 3mp). Here's my version using their numbers:

The blue is compact cameras, the green is cell phone cameras.

Pretty daunting, yes? The numbers work out to 144m compact cameras in 2015, 1.515 billion cell phone cameras produced in the same year. Compact camera growth is anemic, at best (2%), while from 2011 to 2015 the cell phone camera market triples (200%).

So if you were a camera maker, what would you do? If you wrote software for photography, what would you do? If you were to invest in a company associated with imaging, what would you invest in? If you were considering buying a low-end camera, what would you do? (Remember those 38mp images from the Nokia 808, described below.)

New Article
March 1 (news)--Over on sansmirror.com I posted a basic sharpening/noise reduction technique article some readers of this site might be interested in.

Swimming in Ponds
Feb 29 updated (commentary)--How timely. On March 1st Kodak discontinued its remaining slide films.

When things shift in the modern world, they shift fast. And when you make mistakes, you pay for them quickly, too. Film as we know it is in deep jeopardy at the moment. No, it won't go away, but it's likely going to end up much like high end audio did: a handful of players catering to a small pond occupied by an analog crowd.

One thing that's hastening the shift is Kodak. They used to be the big boat in a huge pond. Now it seems that they simply are going to hold onto their sinking boat right to the bottom. Three interesting data points: (1) they're closing down and selling off almost all their digital imaging assets (cameras, sensors, patents); (2) they're counting on printers to be their main business in the future; and (3) if your local theatre doesn't change over to digital projection this year, it won't have anything to show next.

It's sad to see Kodak abandon the digital world they helped create. But they've always had Big Company mentality in what was essentially a startup business. It was product margins that caused Kodak to not embrace digital as they should have. Film, paper, and chemicals have huge product margins, consumer electronics have thin ones (Apple notwithstanding ;~).

Kodak never embraced the TI perspective on semiconductors that pervades consumer electronics (volume eventually creates product margin). Kodak acted much like Xerox did with its R&D: invent the future but not productize it (I'm referring to Xerox PARC here). Kodak made strange and inconsistent decisions, too: first they used contract manufacturing, then they bought a manufacturer, then they mostly abandoned that. At almost every turn in digital photography you see Kodak's Labs doing interesting things and the company waffling around making inconsistent and contradictory decisions, or worse, no decisions at all. This part of the story is a management case study writ large.

Of course, the rest of Kodak's business decisions haven't been all that wise, either. Kodak is pinning it's future on another dying market: printers. Even industry leader HP is having a tough time finding future growth in printers, as overall printing demand is down at the consumer level. The pond is getting smaller. How becoming a printer company will save Kodak is beyond me. So mismanagement isn't a thing of the past at Kodak: it's ingrained in their culture now.

Even if Kodak were to succeed, they're electing to swim in a pond that's drying up. The modus operandi in consumer printers is this: build a printer at a loss, make big profit and volume on supplies. Unfortunately, to make a printer and not make too big a loss, you cut corners, so the printer eventually fails, creating a new event a couple years down the road where the customer needs a new printer (which you'll make another loss on). Yes, I know that Kodak says that they're trying to change that model by making the printers more expensive and the supplies less expensive. That model hasn't really made a dent in the marketplace after several years of trying. And going up-scale in price in a down market is another of those big fish in a pond that is drying up things.

From Kodak's mismanaged perspective printing looks like a "win" because they have enough volume to make a "profit" at this business. The problem is that, if Kodak was reduced to just a printing business, its legacy overhead costs pretty much kill that. Which, of course, is the real reason why it is in bankruptcy.

I'm betting, however, that the post-bankruptcy Kodak will continue to have the same problems in its new business as it had in the old. They went for printers over cameras for a simple reason: the supply business is akin to the old Kodak business (paper, chemicals/ink). They got margin-centric in their thinking. However, I'd argue that digital photography could have had a "supply" component: the cloud. The Internet's create-the-site-first-do-the-business-model-later aspect probably confused them on that. But if there was one business Kodak should have owned, it was social sharing of images. Seems like others have figured out to build a pretty darned good profit margin doing social net stuff. Some of them are growing a pretty darned big pond. So, more Kodak mismanagement.

The last of the three data points I pointed out is the real killer, though: film is going away in moviemaking, and specifically, this year. Hollywood was a nice highly-profitable business for Kodak (and Fujifilm). It's directly tied to the legacy film business in all aspects, R&D, manufacturing, and so on, so running stock off for Hollywood was a no-brainer operation. There's only one problem: the biggest aspect of this business, the printing of films to be distributed to theaters, is about to die completely. Several studios have already gone all digital for projection. The rest are now following. Small theaters are struggling with the costs associated with that transfer, and we have estimates that we'll see at least a thousand of them die this year, maybe more. But by the end of 2012 almost all movies you'll see in a theatre in the US will be projected from encrypted hard drives, not film. There's a permanent drought drying up this pond!

What I find strange is that everything that's causing Kodak problems has been predictable, and some of it has been predictable for a very long period of time. The predictions don't get any better for Future Kodak than they are for the current in-bankruptcy version or their previous incarnation. Their projected post-bankruptcy future is mostly defined as trying to take market share away from industry leaders in a market that's shrinking. Hmm. Doesn't that usually mean taking less margin and competing on price? Wasn't that what they didn't want to do and caused them to skip digital photography in the first place?

So let's circle back to my third sentence: Film as we know it is in deep jeopardy at the moment. Even the things that Kodak was counting on keeping some healthy volume going with film, e.g. Hollywood, are disappearing. It won't be long now before they have to jettison film altogether, I think.

With the Kodak domino falling, that really only leaves one last big film domino, and that's Fujifilm. Fujifilm has been smarter at dealing with transitioning their legacy business (and by far). They'll likely ride fllm for as long as any significant volume holds up, as they've already written off plant and equipment. They'll get a slight boost, actually, if Kodak really drops the ball as I expect them to. But the handwriting is very much on the wall: film is already a small pond, and it's about to become a very small pond. It's not a great time to be a fisherman.

All Washed Up
Feb 28 (news)--Just how bad did the Thailand floods hurt camera production? Bad, real bad.

When you compare the third quarter (pre-flood) to fourth quarter (flood) you get these numbers:

With compacts, most of the production is done in China and a number of other SE Asian countries. Moreover, compact sales have been falling slightly to start with, so the change can't necessarily be attributed all to the floods. Still, much of the change probably was parts supply affected by the flood.

Mirrorless and DSLRs are still growing categories, and here we see big drops, especially for DSLRs (Sony and Nikon both produce a majority of their DSLRs in Thailand where the floods closed plants).

True, quarter-to-quarter estimates aren't a perfect measuring tool. But we've not seen this large of change in the negative direction in any previous years when comparing the same quarters (typically the opposite, as the flood-impacted quarter has a lot of Christmas season re-stocking in it).

Deja Vu all Deja Vu Again
Feb 27 (commentary)--So here we go again. I don't know how many times we have to have this discussion, but it seems that we keep having it. Which is better, compressed or non-compressed? Bit reduction or full bit recording?

Back in the early days of DSLRs I used to fight with some other well known big name shooters who went around saying "you only need to shoot JPEG." Every time they said that, I would have to go around saying "raw is better." Funny thing is, every one of those early JPEG pundits is now shooting raw. Why? The explanation is simple: data reduction can't be retreived. You're always better off with more and more accurate sampling data than data that's been through the wringer.

The "evidence" for "JPEG is good enough" is always the same: "I can't see any difference." Well, that's the point. JPEG (and MPEG which I'll get to) were about data reduction that didn't become visible to the majority of people. The data reduction is still there, though, and it'll nip you by your short hairs the minute you start trying to do much in the way of post processing on the data. 8 bits is not 14 bits. sRGB is not ProPhotoRGB. Fourier reduction of pixels to formula is data reduction. Lost data, lost data, lost data. You never get this data back, and some day you'll find that you want to make a change that requires it. Sure, most of us have learned how to patch over JPEG issues in post, but it's more work and there will always be things you can't do because the data just isn't there.

Don't get me wrong, JPEG is indeed "good enough" for most people, and a lot of pro work, too. But if there's a chance that anyone is ever going to touch your files post-shoot and make changes to pixel data, not having missing data is really, really helpful. So helpful, that the first time you encounter what missing data does to you in post processing, you'll start shooting raw. Heck, you still get a JPEG every time you shoot raw, so if that's what you want, have at the embedded image.

Lately we're hearing the same argument all over again: "you only need to shoot video in AVCHD." The well known pros saying this are using the same old "good enough" and "can't see a difference" arguments. Apparently they've never had anyone seriously color grade (post process) their video to any extreme. Because missing data is still missing data. Again, we get bit reduction (typically 10 bits is being dropped to 8 bits). We get color reduction (4:4:2 or 4:2:2 becomes 4:2:0). We get completely missing frames (we're doing a JPEG-like compression only on the data that changes between frames), and we get variable compression levels (bit rates).

Video is no different than still photography. Indeed, I try to approach both similarly: collect optimal data. Make the data neutral and flat. Don't put compression or other data reductions in place until you've made all your pixel level corrections (which includes post processing). No difference. Shoot flat, neutral raws with no highlight blowouts in stills; shoot flat, neutral uncompressed 4:2:2 or better (preferably in 10-bit) with no highlight blowouts in video. Post process the proper contrast and other effects into both. Post processing isn't a chore, because all the data is there and you're not dealing with gaps. Simple as that. Yet we still have pros saying "AVCHD is good enough." I'm betting that in a few years they're all shooting with less or no compression.

So let me predict the future. Some day we'll have holographic recording at the consumer level. Because there's a lot of data involved, the holomakers will come up with HPEG. Early pro pundits will go around touting "you only need to shoot in HPEG" because they "can't see a difference." Meanwhile, the rest of us who know better will be shooting in HoloRaw. And when people start asking why our work looks so good and how we managed to pull out highlight and shadow and 3D detail, guess what my answer will be? ;~) Heck, guess what Hollywood will be doing?

Record optimal data. Keep that data intact for as long in the processing as possible. Reduce data only when the output format is known, and optimize for that format at output only.

Of course, the masses will continue to use JPEG/MPEG/HPEG and be perfectly happy. But you're not the masses, are you? You're the 1% of photographers. You know what to do. (No, the answer isn't Occupy Sony.)

Okay, maybe some of you still don't know the right answer, so let me make it personal. I just invented a cloning machine. It can only make its snapshot of you just before you die (exactly when you most want to be cloned, memories and all). I've put two recording settings on my machine: 8-bit DNAPEG compression and 32-bit CelluRaw. Which setting would you like me to use for your clone?

What makes me think some pundit is going to say "DNAPEG is all you need?" Well, at least you'll save on memory (see next story).

75MB Isn't That Expensive
Feb 27 (commentary)--It appears that not enough of you have read my article on shooting less. I write that because one of the "complaints" about the D800 is that it creates 75MB raw files (it can do better than that with judicious use of compression, but for the sake of argument, I'll just use the largest size).

Back in the days of film, taking each image cost me out of pocket about 28 cents. That includes film, processing, and some courier service (I'd drop it off at the lab on my way home from the airport because it was convenient, but then have it couriered to me at the office the next morning). Even the most frugal person probably paid at least 17 cents a shot (and got random processing at that price).

What took me down this nostalgic road was far more than a few people making the contention that storage costs, especially once considering backups, would eat them alive if they shot with a D800 with it's 75MB a whack penalty.

One man's penalty is another man's gain. As I've written many times, I'll take as many pixels as I can get assuming all else equal. More sampling equals better processing choices, amongst other things. But is that 75MB really a penalty in the first place?

Let's take what some view as a relatively expensive storage option: Amazon S3. Worst case, for a fully backed cloud storage system: 12.5 cents a GB/mo, or less than a penny a D800 image a month. It would take two years of storage before I even equalled my out of pocket film costs. Actually, less than that if I did critical editing out of shots that don't make the cut (in film, the cost was already incurred; in digital, if you delete the file, the cost isn't incurred).

But wait a minute, 12.5 cents a GB is US$125 a terrabyte a month. That sounds like a lot. After all, I can buy a 1TB hard drive from NewEgg for less than that. Okay, I'd need two, because I want a backup. Actually three, because I'd want an offsite backup, too. So call it three months worth of S3 storage costs to do it at home for a longer time. I'm starting to lose track of what fraction of a penny my D800 image is actually costing me.

I've written elsewhere about how expensive digital photography is. The camera body cost is just the tip of the iceberg. And the per image cost is pretty darned cheap, even with 75MB files. But this does raise an issue: the incremental cost of all those things--camera, lens, support, travel, computer, storage, and so on--does start to overwhelm more and more people. That's one of the reasons why I started predicting flattening sales of DSLRs way back in 2003. From the film days, we have a pretty good metric on how many households eventually go SLR and how many eventually stop using it for something simpler and cheaper.

A lot of the folk complaining about the D800 are candidates for getting off the DSLR escalator.

Or Maybe Even Just 17MB Is Expensive
Feb 27 (news and commentary)--As it turns out, the megapixel war has moved from the Nikon D800 to the Nokia 808 PureView. Yep, a cellphone. A cellphone with an enormous sensor (and a Zeiss lens). The new sensor measures out relatively close to the Nikon 1 sensor (about three quarters the size).

Of course, if you had to upload those 38mp images, even in JPEG format, via your cell phone service provider, you'd be paying for one heck of a lot of data transfer. (Wait, 38mp? Yes, while the sensor is 41mp, the max image size you can produce from it is 38mp. It's a multi-aspect ratio sensor.) A single image would chunk out at about 17MBs, which means your 1GB wireless plan would get throttled at about 60 images.

But here's the kick in the seat of camera maker's pants: Nokia has built in something called PureView, which allows you to do digital zoom and crop, or to downsize to 2, 3, 5, or 8mp image sizes to get better low light performance. All both during and post shooting and without clumsy menus or procedures. Hmm, why doesn't a D800 have that? Well, it does, sort of, via the old kludge menu-driven, procedural RETOUCH menu options and JPEG and crop sensor shooting sizes. Can you say "lack of imagination?"

We're at a crossroads of a different kind: it's the old DOS versus Windows thing all over again. The camera companies are still producing DOS. The cell phone and tablet makers are all heavy into the Windows side. For the same reason Windows eventually won on personal computers, so too will it win on cameras. The problem I see is that so far every last little bit of touchscreen and modern UI use on a camera I've seen is follow-the-leader: the camera companies are imitating things that others did on other devices long ago (makes you wonder whether they're ignoring patents again). Where's the UI that originates with a camera maker? Doesn't exist. Japan's camera makers are not driving the lead car, they're tailgating.

Still, you also have to wonder whether Nokia has gotten too ahead of the curve. A 41mp camera in a phone means that the phone really needs 64GB of storage. The choices are tough: you either pay more for all those pixels (storage, transfer, etc.) or you just don't take very many pictures.

Almost on Cue
Feb 25 (news and commentary)--Dealers on Friday got some new pricing from Nikon, specifically on the D700. The new suggested price is soon going to be US$2199 (currently US$2699). But here's an interesting kicker: there apparently won't be a minimum advertised price (MAP) associated with that, which would mean we'll likely see someone drop under the US$2000 mark.

Some people have questioned my slight shift on predicting what Nikon will introduce next. Actually, it hasn't been a slight shift. If you go back and read what I wrote in 2010 versus where we are today, I think you'll find that Nikon went a bit different direction than I originally expected. The post-quake thinking at Nikon seems to be a bit different than the pre-quake thinking, too. Nikon seems a bit more emboldened in its decision making since the last management change. Looking back on my conversations with Nikon executives over the past couple of years as well as anonymous tips I receive, I can see that I didn't pick up on all the clues that were dropped. Mea culpa.

But let me explain one thing that still seems to be hanging a bunch of you up: entry FX. First, it should be clear that a US$2000 D700 is very much an "entry FX" model ;~). And a danged good one, at that. Many of you seem perplexed by why an entry FX model makes sense, and why a US$1000 difference in price between it and a D800 works.

First the rationale: the market for new DSLR sales boils down to upgraders. The notion of "new camera users" coming into the market is mostly wrong. Young adults aren't opting for DSLRs, and that would be only a small percentage of the purchasers now, anyway. The side-grade from film SLR to DSLR is now mostly complete.

So today Nikon is actively soliciting Coolpix users to upgrade to CX (Nikon 1). CX users will be solicited to upgrade to DX. And DX users, well, it's only natural to upgrade them to FX. But if the entry FX body is 3x the price of the top DX body, that's a pretty big money leap. Entry FX can't be more than 2x the top DX price if it is to encourage upgrading. Indeed, it probably should be 1.5x (which would be about US$1800). That puts us right at the likely D400 pricing, which is one reason why I think the D400 could go either way (DX or FX).

Yes, a DX D400 at US$1900 and an FX D800 at US$3000 are almost 1.5x apart, too. So what's the advantage to making a D400 FX? Lenses. Indeed, the "where are the DX wide angles" question continues to be an interesting one. One might leap to say that this is more evidence that the DX line might stop at the D7000 point: someone who pays US$1600-2000 for a DX body is going to want lenses that don't exist. But those lenses do exist in FX.

I still think a D400 could go either way and is more likely to be DX, but given Nikon's recent aggressive push, I can't rule out an FX D400, thus what I wrote in the next article. The new US$2200 pricing on the D700 just throws another wrinkle into the mix.

The D700s and D700x
Feb 24 (commentary)--I notice that Nikon Rumors is recreating a poll that I've run many times, only in a slightly updated guise. It's basically the "what do you want to replace a D700" poll. The choices have always been (1) improve the low light capability (the D700s choice: 12mp D3s sensor in D700 body), or (2) increase the pixel count (the D700x choice: 24mp D3x sensor in D700 body).

With over 25,000 responses prior to the D800 leaks, my results put the D700s and D700x options neck and neck: within two percentage points, at 49% versus 51%. As I write this, the Nikon Rumors results are 58% versus 42%, still very close and within sight of a coin toss.

Indeed, one might explain the slight tilt Nikon Rumors tilt towards the D700s option as being people deciding that the D700x option (the D800) was a little too x for them once it was announced. That, coupled with the 16mp versus 36mp choice--16mp is closer to 24mp but keeps the essence of the D3s sensor--probably explains the difference. Still, taken at face value, all these polls that have been run about the D700 follow up choices still indicate the same thing: there's strong demand for both options. Put another way, Nikon needs to produce both options.

So the question is: will they?

I keep getting vague hints from anonymous sources that the D400 is indeed not a DX camera but something akin to a D700s. To date, no information I've received about that has the clear ring of authenticity to it, though.

The interesting thing is that there are two missing cameras from Nikon's DSLR lineup: a high end DX model, and an entry level FX model. The D7000 doesn't satisfy the high-end DX side primarily because of its buffer. That, coupled with the new "top" for DX being 24mp (Sony A77, NEX-7), means Nikon doesn't have a true competitor at the top of the DX line at the moment. I can't see Nikon foregoing that, so it's easily imaginable that the D300s replacement is a 24mp DX D400.

On the other hand, there's that strong demand for a D700s. Curiously, Nikon announced that they'll continue to build the existing D700, but they didn't change pricing at all. That seems like a "patch," not a solution. Either the D700 needs to come down to a price one full step below the D800, it needs to get the D3s sensor, or both.

Meanwhile, the D7000 is coming up due for an update late this year. Could it be the new high-end DX? Imagine this lineup for a moment:

• D3200. Entry DSLR, and entry DX, 24mp.
• D5200. Mid-level DX, 24mp.
• D7200. High-end DX, 24mp.
• D400. Entry FX DSLR, 16mp.
• D800. Mid-level FX, 36mp.
• D4. Pro FX, 16mp.

versus:

• D3200. Entry DSLR, and entry DX, ??mp.
• D5200. Mid-level DX, 16mp.
• D7200. High-end DX, 16mp.
• D400. Top DX, with 24mp sensor.
• D700. Entry FX DSLR, 12mp. (Eventual D720 or phase out?)
• D800. Mid-level FX, 36mp.
• D4. Pro PJ FX, 16mp.
• D4x: Pro studio FX, 36mp.

Basically, it boils down to which of those lines you think makes more sense. The first list seems lean and clean to me. The second list has a lot of historical slop in it, and some pixel count marketing issues. Add in a third Nikon 1 model (my Z1), and the first list would be 3 CX, 3 DX, and 3 FX: basically an entry, mid, and top in each line, with the lines being spaced nicely (except for the Nikon 1, which is currently out of whack in terms of pricing).

The second list is more hodge podge, with new/old overlap and essentially four choices in each category.

I know which list I'd want to market. Does Nikon?

New Article
Feb 22 (news)--Another new article for your amusement: the pain of photography.

Software Updates
Feb 22 (news)--Time for the regular software update news. I called out Camera Control Pro, View NX2, and Capture NX2 separately, but in case you missed that, all of the Nikon apps have now undergone updates to deal with the upcoming D4 and D800. There were even some nice little additions in those updates, as well. Everyone using those products should update.

DxO updated Optics Pro to version 7.2.1, and this now adds the Nikon 1 cameras into the mix, as well as updating for some other recent cameras.

Akvis continues to see how they can count, with version 13 of Enhancer adding GPU acceleration, new presets, and DNG support.

Alien Skin introduced Exposure 4, with these Photoshop and Lightroom plugins getting a completely new UI and controls. Everything is faster, too.

In the Mac App Store world: Photo Sense 1.7.0 is a photo enhancer which now adds customizable aspect ratios, improvements in the crop and straighten tools, plus some bug fixes. CameraBag 2 is a non-destructive image editor that uses a 32-bits/channel engine. It has layers, filters, and over 100 styles.

Changes Impact bythom.com
Feb 19 (news and commentary)--I've removed the B&H Support this Site links, as B&H has cancelled the program for Web sites located in Pennsylvania. For the full details on what's happening, click here. Short version: the state of Pennsylvania just made a revenue grab that's actually likely to cost them money. It certainly cost me money. The Amazon links remain for the time being because Amazon has a presence here in PA, and apparently hasn't yet decided what to do.

There's a high likelihood that bythom.com just lost it's only revenue sources, and this was done not by changes to state law open for public comment, but by press release edict. This came from the Governor's initiative, so if you're a PA resident and wish to complain, click here. Also, you can complain to your PA state senator by contacting via here.

Update: Don't panic. Bythom isn't going away. But it will mutate. As I always do, I'm using the change imposed on me to re-evaluate everything. I'm sure there will be some short-term visible changes, but I also want to use this "opportunity" to make long-term, functional changes to just about everything I do, and make what I do for the photographic community even better.

Nikon Still Doesn't Get Workflow
Feb 19 (news and commentary)--myPicturetown got a bit of an update this week (hmm, services don't seem to use version numbers, so you can't say v1 versus v2; that hides the progression of features, which is I guess what they want). Specifically, myPicturetown now has links to Facebook and can Twitter about new albums that you create. There's also some new album designs and a couple of new security features for those who actually pay for the service (those that don't pay don't need security?).

But here's my problem. myPicturetown is actually growing the workflow hassle, not reducing it. Shoot>card. Card>computer. Computer>myPicturetown. myPicturetown>Facebook. Apparently no camera manufacturer other than the deceased Kodak has read my manifesto on socializing photos: Shoot>Anyplace with the migration happening automatically on connection using preferences or overrides you make on the camera. That's the workflow users want. Not Camera>Transfer>myPicturetown>Facebook.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that Nikon is beginning to realize that photographers actually want their images to go somewhere other than a Nikon server. After removing the emailing option from ViewNX2, the howling protests got them to put it back and actually add a bit to the options on that. Now myPicturetown has some nascent Facebook and Twitter capabilities. Those are small steps in the right direction. But where's Flickr support? Oh, wait, that's a rival to myPicturetown ;~). Where's EasyShare? Uh-oh, another competitor. Where's Blurb, Shutterfly, and a ton of others?

Nikon is once again trying to find a lock up in which they can ensnare users. If you use Nikon Transfer, for instance, there's a myPicturetown option, but no Facebook option. You can't tag some images to be sent via email to someone as well as stored to your computer. No, you have to use another Nikon software product to do those things, and then you can only do the things that Nikon gets around to letting you do. That's not a good workflow solution.

Over ten years ago I gave a presentation to industry folk on the notion of hub. Cameras need to feed a hub and the hub needs to be where you manage all your workflow. The hub can't be two steps removed from the camera. The hub should be where the images go automatically. The hub should be extensible, and it should be capable of doing all the image management a user desires, regardless of what that is.

To some degree, iPhoto, Aperture, and Lightroom now come somewhat close to my hub concept. myPicturetown could get there, but as it is currently being developed, it's decidedly sub par. A hub, properly configured by its user, reduces workflow, not increases it.

Let me end on this note, which will probably be a surprise to many readers of this site (and unfortunately, a few camera makers): most images now live in the cloud. That's being driven by the images that are coming off camera phones, which need somewhere to go and the easiest place is to somewhere on the Internet. The hub for the youth is fast becoming not their home computer, but either the phone itself or some Web service, such as Facebook or Flickr. The workflow for taking an image on a phone is simpler than that of taking an image on a camera. Is it any wonder that compact camera demand is drying up? (And wait until the phone makers discover that accessory camera modules open up new revenue streams for them.)

True, many of you reading this are older, more conservative, and use more film-like linear workflows. Your images don't live in the cloud (partly because you can't afford to put thousands of those 36mp D800 images you're about to shoot into the cloud, and it would clog your Internet pipes if you tried. Still, the same concept of hub applies locally as well as remotely, and the popularity of Lightroom is a testament to that. Nikon needs to move the hub closer to the user if they want to play at software.

Why is the D700 Still in the Lineup?
Feb 19 (commentary)--Nikon's made it clear that they're still making D700's. Some are misinterpreting this to mean that a D700-like camera will stay in the lineup until it is directly replaced by something other than a D800.

I believe the reason why we're still getting new D700's is simple: the quake and flood. I'm pretty sure that Nikon ordered parts to make some fixed number of D700 units. They continue to make the camera because they haven't hit that number. The quake shut down Sendai, then caused them to redesign and change the plant, then some parts didn't come in because of the flood plus then they began early production of other new models at Sendai, which involves training and new procedures. All of which conspired to keep finished D700 models in short supply recently. But I don't think Nikon cancelled parts orders. In other words "we still have parts in stock or coming in, so we'll keep making them."

Nothing wrong with that. Indeed, it gives us more FX options these days than ever before, and the D700 is still a very competent camera. It's playing the role of entry-FX even more so than before. But a lot of people are making the leap to "there will be a direct D700 replacement, too." I'm less sure of that. There should be one, but I'm not sure there will be one. Even if there eventually is something to fill its role as entry FX, that would still be more than a year off. Nikon has three other cameras to update first, and they're all DX.

So enjoy the extra FX option while it lasts.

Systems
Feb 19 (news)--byThom readers might be interested in an article I posted on sansmirror.com about what it means to select a "system" these days.

Nikon Shakes Up D800 Worshipers
Feb 17 (commentary)--If you haven't yet seen it, NikonUSA released a D800/D800E Technical Guide today. Based upon some of the early emails I'm getting, it's shook up a few of the faithful. As one reader queried me "does this mean I won't be able to handhold the D800?"

Oh dear.

There's nothing new in Nikon's document. As I've written for some time now, in order to achieve the best image quality these new high-end devices are capable of we as photographers have to get better at shot discipline. If you're sloppy in your shooting techniques, you'll get sloppy results. Indeed, if you think that just increasing a number (megapixels) gives you better images, you're naive. More megapixels might give you better images, but it doesn't guarantee it. Just like a Ferrari might allow you to get up the winding road to your hilltop home faster, but it doesn't guarantee it (fortunately cameras won't spin off the road and run into trees ;~).

We've actually gone through this dance twice before: once when the 6mp users finally got around to upgrading to the D7000, and once when everyone starting trying to use the D3x.

Anyone opting for a D800 who wants it to achieve the image quality it's capable of needs to:

• Use good shot discipline.
• Retire the inexpensive lenses they own that aren't up to the job.
• Understand where diffraction begins to steal back acuity.
• Learn how to focus accurately.

Exactly what I've been writing about for years. If you're worried, check out some of the Technique article links in the left column. Or read these two articles along with Nikon's new brochure:

Shot Discipline 1
Shot Discipline 2

Update: A D7000 isn't exactly a D800. Some people think that the pixel density is the primary factor requiring tight discipline and because those cameras are the same, shot discipline needs to be the same. Consider this: a 16mm lens on D7000 puts ~5000 pixels across 74 degrees, while a 24mm lens on a D800 puts ~7000 pixels across the same angle. Put another way, 1° of motion is 68 pixels on the D7000, 94 pixels on the D800. 1° on a D2h was just 33 pixels and 41 pixels on a D70, You've got to handle a D800 cleaner than a D7000 folks. At least if you're going to pixel peep to see how good the results are.

Update 2: A few people objected to my Update; "just raise the shutter speed" they said. But that's my point. If I'm in a situation where I need f/8 for DOF and the correct exposure is 1/125, I might not be able to raise my shutter speed unless I change something else, like ISO. This is what shot discipline is all about: running through all the negative factors that might impact your photograph and pick actions that will remove, mitigate, or compensate those factors.

Capture NX2.3.1
Feb 16 (news)--Nikon introduced a new version of Capture NX2 that's compatible with the upcoming D800 and D800E.

More on Moire
Feb 16 (commentary)--A recurring question in my In Box right now has to do with what subjects trigger moire.

Moire happens when your sampling frequency (sensor pitch) begins to coincide with the captured detail frequency (subject pitch). As you pass the Nyquist frequency, problematic artifacts are produced, moire and color fringing being common ones on Bayer systems.

However, nature is pretty random with frequencies while man isn't. Even things that look like exact patterns, like bird feathers or tree rings, usually aren't. They have some randomness to them much of the time, and thus when you shoot natural objects, the tendency to get large patches of moire is relatively low. It's possible, certainly, but in my experience, I've not photographed anything in the natural world where I've had an image ruined by moire. A few here and there that need some post processing touch up, but ruined, no.

That's not exactly true in the man-made world (especially the Western cultures). Buildings tend to have all kinds of repeating patterns. We typically build on grids and we use products that have fixed sizes. Exactly the type of thing that can trigger moire. Same thing applies to the clothes we wear: many are made with repeating weaves with fixed size threads. Another common problem occurs with hair, where you don't get large blocks of moire, but you do get color fringing and artifacts on edges.

It's not a coincidence that most of the moire examples you see in articles about it are one of three things: test charts, buildings, or fabrics. I have a screen door at my office that does a very nice job of showing moire when I need a sample.

So the question you have to ask yourself before removing the AA filter on a camera is this: what do I shoot? Is it things that tend to occur in nature and mostly randomly, or is it things that have man-made, non-random components to them? If the former, it's going to be rare that you have to worry about post processing moire, and it's also not likely to be large and highly destructive moire, at that. If the latter, you're going to encounter moire a lot more often, and it can be over very large areas and occur in ways that are much more difficult to remove visually.

That's a gross simplification, of course, but it's a good starting point from which to base a decision.

D3, D3s, D3x, D4, D700, D800, D800E, or Wait?
Feb 15 (commentary)--That headline seems to be the question of the month. More so than I think Nikon or anyone else expected, a lot of you have been planning to "eventually get to FX." You've been making your lens choices that way, often buying lenses that make some sense for both DX and FX use. The fact that Nikon seems to refuse to make a full range of DX lenses just adds to that customer tactic.

But some of you seem surprised that US$3000 is still the lowest price for an FX body. It's the sensor that does that. Sensor cost goes up rapidly with size. It used to be that it was $5, $50, $500 (compact, DX, FX). While those prices have changed a bit in relationship to one another, FX sensor prices are still very high and ultimately dictate the price of the product. Manufacturing rule of thumb is you multiply parts cost by 3.5 to get retail price impact, so a US$400 sensor means that there is US$1400 worth of cost in the final product implied by the sensor alone. You still need to put electronics, viewfinder, shutter, battery, body, LCD, controls, and more into the product.

So how did Sony manage a US$2000 FX body? By ignoring costs, basically. Their hope was that by underpricing cameras like the A850 they could get leverage in the high-end camera market. The strategy didn't work, and next time we see Sony in the full frame market, they'll take a somewhat different approach (EVF, for one thing).

Meanwhile, we've got what looks like Nikon's next generation of FX sitting in front of us, so Nikon users who were thinking about FX are all asking themselves the question in the headline. Let's take things backwards:

• Wait. There's a chance that the camera that appears between the D7000 and D800 will be FX. Many think there won't be a camera between those, but I'm 100% sure there will be. The price gap is too large, and it's too easy for Canon, Sony, and Pentax to use that to advantage if it's not plugged. There needs to be a camera at somewhere between US$1700 and US$2000 in Nikon's lineup. The question is whether that will be a high-end DX or a low-end FX. History and price say that it will be DX and called a D400. But Nikon's been on an aggressive bent lately. It's not out of the question for them to pull an FX rabbit out of the hat. I just don't think it's very likely. If you're waiting for a US$2000 FX camera, you only have one clear option: buy something used.
• D800E. I suspect demand for this is running higher than Nikon expected. Everything Nikon officials have said, plus the one month extra wait, all seem to indicate that they thought only a few would opt this way. Based upon talks with dealers and looking at what people say they did for preordering via my In Box, I'd say that at least a third of you are opting to go this route. My personal advice: unless you're primarily shooting something you know shouldn't be a big issue--basically landscapes--you shouldn't go this route. Shooting in and around cities and shooting people that aren't nude makes you susceptible to moire. Moreover, you're not likely to see it at capture time: you'd need to be constantly zooming the playback on the LCD to see it, and 36mp is a pretty big mess of pixels to try to examine closely on the 3.2" LCD. Simply put: removing moire is way harder than adding perceived acuity through sharpening. Way.
• D800. The D700 upgraders keep getting hung up on the sensor. They have very good high ISO results on a pixel basis with their current camera, and they anticipate that they'll get far worse results with three times the pixels. Well, yes, if you look only on a per-pixel basis, that might be true (we won't know for sure until cameras are available). But if you blew up a D700 image to 36mp the per pixel results wouldn't look so great, either. This is a tricky subject, but the net is the same as the D3/D3x debate once was: using all the pixels, I'd pick the D3x over the D3 up to about ISO 800, the D3 above that. Using only 12mp sizes, the crossover gets pushed higher (for me, ISO 1600, but for others they'll take ISO 3200 from a downsized D3x image). One thing people are forgetting is that the D800 sensor is at least two generations newer than the D700's. Sensors are getting better. I think people are going to be surprised by the D800 sensor, but again, we must await cameras to test to verify that.
• D700. At the moment, used D700s are running close to the price you can find one new (assuming you can even find one). As I wrote not too long ago, if you told me I could only have one camera, the D700 would be that choice. It produces high quality images, it's more compact than a D3 series body and thus more carryable in more situations, it has a solid, advanced feature set, and it's a workhorse. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a D700. A lot of you are expecting D700 used prices to plummet when the D800 hits. I'm not so sure. First, it's a damned good camera, and even US$2300 is enough different than US$3000 that the demand will stay high for D700s. Moreover, D800s are going to be in short supply for awhile, and there aren't that many D700's out there changing hands. No, I suspect the D700 will command at least D300s/D400 prices for the foreseeable future (currently it fetches more).
• D4. Here's another connundrum. Is the D4 better than the D3s? Again people get stuck on the sensor, though here the answer is already a little clearer. I'm slowly coming round to the position that I'll shoot my D4 exactly the same as I did my D3s. Same ISO limits and expectations. There are some small caveats in there, as I do think channel response has changed slightly, but all evidence I see so far points me towards considering a D4 as being a D3s with 4mp more. Is that enough to make you switch? I have strong doubts about that. Yes, it gives you a bit more cropping flexibility, but the primary D3/D3s users probably will consider the changes to the focus and metering systems as being more substantive for their work. Add in the video and live view changes, and there's a lot to like. Subtract out the new battery and hefty price, and there's a lot to keep you from upgrading quickly. Even more so than the D800, the D4 is going to be in very short supply for the forseeable future. Unless you're already in a high position in a queue, you have plenty of time to consider what you'll do about this camera if it's in your target list.
• D3x. Prior to last week, the D3x was the DSLR capable of producing the very best images at base ISO. This week, it might be number two. That's nothing to scoff at. It's a rock solid camera that produces exceptional results, even when pushed to some higher ISO values. I've shot wildlife with it at ISO 1600 and been pleased with the results. At ISO 800 and below it arguably holds its own against the other D3 models when you do apples-to-apples comparisons. I suspect we will eventually see prices drop on this camera on the used market, but not as fast or as far as most people are anticipating. #2 is still damned good, and landscapers who have it shouldn't be in a big hurry to drop this fine camera. Price is a component of supply and demand. Supply has always been low. Demand is still reasonably high. For the life of me, I still don't know why Nikon priced it so high in the first place, but it's more than paid for itself in my book. Over the long term, as the D800 becomes available off the shelf (and assuming it's as good as we expect), the D3x will see large drops in its used value. That doesn't mean it will be cheap.
• D3s. Still state of the art at high ISO values. Where the D3x dropped to #2 camera at something with the D800E intro, the D3s remains #1 (now tied) despite the D4 introduction. Yes, you can now get more pixels and better video and some nice tweaks in focus, exposure, and live view. But is that worth the upgrade price and hassle? I can't answer that, only you can (if you're in this position). The battery change didn't make the decision any easier, and it made it less likely that people want mixed D3/D4 bags. I expect D3s bodies to stay popular for some time, and command fairly high prices on the used market.
• D3. The D3 slipped to #2 at high ISO work when the D3s came out. You need to think of this camera in conjunction with the D700, as they use the same sensor and generate the same results. At the moment, if you look closely, you can pick up a used D3 for about US$800 more than a used D700 from the reputable sellers (e.g. KEH). For that US$800 you get a more solid body, the vertical grip, a bigger battery (by far), faster frame rates, a 100% viewfinder, and more. For a lot of you who decided that the used market is where you'll go to move up to FX, the D3 is a very tempting camera, and I think that's going to continue to be for some time.
• Wait. Hey, didn't I already cover that? Well, here the "wait" is about what's next in the D4 line. Will there be a D4s, a D4x, a D800 with the D4 sensor? Well, yes, probably yes to all of those. But not any time soon. Nikon has its hands full for 2012 just trying to build what they've announced. If you look at historical patterns, Nikon uses two-year refresh cycles on the high-end products (though the D700 appeared a year after the D3). So best case: D4 sensor in a D800 body in 2013, D4s/D4x in 2014. Worst case? D4s in 2014, no other FX models in the interim.

Thus, if you accept what I just wrote as being likely, and if you don't believe a D400 will be FX, then all your choices are laid out in front of you today and you should be able to make an intelligent choice just as soon as the initial image quality verifications start to hit.

We are indeed in a sweet spot for FX shooters. Maybe not sweet in terms of pricing, but certainly sweet in terms of our options. We have six different Nikon FX bodies, any one of which I'd be happy to shoot with for the next couple of years.

Nikon View NX2 Updated
Feb 15 (news)--View NX2 was updated to include support for the D800 cameras as well as provide full 64-bit support to both Windows and Macintosh versions. Other changes include the ability to send original files via email, set margins in the print function, and Save/Save As has been added to the File menu. Some bug fixes were made, as well.

Now if we could only say the same for Message Center 2: "There are no updates available at this moment." I can't remember the last time that Message Center actually found an update before I did. You'd think it would be the other way around.

Corrections and Clarifications and Comments
Feb 12 (commentary)--It's been a busy month, and I'm still trying to dig out and get everything cleaned up and some projects I've been working on finished. However, I slipped up on a few things, so let's correct them. Plus I didn't make clear enough explanations or comments on a few others. Here's my quick make-up session:

• Sendai. The D800 is indeed made in Sendai. That's what I originally wrote and asserted, but somewhere in the launch excitement I wrote Thailand (which was one of the main places where it was launched). Sendai is assembling both the D800 and D4, as expected. Capacity--at least for a single shift--seems to be about the same as in the D3/D700 era: 5k D4 units a month, 30k D800 units a month. To my knowledge, Nikon is only running one shift at Sendai at the moment.
• D800E. I haven't been perfectly clear on this: there is indeed a filter on the D800E, it's just not Nikon's traditional two-stage antialiasing filter. I've been having a hard time tracking down an absolute answer on what that D800E filter does. Rob Galbraith wrote that it blurs verically and then deblurs, while the non-E model blurs horizontallly and then blurs vertically. I've gotten conflicting answers out of Nikon sources, but I believe Galbraith is correct: the front stage of the filter on the D800E is part of an optical system in the filter itself.
• D800 versus D700. Do me a favor. Forget about the sensor. Pretend for a moment that they have the same exact sensor, but all the other features stay the same for each model. Which one do you want? Right. Thought so. The notion that the D800 isn't an upgrade for D700 users is mistaken. It is. Clearly it is (video, exposure, focus, new menu features, better Live View, etc.). Most of the complaints are about two things: (1) pixel-level noise likelihood at high ISO values; and (2) file size. I can't do anything about #2 (though see next point). I'd also say it's premature to make conclusions about #1. We went through this same thing with the D3 versus D3x, though there the controversy centered on the cost differential for reduced pixel-level integrity at high-ISO values.
• D800 "sizes". A lot of people seem confused by "size" versus "crop." The D800 supports Large, Medium, and Small sizes for JPEG and TIFF. It supports 1.2x and DX (1.5x) crops for NEF, JPEG, and TIFF. Can you shoot an image that stores in a smaller number of MBs? Sure. With JPEG and TIFF pick the smaller sizes, which downsample from the full frame. With NEF, it's trickier: you can pick a smaller frame crop to get smaller sized files, but you're also cropping from the full sensor, not downsampling.
• Lenses. Everyone seems to want a list of "D800-approved" lenses. There will never be such a thing. Absolutely nothing has changed from my Rationalizing Lenses article just because someone sprinkled in a few more megapixels. A good lens is still a good lens. A poor lens is still a poor lens.
• D4 Delivery date. I had heard in an interview with a Nikon executive last week that the D4 delivery date was being moved, but didn't report it at the time (call it a senior moment). I've now heard three different reasons for the delay from three different sources, but I don't think the reason is important. The net is that deliveries will start in mid-March instead of mid-February. Disappointing, yes. But Nikon doesn't make such delays unless they discovered something that is better dealt with before the camera ships. I trust that they're trying to make our initial D4 experiences top grade.
• WiFi. It appears the D800 can't use the new WT-5 transceiver. This has caused a lot of whining. But there's a simple solution: use an Eye-Fi card, which the D800 supports. It's actually a cheaper and simpler solution. But transferring 75MB raw files isn't going to be fun over WiFi no matter how you do it, especially if you're shooting continuously.
• Lenses. Conspicuously absent so far in 2012 are lens announcements. One with the D4, none with the D800. I'm sure we'll get some when the D400 and other stuff rolls later this year, but I'm now very, very worried that Nikon doesn't understand lenses. Still not much in the way of DX wide angle options (two zooms). Still missing in action updates (notably 80-400mm, but there are more). But here's the big one that shows that Nikon doesn't get it: no lenses ready for video. If the D4/D800 are such great video cameras, does Nikon really expect us to use them with contrast AF? Where are the geared focus rings? Yes, I know that I can buy plenty of add-on choices here, some of which are okay. But Nikon isn't driving the car here, they're assuming we'll get there on our own. When you abdicate like that, you'd better watch out: the user may drive somewhere else. For example, I find my Zeiss lenses more suitable to third-party modification for video, not my Nikkors. Oops.

The Show's Over
Feb 12 (commentary)--With PMA, CES, and CP+ out of the way, the big shows where companies want to make a splash are out of the way until Photokina this fall. So the question is this: what didn't get announced? In no particular order:

• Canon DSLRs. The 5DIII, in particular, is noticeably missing from the launch frenzy. I suspect that they were trying to steer clear of Nikon's D800 announcement. It'll come soon enough.
• Nikon lenses. Did the quake really disrupt glass this much? We've had three lenses in 17 months, where Nikon's average would tend to imply we should have had nine. (I don't count the Nikon 1 lenses because they're made in China, not the main Nikon glass plant.) Beyond the fact that Nikon isn't pushing out lenses, it also isn't filling in absolutely necessary gaps in their lens lineup. Of the last 10 lenses, we got six modest refreshes and two consumer superzooms. Nikon isn't even at parity with Canon on speciality lenses, but the m4/3 crowd is proving just how bad Nikon's judgment is for DX: no 24mm equivalent, no 85mm portrait equivalent, and more missing options.
• D400. It's coming. Best guess? April announce, May ship. Even that's cutting it awful close to the D4/D800 launches. Nikon's going to be scrambling early this year to get everything that was delayed launched with some appropriate noise and efficiency.
• Capture NX3. I have no solid idea about schedule for this or what it might comprise. If Nikon themselves are doing it, they're not known for being a quick software developer. We just got a 64-bit version of NX2, after all.
• Canon mirrorless. The G1X is an interesting stop gap, but it doesn't completely plug the hole. Moreover, it won't be counted when market shares are determined in the interchangeable lens category, which could be problematic to the way people perceive Canon. They've owned interchangeable lens cameras for a long time, with a near 50% share. This is a moment of weakness for them, and others will pounce on it.
• Sony ship announcement. I was surprised that Sony didn't try to make a big deal at CP+ to re-launch the A77 and NEX-7, which got lost in the Thailand floods. They should have re-announced them and how shipping will unfold.
• Leica. Not surprisingly, as a European company they'll wait until Photokina for their big news.
• Panasonic GH3. It's coming, but not for awhile yet. Panasonic was reasonably quiet for a show on their home turf when they just had a very successful year in country. Pre-announced lenses under glass isn't a very effective presentation, IMHO.
• Samsung. The NX11 replacement is still MIA. But given Samsung's low sales numbers for their mirrorless camera (120,000 a year), I understand. Something's not quite right (marketing and sales, IMHO), and they need to fix that, not iterate a bunch of products.

Right now we're in delivery time. Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus, and Pentax all have important already announced products they now need to get into consumers' hands. Think of it as waves. We've had the first wave of announcements for the year and those products will be washing up on our shores shortly. Another wave comes probably in April, another in July/August, and because of Photokina, one last wave in fall.

Camera Control Pro 2.10.0
Feb 12 (news)--With the D4 out in the field in a few hands and nearing release, Camera Control Pro was updated to support it. Movie gets its own camera function tab, too. For Mac users, Lion (10.7) is now officially supported.

Meanwhile, Nikon has also added D4 support to the NEF Codec for Windows, now at version 1.13.0.

Yes, I'm Aware
Feb 12 (commentary)--A few of you have been asking why I haven't commented on a couple of topics recently. For example, the halting of parts sales to independent repair stations or the strangely high price of the MB-D12 grip for the D800 (especially if you want faster frame rates and thus need the D4 battery).

Sometimes there are other things I'm working on where commenting about a topic makes more sense when I complete those articles.

How Good is the Q, II?
Feb 9 (commentary)--Still not my words. But I love it when I get engineers talking ;~):

• diffraction limited spot size = 2.44 * wavelength * fno
   
  Which means Q = spot size / (2.44 * pixel pitch)
   
  If spot size = 2.44 times pixel pitch, Q=1.
   
  For the D800E, there will be a steady loss of resolution above f/8.9

You Knew I Was Going to Say Something
Feb 9 (commentary)--Kodak's disclosure today that they were getting out of the camera and digital frame business seems like a shock, but it isn't. Most of us had predicted that for some time now. I believe I first wrote that the end was inevitable for Kodak cameras when they bought Chinon a number of years ago. I'm a little surprised it took this long to close the door.

I believe Kodak's management is more clueless today than it was at the end of the film era when it needed to transition to digital. Paper printing and print kiosks are where they're putting the last stake in the ground. I'm not even sure they'll get that stake fully secured before the steam roller hits it.

The future of displaying images isn't on paper. The print kiosk business is slowly dying, so being a big player there is just another dinosaur business and delays the inevitable. Two technologies are pushing forward for display of images: LCDs (dynamic) and E-Ink (static). Kodak has almost no skin in either game. The skin they did have--digital frames (LCDs in frames)--wasn't very much to start with, but now it's gone.

The future for images is clearly cloud-stored, wireless displayed on whatever device screen you desire. It is not "print it on paper."

Note that I'm not saying that paper will go away any time soon. Just as the US Postal Service hasn't gone away because of email, paper will stick around for quite some time. The problem is the same one as the USPS has, though: the primary driver of volume and profit (letters for mail, prints for photos) is moving to a new medium (email for mail, displays for photos). These kinds of transitions tend to leave a smaller, less profitable, and non-growing market behind. But that's exactly where Kodak just placed its bets: on smaller, less profitable, and slow-or-no-growth markets. Meanwhile, they couldn't wean themselves off the high profit margins in film, even as that market dramatically shrinks, so they kept that bit of the company.

Kodak is now on Death Watch, AFAIC. To win in printers, they have to beat HP, Lexmark, Epson, Brother, and Canon, who will all definitely fight hard to protect their territory. Worldwide, those companies were about 85% of the printer market in 2010, and year-to-year growth is modest (maybe 15%). This is no different than the challenge in cameras: there you have to beat Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Olympus, and others that hold more than 80% of the market, and the year-to-year growth is non-existent. I don't see a lot of difference in the market Kodak chose to exit versus the one it choose to stay in.

Kodak's strategy seems to be "we were too late with the right things for the game in market 1, let's see if that's true in market 2" (it is) and "Keep the things that still have higher profit margins and hold on as long as we can" (which probably won't be long).

Kodak's best business still in the fold is the higher-end commercial printing business, but it's not a big enough business for anything like the old Kodak to survive. Indeed, last year Kodak was projecting something near US$6b in business in 2011 (they're not going to make it). Their projection for the core businesses they now plan to keep was US$2b in 2013 (not clear they'll make that). In the 9-month year-to-year results for 2010 and 2011, we find that they've slipped 18% in sales but increased 2% in cost of sales. That's before we get to all the corporate stuff like admin, R&D, restructuring, etc.

The best case I see is a Kodak that's less than one-third its size at the start of last year, that's not overly profitable, has only modest growth, and will have to use patent sale revenue to pay back the debtor-in-bankruptcy and restructuring charges.

Short story: Kodak never solved its management decisionmaking problems. It's still making them.

How Good is the Q?
Feb 8 (commentary)--I'm going to let someone else do the talking:

"I’ve spent the past 45 years involved in the analysis and design trades of spaceborne imaging systems (like the earth viewing Geoeye-1 telescope in orbit today), and Q is a wonderful, insightful and useful parameter. Q can be shown to be equal to wavelength x fno / pixel pitch. If we ignore the use of Bayer filtered pixels and do the calculation on a monochromatic basis (without a de-aliasing filter), for a Q=2 D800E (fully satisfying the Nyquist criterion at 0.55 microns), the fno turns out to be f/17.7. Thus an f/8.9 lens aperture setting on the D800E gives you a Q=1 system, which makes the D800E equivalent from a sampling standpoint to the Geoeye-1 telescope (which has a Q=0.95). In fact, many spaceborne imagers are about Q=1, which has turned out over the years to be a good compromise between resolution (NIIRS, if you are familiar with the government image quality measure) and low light performance (i.e. , SNR). And it’s interesting to note that the use of a lens set at f/8 (often the aperture that delivers the best quality image – i.e., best MTF) dovetails nicely with the achievement of a Q=1 D800E imaging camera.
 
So one could consider theD800E, at f/8, to be a miniature Geoeye-1 telescopic camera. The D800E has hit the traditional sweet spot for earth imaging satellite systems!"

Miss Conceptions and Mister Correction
Feb 7 (commentary)--The D800 announcement (see below) is causing some misconceptions to be espoused, so let's cut that off before it becomes Internet Truth:

• 36mp makes the D800 a Medium Format camera. No, it doesn't. It means it has about as many pixels as some older and lower cost MF digital backs, but it doesn't elevate a D800 to "medium format." For the same reasons that we used MF in film, some continue to do so in digital: less magnification for same print size, differences in lenses for larger versus smaller formats, plus a new one in the digital age, more true bits of data per sampling point.
• The D800E should be cheaper because it removes something. No, it replaces something. What happens in the AA/IR filter, microlenses, and Bayer filtration is a very complex optical dance. You cant remove the AA filter and expect to shoot--the focal plane would have moved and the optical paths trying to make light telecentric would have changed. The D800E has a different filter than the D800, one without an anti-aliasing component. As to why it is more expensive, that's going to be an embarrassment to Nikon, I think: they predicted they'd make far fewer D800E's than D800's, thus it would cost them more (both in parts and in all the things associated with an item sold in lower quantities, e.g. inventory costs). I predict they'll be wrong. Completely wrong. Of course, Nikon gets the last word here, because they can't make more D800E's than they order parts for ;~). That leads me to a prediction: the D800E will be a constant sell-out.
• You won't see any resolution improvement because lenses aren't good enough. Wrong. You'll see improvement, the question is how much and what you'll see. Let's just pretend for a moment that all lenses are perfect in the central area. More pixels will mean that the central area stays nice and truly resolves what the increase in pixels implies, but the corners will look worse, ironically because the sensor is resolving how much worse the corner is than the center. But even with the visually worse-looking corners, you're probably still resolving more.
• Corollary: you need lenses that resolve 100 line pair per millimeter on the D800. From one standpoint, yes, you do. If you want to obtain all the gain that moving from 24mp (D3x) to 36mp (D800) implies, you'd need lenses that resolve somewhere near 100lppmm versus 80lppmm. This is one of the reasons why I wrote previously that we're entering into the realm of declining returns. Going from 3mp to 12mp was a big, dramatic change, and no other component started to hold back the gain from the sensor itself. Going from 12mp to 24mp was reasonably big, and again no other component really hurt you much, though some lower-end lenses definitely showed their shortcomings. Going from 24mp to 36mp is not so big, and now we do have other issues starting to keep us from getting all the gain we expect, with lenses being potentially one of them.
• Not much new over the D700. Untrue. The skin may be (mostly) the same, but underneath virtually everything is new. For the most part, it's a D4 with a different sensor in a different body. If they had just stuck the same 12mp sensor into the D800 I'd still call it a substantial upgrade from the D700.
• You can't buy an AA filter for the front of the lens. It's been a long time since I looked, but last time I did, yes, you could. But it's very expensive, hard to find, and doesn't quite produce the same results as having the AA at the sensor.

How Not to Implement "Communicating"
Feb 7 (commentary)--I'm doing this mostly from press release materials, but I think I've got this right. Canon today announced a couple of WiFi equipped compact cameras. One of the headlines in their press release was "Sharing made easy," so of course that catches my attention.

The good news is that you can upload to iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) and the Canon CameraWindow application can then share to Facebook, YouTube, or via email. The bad news is that Canon has also launched Canon Image Gateway (CIG), which is where they want you to really put your images (and then share them socially from there). (Nikon has a similar myPicturetown, which I'm sure will be the destination for any WiFi equipped Coolpix.) Indeed, CIG is the simplest "communicating" function the cameras support: no computer or other device necessary, you just need access to a Wifi network.

Put another way, this is "hey, we want some of that social networking and cloud pie." The problem with this is that it's the wrong approach, and always has been. Proprietary gateways are just another workflow block that complicates the user's life. The camera phones are educating users to take a picture, then press a button to say where it should go. Simple. That's different than "take a picture, upload it to someplace else, then tell us where you want it to go." Indeed, when phrased that way, all we're really taking out is the card reader or USB cable to replace it with WiFi, and we're adding a new proprietary program that's not the one you're already using (iPhoto, Lightroom, etc.).

So let me state it emphatically: if your primary business is selling hardware, your goal on the software side is to be agnostic and simplifying. This is actually one of the reasons why "programmable" is part of my Camera Redefined definition: if you truly have an open API, the social sites can all provide their own solution (program) for you. Again, that's what's happened on the phones/tablets, and that has progressed to "bundle applications" as well as add-on applications.

None of the Japanese camera companies have proven to be a good software developer (other than perhaps camera firmware, and even there I have some major quibbles). That they think that they can keep up with operating system changeovers (Nikon certainly can't) is laughable, but that they think they can program at Internet pace is so absurd I'm wondering if I've woken into a parallel universe.

And Now For What We've All Been Waiting
Feb 7 (news and commentary)--Nikon today announced the D800, the 36mp replacement for the 12mp D700. I phrase it that way because this followup does seem a bit odd in the pixel department. We now have the D800 leapfrogging both the D3x and D4 and everything else that's in a DSLR body, and not by a small margin. That has to raise eyebrows.

My full comments are available in a separate article on the D800 announcement, just as I did with the D4.

I've been regularly polling Nikon DSLR users since the D700 came out about what they wanted for a replacement. Half say they wanted an x version (more pixels), the other half want an s version (high ISO capability). Thus, getting an x-on-steroids version is going to definitely rattle quite a few folk.

Given the long lead times on tangible camera updates (not the minor stuff we often see at the low consumer end and in compacts), I suspect Nikon simply picked something that they figured would guarantee that a Canon 5DIII wouldn't top. But I think there's more to it than that, as you'll see in my D800 introduction article.

More later as I get caught up today on all the news (there's a lot going on this week).

The Stabilized 24-70mm
Feb 6 (news)--Tamron beat Nikon to a stabilized 24-70mm that covers the FX sensor format. The new Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD was announced prior to the CP+ show this week in Japan. It features 17 elements in 12 groups, with eight of those elements being special formulations (aspherical, ED-type, and high-refractive glass). The lens has a built-in focus motor, so works with any Nikon DSLR. Close focus is 15" (0.38m) and maximum magnification works out to be 1:5. At almost two pounds (29 ounces, 835g) the lens is no lightweight contender. 82mm filter size, and comes with petal hood. No word on price or availability yet.

Software Updates
Feb 6 (news)--I'm a little behind on new software and updates, but fortunately, there hasn't been an overwhelming amount to catch up on:

IOS: ShutterSnitch 2.2.0 recognizes personal hotspots, adds a rotation gesture, and fixes a few things. Timelapse Video Recorder is a simple app that mimics Nikon's Intervalometer feature (but has a far better interface for timelapse definition).

Computer: SubRosaSoft updated CameraSalvage to 7.5, gaining some operating system compatibility and updating their scan and recovery engine. Topaz Labs released Star Effects, a plug-in that creates radiant lighting and star effects. Digital Film Tools' Film Stocks is a plug in that mimics 288 color and black and white film stocks. DxO Labs released DxO Optics Pro 7.2 with a lot of new m4/3 camera support, plus new lens definitions. Akvis released version 1.5 of Refocus, adding support for raw files, new presets, and more. Adobe renamed Carousel--it's now called Adobe Revel--and updated it to version 1.1. Eye-Fi updated their firmware for X2 cards to version 5.001.

Mac-only: GraphicConverter 7.6 adds a bunch of adjustment tools, network scanner support, and bug fixes. PhotoSweeper 1.4 adds Aperture support and improved performance to their duplicate image finder. Exif Editor 1.0.5 adds support for many new tags and an option to remove all EXIF data. Photo Transformer 1.0 is a new photo manager that organizes photos on your computer no matter where they're physically located.

Windows-only: Photodex released Version 5 of ProShow Producer and Pro-Show Gold, my recommended slide show generator for Windows, with a new UI and lots of new features, some of them major.

Not Many Could Do This
Feb 3 (commentary)--As most of you regular readers know, I'm very hard on Nikon when they do the wrong thing. Today, I'm going to balance that with a different thought.

In less than one year, Nikon has completely replaced its entire DSLR manufacturing capacity while increasing DSLR production.

They hadn't planned to do that. They were forced to, first with the quake in Sendai, then with the floods in Thailand. Both plants have had a floor to ceiling redo. Both plants were closed without warning for at least a month. Both plants got new equipment, and not little things like screwdrivers and shelving, but big things like machines that make complex camera parts or do intricate alignments. It's an impressive accomplishment and should be heralded. How many multi-billion dollar companies do you know that lose their entire production capacity to disaster yet still manage to increase sales and operating profits in that year? Any? Bueller?

Yet, contemplate this: during that same year we've had a constant stream of whining from users: the D4 is late, where's the D700 replacement, where's the D400 replacement, how come there aren't any D5100's on my dealer's shelves, how come my D7000 needs a focus adjustment?

So let's get real for a moment. Nikon accomplished something downright amazing in the past eleven months. We shouldn't be criticizing them at the moment, we should be praising them. They made an incredible response to an overwhelming set of problems they weren't expecting. Their business contingency plans worked.

Now, six months down the road from now if you can't find the Nikon product you want on your dealer's shelves or if quality control slips noticeably, maybe then you can complain. But right now, anyone not 100% impressed by what Nikon accomplished should just stay quiet for awhile.

Fewer DSLRs, More Coolpix
Feb 3 (news and commentary)--Nikon reported their third quarter results today, and they're much as expected. The floods in Thailand completely shut down DSLR production there for over a month, and it didn't resume at all in the original plant until early January. Production won't hit "normal" again until late March.

That explains the drop in DSLR sales from 1.25m to 940m units year-to-year (for the quarter). Overall, though, DSLR unit sales are still up for the full nine-months that have been reported (3.67m compared to last year's 3.15m). Lens sales reflected the same trend (many popular consumer lenses are made in Thailand): 1.63m this year's quarter compared to last year's 1.85m, but for the full nine months 5.56m units compared to last year's 4.8m. Simply put, we're seeing what happens when a key plant is closed for a quarter.

On the other hand, Nikon sold compact cameras like there was no slump in compact camera sales. Nikon sold 6m Coolpix in the quarter compared to 4.9m in the same quarter last year. That's the most Coolpix they've ever sold in a quarter. For the full nine months, we're at 13.87m versus 11.6m, an 18% increase in unit volume.

That said, Nikon's forward projections for the full year (which ends at the end of March for them) is still aggressive. In fact, it's more aggressive than it was before the floods in Thailand: 4.7m DSLRs (same as before), 6.9m lenses (up .2m), and 17m Coolpix (up 1m). Translated into market share: DSLRs 31%, compacts 17%, for an overall camera market share of 19%.

The quake and flood also forced Nikon to up their capital investment by US$920m to replace equipment, but curiously R&D spending just took a big jump, too, hitting 7.7% of sales.

For those worried about prices, Nikon is projecting the yen/dollar ratio at 75 this quarter, and the yen/Euro at 100. As I write this, I'm seeing 76.26 and 100.3391 as the current ratios. As long as those exchange rates hold within 3% or so, I doubt we'll see any further price adjustments. Indeed, it appears from their statements that Nikon will be more aggressive in pricing in the Coolpix and Nikon 1 lineups shortly.

With the big Japanese consumer electronics companies mostly showing losses for the year (e.g. Sony), Nikon is projecting a bigger profit for the year than last, despite the highly down third quarter (-3.7b loss). Nikon actually upped their projected full year profit a bit.

Finally, an update on one key metric we all need to be cognisant of: 63% of Nikon's overall sales this year will come from cameras and lenses. I've been noting that Nikon is "two-thirds" a camera company and the only camera company that's actually mostly a camera company (all the others are massive conglomerates of which cameras are a small fraction of their overall business). So goes the camera business, so goes Nikon.

With the overall unit volume in cameras trending mildly downwards, that means that for Nikon to continue to grow they have to take market share from others. They've been doing just that in compact camera sales. While the fiscal years of Canon and Nikon are off by three months and that makes exact comparisons nearly impossible, Nikon predicts it has 17% of the compact market and Canon just reported 18.7%. That's getting remarkably too close for comfort. Of course the devil is in the details, because both those numbers would reflect what they shipped into subsidiaries, not what was actually sold to consumers. Still, I don't think Canon ever thought Nikon would challenge them in compacts, and now they are. This has to be worrying to Sony, Panasonic, and Fujifilm, as well, as Nikon's gains are coming at the expense of others.

More on More
Feb 1 (commentary)--After getting a few comments on this morning's earlier article, I decided to do a bit of SKU snooping on B&H. Here's what I found in the compact camera range (including the latest announcements, which are already live; I took out the X100 and any B&H "kits"):

• Olympus: 37 compacts
• Canon: 54 compacts
• Fujifilm: 59 compacts (I took out the X100)
• Sony: 60 compacts
• Panasonic: 62 compacts
• Nikon: 71 compacts

Put another way, if you were looking for a compact camera you'd have a choice of 343 camera/color combinations, most of them in the US$200-400 price range. Moreover, you can find fault with any of these cameras. Oh, yeah, that one over there has a faster lens, but this one has GPS, yet that one has more focal range, and yet another one has more (or better [BSI]) pixels... The list goes on and on.

So if you asked a camera salesperson "which one is best" you're going to get a random answer at best, too. More than likely, you'll get sold on the one that's in stock ("The XYZ is the best of the bunch, but we only have it in black").

Someone suggested that all this was just a way to get rid of dealers and push everything through Amazon and a few big boxes. Maybe, but Amazon wants bigger discounts than dealers, so on top of all the other woes the compact camera makers have, they'd be getting pressed for lower product margins, too.

Yet in browsing through all these 300+ cameras I was struck by one thing: almost none of them (it might actually be none) actually do what I would want of an entry level camera. That's: let me put my image where I want it. Not on a card in the camera, but on a Web site, in an email, onto my digital picture frame, over onto my phone or tablet. Instead, they include ridiculous things like an HDMI connector, so that I can trip over expensive cords while I manually thumb through my images on my TV only to discover that the battery goes dead in the middle of showing them off. Are you kidding me? That's part of what constitutes a correct entry level design? (Go ahead, try it with yours. I'll wait for you to find the right cable [there are three possibilities], find an open HDMI In on the back of your TV, and start up your slide show. I might be waiting awhile, though ;~)

It's as if the camera makers either have no imagination about what a user might want, or are afraid to try making something that meets those wants. Maybe both. And then they wonder why compact camera sales are getting pummelled by camera phones.

How about this as a design goal: Design a US$400 product that takes far better pictures than a camera phone, has more flexible user control/options (that are photographically motivated), and offers all the programmability and workflow (communications) capabilities that make getting a picture to where you want it easy? Is it really that hard to do? Or will we get another 300+ iterated compact camera designs before someone stumbles on getting it partially right?

More
Feb 1 (news)--So it looks like we now know how Nikon is going to address the fast collapsing compact camera market: more. More pixels, more focal length, more technology, more DSLR-like looks. The Coolpix P510 is the best example of that: 16mp, 24-1000mm f/3-5.6 lens (yes, you read that right), built-in GPS, and a clear DSLR styling.

That's right, it's that time of year. Nikon's new Coolpix line (Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, and others have been introducing their new compact lines, as well) now includes these new models: P310, P510, S30, S2600*, S3300, S4300, S6300, S9300, L25*, L26, L310*, and L810. *=not US market.

Other than some obvious trends towards "more," much of the rest remains the same amongst the 12 Coolpix just introduced. Indeed, one way of looking at the introductions was what didn't get updated: S100, S1200pj, S8200, AW100, and P7100. Coupled with the new models, the carry-over cameras--some of which are certainly just carry overs until their inventory sells out--now amount to 23 Coolpix cameras here in the US. Yeah, more.

It appears Nikon's strategy is to continue to flood the market with iterated choices and let buyers pick older models on price or newer models on "more." But let's look at the absurdity for a moment: with color variations, a potential Coolpix buyer is facing 79 choices here in the US. What dealer in their right mind is going to stock all those?

Tokina Updates 11-16mm
Jan 25 (news)--The Tokina 11-16mm gets a refresh with slight optical change (new aspherical element), new lens coating, and an internal focus motor. The AT-X 116 Pro DX II will be available in late March.

Discontinued in Japan
Jan 25 (news)--New battery regulations in Japan, along with the end of life cycle itself, have prompted Nikon to stop selling the D300s and D700 there, and these models have been moved to the Discontinued camera list on the Nikon Japan sites.

Given next week's big camera trade show in Japan, don't be surprised if new models get announced. Nikon isn't likely to leave a huge gap between the D7000 and D4 open for very long.

Snap Results
Jan 24 (commentary)--This commentary appears on both sites.

At the point where I had 1500 responses to my How Far We've Come survey (which happened in a few hours) I decided to take a peak at the results.

First, some background stats. 44% of respondents owned one DSLR, while 51% owned two or more (95% owned at least one DSLR). 24% of the respondents owned at least one mirrorless camera. This biases the results a bit, as it implies that many of the people taking the survey don't have experience with mirrorless. Nevertheless, I was going after people's impressions, not what they've discovered in shooting. The survey takers are a group that shoots a lot of images, though. Over 50% said they've taken more than a 1000 images in a single month some time in the last couple of years. Indeed, 14% of those said they had a month where they took more 10,000 images. I'm not sure I have had such a month in the last couple of years.

So here are the breakdowns of the head-to-head comparisons:

• 2002: 89% chose V1 (mirrorless), 11% chose D100 (DSLR)
  
• 2003: 92% chose E-P3 (mirrorless), 8% chose E-1 (DSLR)
  
• 2004: 96% chose NEX-7 (mirrorless), 4% chose Maxxum 7D (DSLR)
  
• 2007: 64% chose V1 (mirrorless), 36% chose D80 (DSLR)
  
• 2009: 83% chose D90 (DSLR), 17% chose V1 (mirrorless)
  

My comments in the article seem to be validated by the results (even though this wasn't a scientifically accurate poll, especially since I gave my answer before surveying): most of us would have indeed chosen a V1 over a D100 if we had been offered one in 2002. And it seems like most of you think that the high-consumer V1 mirrorless is about equivalent to the high-consumer DSLR of about 2008 (four years ago).

I'll leave you to make of that what you wish. My original article was intended to provoke people to really think about where we are versus where we've been.

Sensor Madness
Jan 24 (commentary)--It seems like every time that someone announces a non-Bayer sensor the Internet gets all abuzz with hyperbole and overfed expectations. The latest Sony story got picked up on 14 RSS feeds I monitor (and rising).

Sony's announcement was about an RGBW sensor. The W is "no filter." Besides the fact that it's a bit of a replay of the Kodak Monochrome arrangement announced a couple of years back, you don't abandon Bayer without having other implications. While a non-filtered photosite does give you more luminance data, that only helps when it doesn't clip ;~). In bright situations, it's likely to clip. Indeed, if you set your W exposure so it doesn't clip, then you have trouble with color, where there will be more noise (chroma noise, the worst kind).

Others were excited because they thought Sony's announcement would impact serious cameras. Not likely. What most didn't notice (because they got summaries of English translations) is that this new sensor is attempting to give 1.4 micron photosite performance in a 1.1 micron photosite. In other words, camera phones and compact camera sensors with more pixels, but "same" image quality. Only problem is, it won't be same image quality for reasons noted above.

Sensor progress is relatively constant. We get small gains in efficiency, read noise, light gates, photosite isolation, well capacity, microlenses, or any of the other elements that already exist in our sensors as we've got a huge number of organizations iterating those things.

To get a big bump instead of the small steps forward we're used to, I think it's going to take one of the disruptive technologies lurking in the background: quantum dots, full color photosites, light field microlenses, or perhaps moving from silicon to another more expensive and harder to work with material. Don't worry, you'll know it when it happens, as we'll likely make a bigger than D3 step forward when it occurs.

Let me flip that to another context more relevant to this site: what if the D4 is simply equivalent to the D3s sensor with 15% more resolution? In other words, very equivalent results, but a marginal move forward in number of pixels. That's the level of change we typically see in sensors in a two-to-four year stretch. Not a bad change at all, but not the over hyped type of change that gets stirred up every time we have a "new sensor design" announced on the Web.

How Far We've Come
Jan 23 (commentary)--This commentary appears on both sites.

I've been struck lately by the polarization in attitude about mirrorless cameras. There's one group that thinks they're the best things since sliced bread. There's another group that thinks they're simply not good enough and should be avoided like the plague.

I have a simple test to see whether you actually believe what you think you believe.

Let's teleport back to 2002. I'm going to offer you a free D100 with its then available lenses or a free Nikon V1 with its now available lenses plus FT1 adapter. I'm pretty confident that you'll pick the V1. It has faster and better AF, faster frame rates, better metering, 4 million more pixels, better high ISO capability, and a host of other improvements. Personally, I'd pick the V1.

Okay, fair enough, that was ten years ago, how about fast forwarding five years to 2007. Now I'll offer you a free D80 or a free V1. I'm still pretty confident that you'd take the V1. Okay, let's move a bit more forward, to 2009. You can have a free V1, D5000, or D90. Finally the choice gets a little more difficult, though I suspect that your answers would polarize towards the V1 and D90. (Let's check that. Here's a survey you can take to see if you agree.)

So here's a question: if today's smallest sensor mirrorless camera is better than all but the pro DSLRs of a few years ago, why would anyone construe them as being "not good enough?" Were the millions of DSLRs sold that year also not good enough? ;~)

We can play this same game with other brands, by the way. In 2003 I can offer you an Olympus E-1 or an E-P3; which do you take? It's a little tougher question, as the E-1 is a higher-end specification DSLR and the E-P3 is a rangefinder-style mirrorless. But if image quality is your game, I'm pretty sure you'll pick the E-P3.

If you're a Sony user, try this: we'll go back to 2004 and I'll offer you a Maxxum 7D or a NEX-7. I'm thinking most of you are going to pick the NEX-7.

I use the Nikon V1 versus D100 as my primary example in my testing for a reason: right now it's the only 10-year comparison where we have true DSLR versus DSLR-like mirrorless. But we're going to get more of these in the next few years, and I suspect the answer will remain the same.

So now I have to remind you that many pros were using and getting published with a D100 back in 2002. Has the image quality at your favorite magazine gone up significantly in 10 years? No, though they are now able to publish shots taken in lighting that their photographers couldn't shoot in 10 years ago. Would that have been true with a V1 ten years ago? Yes, I think it would have allowed shots you couldn't really take with a D100. Therefore a pro would have picked the V1, I think. (Ironically, both the D100 and V1 user would have had problems with truly wide angle lens options. Hey, Nikon, a lot of us use your equipment because of how great Nikon wide angle lenses are; where are the DX and CX wide primes?)

So just how bad are the mirrorless cameras? Uh, not bad at all, which has been my point for three years now.

DSLRs are now 16mp or more, with "a lot more pixels" coming right at our event horizon. We have shoot-in-the-dark pro models, plus more-pixels-than-most-actually-use prosumer and consumer models, all with more features than anyone really uses. If you had asked me back in 2002 what was the ultimate set of specifications and quality I needed in a DSLR, we're now passing that definition. For a lot of my shooting, the V1 is actually enough, and that's probably true of a lot of you, too. It's the same for m4/3 or NEX or NX or any of the other mirrorless cameras, too.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take any additional bit of quality, performance, or comfort I can get, but when I fail at something photographically today, it almost never is my camera that's the problem.

Note to camera manufacturers: You still don't get it, do you? One of the reasons why the mirrorless cameras are getting more popular is because they are as competent as DSLRs but are smaller and lighter--they're less trouble to carry. When a DSLR user decides it's time to upgrade and they have a choice of same-old-big-beast and a competent smaller choice, a lot of them are picking the smaller choice. Even more would do that if you'd just design the darned things for a serious user in the first place. That doesn't mean you have to stop building those entry models (GF3, E-PM1, J1, C3), it just means you need to make sure you have the upper end ready, too. The popularity of the NEX-7 and the likely popularity of the upcoming Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Olympus OM-D ought to get your attention. But just in case they don't: make more and better serious mirrorless cameras, please. I'm looking at you Nikon.

It's Been a Strange Week
Jan 20 (commentary)--Updated. Since some people apparently can't associate questions with answers, I've numbered all of them. More so than any other week I can remember in the long history of this site (now well into its second decade), I've been getting tons of emails this week asking me to write about various subjects. I don't recall asking "what would you like me to write about?" but apparently someone must have done that for me, because I've been getting such requests in a constant stream all week. Only problem? I don't do requests. I have planned set list in mind.

The big four requests seem to be (1) what happened to Kodak and what's that mean for film?, (2) how good is the D4?, (3) what would the difference be between a D800 with and without AA filter be?, and (4) what do I think of Nikon not selling parts to independent repair shops? I also got a lot of (5) "is it okay to post process in 8-bit?" questions, too. (6) Another bunch wanted me to write about Fujifilm's new color filtration on the sensor. (7) Add to that a number of students that simply asked me to write out the answer to teacher's question (see "Try This at Home," below).

So, in order to get all those questions answered in the most efficient manner: (1) they screwed up and my drugstore still sells film, (2) very, (3) some amount of money to get more moire and maybe a bit more acuity (see also #7), (4) still thinking about it, (5) no, (6) it collects less color information, and (7) see my D3x review. There. I've just satisfied 250+ emails in one sentence. Now I can go back to trying to finish what I was working on (books, if you must ask).

Seriously, I do try to cover subjects that most of you are interested in. But I can't do everything at once, nor do I always do it when you think I might. You'll be surprised to find that many of the things that appear on this web site were written long before they appear ("Try This at Home" for example), while others were mostly written and then some event triggers my finishing them ("4K Video Future" for example). Basically, you get what you get when you get it. Anything else and you aren't getting byThom.

So keep sending in those requests. I note them. I consider them. I may eventually act on them.

Most important word in the previous five paragraphs: very.

It Must be the Extra Day This Leap Year
Jan 18 (commentary)--February is shaping up to be a big month for photographers. First, we have a number of new and significant cameras being delivered for the first time (e.g. D4, G1X). Second, we have resumptions of near-regular deliveries of new cameras consumed by the floods (e.g. Sony A77, NEX-7) plus existing cameras in previously hot demand (D7000). Third, we have new announcements coming (mostly in first seven days of the month due to the big Japanese show that starts on the 7th, and 7 is always a good number in Japan), and a few of those announcements are going to be surprises. I now believe Nikon will introduce something beyond just the D800 and Coolpix. Overall, I know of three new significant camera announcements in February, and I suspect there are more. So perhaps we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Uh-Oh
Jan 18 (commentary)--The Economist last week published an interesting article, "The last Kodak moment?" Definitely something readers of this site should read (especially you lingering film users), but it was a quote within that article that really got me to thinking.

Fujifilm's CEO Shigetaka Komori was quoted as saying "[a digital camera company] is a small business and not enough to support a big company." Okay, I added the word "camera", but I think in context that is justified. Indeed, a digital camera company would be an even smaller market than a digital company, which is the point I want to address.

Let's do some back-of-the-envelope calculation here. Let's first assume that the overall camera market (compacts, mirrorless, and DSLRs) is going to be relatively flat for the next five years. After all, phones are nibbling at the bottom, and DSLRs have reached saturation. So we're talking about 115-120m units. Nikon grew Coolpix 8% and interchangeable lens cameras 10% in the past year, so let's just assume 8% overall unit growth.

See the problem? Nikon has about 18% of the overall camera market (23m out of 120m) at the moment. If they grow their unit volume 8% a year as they currently suggest, we get 20%, 22%, 25% for future annual market shares. One out of every four cameras sold would have to be a Nikon by 2014 for them to continue their current growth.

That's not impossible, but given the players in the market and the potential for both buyer burnout and product disenfranchisement, it seems a bit unlikely. Indeed, it's possible to envision a future where Nikon's unit volume drops but their market share grows.

As Komori-san hinted, it's not a big market. It has huge price pressures, too, so retaining margin is tough. This is a similar problem facing Nikon to that which faced Kodak. Which leads me to one of three possible conclusions: (1) we're seeing the zenith of Nikon in the next few years; (2) cameras need to be reinvented to an extent that it rekindles new purchasing; or (3) Nikon needs to find another market to play and grow in (that could be phones, but that seems unlikely).

So what does Nikon look like 10 years from now? Just the biggest fish in two ponds that are growing smaller? Or a fish that flies over land and finds a bigger pond? Here's hoping for flying fish.

4K Video Future
Jan 17 (commentary)--I was a little surprised to see Michael Reichmann's Ode to 4K last week. Yes, 4K is certainly here in Hollywood, and thus is trickling down into the ad agencies and high-end videographer ranks as they try to keep up and bulletproof themselves from any future format change. But 4K has some huge stumbling blocks before it becomes prevalent, and one of those stumbling blocks is a killer.

It's not like we haven't gone through this before. We did, with HD TV. And before that, digital capture. And before that, color TV. The debate over formats and standardizations for HD TV took over a decade, was highly contentious, and the rollout to the point where a majority of customers had it took almost as long (at least here in the US; but the US is a critical market for high tech still, so real solutions tend to have to reflect our regulatory and other issues).

Some of you reading this are asking "what is 4K"? It's a loose term for a jumble of video formats. We have several 4K definitions in place at the moment, mostly via Hollywood, which is pushing digital projectors on theaters. In a simplistic sense, HD TV tops out at 1920 x 1080 pixels. 4K tops out at 4096 x 3112 pixels. Yeah, that's a 4:3 aspect ratio, and aspect ratios are one of the things we fought about with HD TV for years; in 16:9 aspect ratio 4K is usually, but not always, defined as 4096 x 2160. But Hollywood likes to shoot wider than 16:9. No matter what the actual pixel count, the basic definition of 4K is something akin to this: four times the pixels of HD TV and a doubling of resolution.

Let's tackle some of the 4K stumbling points.

Price: Michael seems to think this is the roadblock, but it is not. While current prices are in the five figure category for a big screen 4K monitor, the only thing that holds it there is volume. Ultimately, a 4K panel should be about as cheap to produce as 2K panel, but it takes volume to get to that point. It's the other stumbling blocks that keep volume from increasing to the point where 4K is affordable to consumers. The TV makers won't be the stumbling block, as they'll be happy to produce 4K sets at somewhat higher than 1080P prices--it would restore their product margins. Indeed, this is part of the problem with 4K, just as it was with HD TV: it's being driven from the wrong end. It isn't consumers that are clammoring for it, it's manufacturers looking for a way to get away from the price wars that have made HD TV mostly unprofitable for most of them.

Standards: Hollywood has defined 4K. So has NHK in Japan, and they'll be demonstrating it in Japan for this year's Olympics. Both of the main standards bodies involved in International TV are discussing 4K. There are still a lot of conflicting bits (literally) in the definitions being used, including compression (more on that in a bit). Patents also come into play, as we've got multiple players holding key patents with everyone wanting a piece of any future patent pool. We'll need that patent pool merge (or at least an extension of the MPEG LA pool) to agree on a standard, is my guess.

Visual: A 4K video camera running at 60 fps (one of the current definitions) is likely going to have a faster than 1/60 minimum shutter speed. Hollywood 4K shooters seem to want 60 fps. I'm not sure why, as it moves them a long way from the traditional Hollywood look, where intraframe blur is actually part of the visual style (24 fps film cameras generated 1/50 minimum shutter speeds). Maybe a new visual style will be welcome, and of course we can always post process intraframe blur in ;~). Still, it's a change no one is in agreement on (there's a move afoot from some for even higher frame rates).

Delivery: Here's the killer problem. We can't deliver 4K video to consumers. Heck, we're still having big trouble delivering 1080P/30 to consumers. We need bigger, faster pipes. True, some countries involved in TV production (Japan, Korea) have fast and ubiquitous Internet access, and this is a danger for 4K: a standard is evolving that can't currently be delivered at the consumer level in most countries, even the US and Europe. Here in the US we can't really deliver highly compressed 1080P reliably, let alone to everyone. So we also need a well-defined and widely available physical format to distribute content with (oh dear, here we go with the DVD HD versus Blu-Ray wars again). We also need to settle on a compression to deliver content with, too, as we certainly have no chance to deliver uncompressed 4K content any time soon. Delivery is a classic Chicken versus Egg problem. 3D has been going through this: we can deliver fancy 3D TVs at regular TV prices, but we don't have enough content to justify really having to buy one. This is 4K's basic problem: until delivery of content is assured, it isn't a consumer format.

Theaters: Your local theater isn't going to like investing in 4K projection equipment if you can do the same thing at home at consumer prices. Hollywood has a vested interest in 4K digital projection, but not in consumers' hands. This is one of the things I hate about tech: we get deep pocket organizations that are resistent to change because they believe it removes their advantage and they won't be able to market against it. We've watched the music, video, and publishing industries all try to stall tech advances because they were afraid of them. That resistance hasn't gotten lower over time. Hollywood still wants to distribute first to theaters, second to premium pay-to-view, third to physical media, and finally to streaming. They want each progression of distribution to be done via a time delay, and in lower quality. Yes, I strongly believe there's a potential business model to flip that and prove them wrong. But my point here is that these are the deep pockets that 4K as a potential consumer format is fighting today.

The funny thing is that the one impediment to 4K is not equipment (the thing that prompted Michael to write about 4K was the appearance of US$5000 4K video camera). We have 4K cameras. We can capture and edit 4K content with many of our current tools. We can show 4K content (albeit mostly at theatres that have the right equipment). More 4K equipment is being produced every day and will continue to be. This is no different than any other "revolution" in video over the past 50 years. I first saw 1080P in 1975, for instance. I could have bought a very expensive camera, editor, and display to work with it, had I wanted to. A few did, but what we got as the actual standard in the late 90's was different than those original models could work with ;~).

I have no doubt we will have 4K in our future. The questions are when will it impact you directly, and when will it become a widespread consumer format. If you're a high end professional videographer, you already need it (and preferably a large sensor version of it that shoots raw, such as that which the RED produces). It's the same problem as still photographers have: high-end clients demand over sampling and highest possible quality. If you're shooting stills for big agencies these days, 24mp is a bare minimum. Most of them want medium format levels of pixels (30mp or more). The same thing is happening in video. They want 1080P/60 uncompressed at a minimum, but would really prefer 4K. Why? Because it "future safes" them. If they have to pull up something they used in a previous campaign it'll be in a high enough resolution that it can still be used with that future technology.

So you may ask why I'm writing about 4K on a predominately still photography site. Whether you want them to be or not, stills and video are now interlinked. Sensor work now is done trying to accomodate both. I was curious as to whether Nikon would get to 4K on the D4. They didn't. As a matter of fact, they didn't get to AVCHD 2 (1080P/60). But it's clear that they'll probably have to get to 4K with a D5. To put that in clearer terms, the big issue that would be happening at the sensor and in the digital circuitry is an attempt to expand the internal bandwidth to handle four to eight times the data it currently is. There are potential pluses for still work from that (look at the 60 fps still mode on the Nikon 1).

Let's hope that the camera makers don't forget that more of us buy cameras for stills than for video.

My The Card Market is Suddenly Contentious
Jan 16 (commentary)--First up, we have the SD group announcing at CES that they're coming up with an open standard for wireless transmission from an SD card. This was almost immediately met with a response from EyeFi, which I interpreted as saying "we own the intellectual property on that, back off."

So we probably won't have standards for WiFi-on-a-card any time soon, at least not without litigation involved. I suspect that some camera makers were behind this new standard idea: by putting WiFi on the card instead of the camera it takes the cost of implementation out of the camera itself.

Frankly, I think the right approach is to put WiFi in the camera: first, it reduces potential consumer duplication costs (WiFi in every card you buy), but more importantly communication is something that's more useful if the camera controls it. We need integration of communication, not addition. Of course, the problem is that the camera companies haven't figured out "integration with what and how" despite the obvious answers being right in front of their noses.

Meanwhile, Photography Blog reports that both Lexar and SanDisk have no plans to release XQD cards, at least in the near future. This makes Nikon's decision to go with XQD in the D4 potentially more eyebrow-raising than it at first seemed (which was already eyebrow-raising). What seems a bit strange is that SanDisk was one of the three proposers of the XQD card back in 2010 (Sony and Nikon were the other two).

Technically, the CompactFlash Association is the holder of the XQD specification now, but with SanDisk and Lexar declining to produce cards, at least at the moment it appears that Sony and Nikon are the only real players in this new game. The quote from in Rob Galbraith's interview with Toshiaki Akagi--"we don't know which companies will be making XQD, other than Sony"--is a disturbing one, as it seems to imply that Nikon knew that there was a strong potential for XQD to be single source for awhile. That, of course, has implications on XQD card availability and prices.

Nikon's XQD commitment is feeling a bit like Apple's Thunderbolt decision at the moment: too early. The potential D4 user wanted matching card slots, but with little third-party XQD support early on we effectively got a single CF slot. Yep, another friction for the customer.

Try This at Home
Jan 16 (commentary)--A common question I seem to be getting since Nikon Rumors pre-announced a 36mp D800 is this: should I get a D700 or wait for the D800? A variant of that question is: I have a D700, do I really need a 36mp D800?

Most of the nervousness comes from all those pixels. But if you're worried, here's a little experiment to try at home. Borrow a D700 and D7000. Set the D700 to shoot in DX mode. Shoot the same exact composition with the same lens on both cameras. Now downsize the D7000 image to 5.4mp. Compare away. Extra credit: use the same zoom lens with 1.5x focal length differences to shoot the same scene with the D700 set to FX crop, but downsize the D7000 to 12mp.

We can't isolate all variables when we attempt to make image quality comparisons between two competing models/products. But we can often isolate enough to make an intelligent decision. The D7000 has about the same photosite size as we'd expect from 36mp FX. Any new sensor might be even better at some underlying dynamic than the 18-month old D7000 sensor, so you're probably looking at worst case in the above comparisons.

Of course, the next problem is that some people won't notice any differences, while some will. The question is this: if you can't see the tree fall in the forest, did it fall? Or worse still, quantum mechanics might be involved if you don't actually perform the comparison: if you don't look in the forest, the tree might or might not have fallen, and which of those is true won't be determined until you look.

The Fix is In
Jan 13 (news)--Nik Software yesterday released a 64-bit version of Color Efex Pro 3.0 for Capture NX2 (version 3.0.0.4). Both Mac and Windows versions are available. This resolves the issues with CEP and Nikon's 64-bit update for NX2, and is much welcome for those that use the plug-in.

Credit Where Credit is Due
Jan 13 (commentary)--Last November I wrote an article objecting to Adobe's announcement of a "one-version update" policy for CS6. Simply put, Adobe was only going to offer update prices for CS5 users. Many of us with very visible sites, such as Scott Kelby, complained and offered alternatives.

It appears that Adobe heard their customers. The one-version update policy will be rescinded for CS6. When CS6 comes out in the first half of this year, anyone owning CS3, CS4, or CS5 versions will be able to get upgrades until the end of the year. In short, Adobe accepted one of the proposed compromises: a longer transition period before a one-version update policy takes effect (which, if I'm reading Adobe's statements correctly, will begin in 2013).

So, Adobe, thank you for listening.

Friction and the D4
Jan 13 (commentary)--Yesterday on sansmirror I wrote an article where I used the following statement: "[no] camera [exists that] allows me to get to great images without any friction." Today we get an interview by Rob Galbraith with a Nikon engineer that allows me to show my concept of design friction at work.

Basically, the D4's new battery and charger solve frictions that Nikon themselves have: they need to comply with new Japanese regulations (size of battery) and don't want any liability (chance of problems using new battery in old charger and vice versa). The result of those frictions to Nikon is that they changed the battery and charger designs to be incompatible with older versions.

This introduces a customer friction: a pro user now has multiple batteries and chargers if they have a D3s/D3x and D4, and they have to buy new batteries and chargers, which is a cost friction. (According to Nikon, but unverified, there is no real shots-per-charge friction introduced by the change; I'm doubtful of that assertion, especially in certain shooting scenarios, but I'll reserve judgment until I can check it.)

This is exactly how frictions shouldn't be resolved. It's fine for a company to remove frictions in their manufacturing and costs, but not if they introduce customer frictions. It's fine to reduce customer frictions even if they increase manufacturing and cost frictions to the manufacturer (within reason, of course).

Nikon got it backward. Let's hope that's the only friction they increased.

Waterproofing Reinvented
Jan 12 (news)--While everyone else announces SmartThis and SmartThat and X1's and 1X's and all other forms of X, the more interesting announcements at CES tend to be things you have to look harder for. One of those: Liquipel. Update: there's more than one, and the relationship between them (competitors, licensing?) is unknown. The other is HzO, a Utah-based company, whose product is WaterBlock.

Liquipel is a nano-coating agent, and you can get it today for a number of smart phones (iPhone, for example). But I suspect we're going to see manufacturers who don't have to be hit over the head with this new technology to appreciate what it might do. Like underwater cameras without housings, or at least cameras that can function in rain without concern.

Okay, maybe we do have to hit the camera makers over the head, can someone please hand me a bat? This seems like a no-brainer for high-end equipment, and it can be integrated into manufacturing. Would I pay a few dollars more for a camera more impervious to water? Absolutely. More than a few dollars, actually. SWINGS BAT. SWINGS BAT AGAIN. "Hello, anyone there?"

Love their tag line, by the way: wet and wired. Just don't mispell the last word ;~).

Camera Databases Updated
Jan 12 (news)--I've updated the Current Nikon DSLR database with D4 information and the Old Nikon DSLR database with the D3000, D5000, D90, and D3s being moved over.

New Sigma Lens
Jan 11 (news)--Sigma introduced the APO Macro 180mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM lens at CES/PMA. A big lens (8", 204mm in length), it's an interesting combination of fast telephoto and macro, with a fairly complex optical design as a result (19 elements in 14 groups). It's got a built-in tripod collar, OS (Sigma's version of VR), supports both DX and FX cameras, and gets to 1:1 at 18.5" (47cm), which is about a 10" working distance. Bad news is the size/weight, especially the 86mm filter threads. No pricing or availability date was announced.

The Software Parade
Jan 11 (news)--I've got a bit of software announcements and updating to catch up on. Here goes:

In the iOS world, NightCap is a new camera app that extends shutter speeds on the iPhone down to a full second. AntiCrop uses content-aware fill to fill out things when you rotate or straighten images.

Updates include RAW Developer (Mac) 1.9.4, which for Nikon users would be mostly a bug fix version. FDRTools hits version 2.5.1. DataRescue's PhotoRescue Wizard is updated to v.3.2.9 Build 13221, and now supports the Nikon D5100 NEFs and Olympus E-P3 ORFs. Capture One Pro hits 6.3.3 with improved color noise suppression plus support for the Nikon J1, V1, and P7100. Capture One Media Pro likewise updates to version 1.2, plus it gets some metadata handling enhancements. RPP 4.4.2 (Mac) gets new profiles for the Nikon D5100 and Kodak SLR/n.

In the "sorta new" category, Ingestmatic 1.32 (Mac) has a bunch of new features, and is now available for Windows 7. Nik Software has announced that Snapseed, a popular iOS application, will also be available for the Mac OS (and Android, too, though I don't usually tend to report Android products). Corel's AfterShot Pro 1.0 is basically Bibble 5.x repackaged and under new ownership (it's unclear if there are any new features in the 1.0 release, but there eventually will be).

CamTethering 1.02 (Mac) is a new application that supports tethered control of most recent Nikon cameras.

Trends Part Two
Jan 11 (commentary)--Over on sansmirror.com I've published a mirrorless view of the camera trends that compliments the following story.

An Ugly End to 2011 for Photography
Jan 10 (commentary)--We're now deep into the trend I predicted quite a few years ago: that smartphones and low-end system cameras would cannibalize compact cameras.

DCWatch reported that compact camera sales were down 17% over the first 11 months of 2011 over the same period in 2010. At the same time, interchangeable lens cameras were up 12%. Since the interchanageable lens camera market is about one-eighth the size of the compact camera market, the overall camera market probably declined.

Worse still, NPD has now reported that the five-week Christmas sales tally here in the US showed that point and shoot camera sales were down 20.8%, digital picture frames down 37.5%, and camcorders down a whopping 42.5%. It was not a imaging Christmas season, especially since Nikon and Sony interchanageable lens camera sales were limited by supply due to the Thailand floods.

Dealers were hard pressed during the Christmas buying season, partly due to product availability, but also due to that demand reduction. Penn Camera Exchange, an eight-store retailer in the Washington DC area, announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection and closing five of its stores.

The traditional response by the camera makers to lower demand for compact cameras in the US has been "we'll push those products into developing countries, instead." Unfortunately, everyone's finding that strategy isn't exactly a great one, as (1) the demand in those countries is for lower priced product, putting margin pressures on what sales you do get; and (2) cell phones are well established in those countries, and the trend towards just using the phone for stills and video is just as rampant in the developing world as it is in the developed.

Since this is Photo Marketing Association (PMA) week, it seems like a good time to ask who's doing what to fight the trend?

Canon: doubles down on compact cameras! Instead of producing a mirrorless camera, they've chosen to produce a large sensor compact camera (G1 X). Actually, possibly more than one according to rumors. The G and S models still do decently, despite terrible marketing support (at least here in the US). However, Canon also seems distracted by wanting to convert their still users into videographers. Tackling pro video is a niche business, though with decent growth at the moment. The top-end DSLR refresh was a bit disappointing. Canon seems a bit random at the moment.

Nikon: bet big on interchangeable (Nikon 1, complete DSLR line refresh in less than two years [though the quake and floods slowed this]). Also continues betting that they can market compacts better than the others and gain market share while others lose it (so far, so good). More than any other company, Nikon is a camera company first and foremost, and they are the most vulnerable should they misjudge the future of cameras. Fortunately, the Nikon 1 shows that they still have some technology skills that make for interesting and useful products (and Nikon just announced the J1 model was the best selling mirrorless camera in the UK in the week before Christmas, and Nikon is now the second best selling brand of mirrorless cameras in Britain). The D4 shows that they still can produce the best pro products. The devil is in the details, and Nikon still gets too many of those wrong. Still, Nikon is more seemingly on target than the other camera companies, and executing well.

Fujifilm: bet hugely on compact cameras and continues to do so. Technically, their numerous bridge cameras and X100 are compact cameras, but they have plenty of regular compacts, too. Their marketing messages tend to be good, but they don't generate the in-store customer traffic Nikon does from their ads (hint to Fujifilm: coop promotions work). Minor bet made by putting interchangeable primes on an updated X100 frame (upcoming X-Pro1). Fujifilm also has a sub-theme of retro, mainly because a retro design worked for them on the X100. Duh. I've been telling the camera companies that for years: cameras weren't broken. They didn't need to be redesigned into button-laden, mode-filled, option-overloaded devices. Still, the overrelliance on compacts without a marketing program pushing them into customers' hands means they aren't making market share progress easily, if at all. They're betting on a declining market, and going high end in that market to retain margin.

Sony: bet big on interchangeable (NEX, complete refresh of Alpha to EVF). Seems to have lost their way with compacts, but has some winners in the interchangeable arena and has started to work better with dealers in promoting them (Thailand floods notwithstanding). Unlike Canon, real Sony Video is still mostly being done by Sony Video, not Sony Stills. Nevertheless, the decline of compact sales is hurting them, as that was where they had their biggest share, and now they're losing that both to competitors and to the shrinking market.

Olympus: bet big on mirrorless, almost exactly where I would have bet big (though with programmability and communications). But they've cratered on compacts (other than the XZ-1 and perhaps their underwater compact), cratered on DSLRs, and thus are a smaller player than they should be. Moreover, it's been fire sales of their older Pen models that are giving them volume, not list price on the new stuff. With management distracted and marketing stalling, they need someone to come in and fix both those things, fast.

Panasonic: bet big on mirrorless, but also still trying to regenerate momentum in compacts (they've been losing share to Nikon, and Fujifilm now wants their market share, too). Simple problem: they suck at marketing their products, especially in the US. Nothing wrong with their products. Everything wrong with their distribution, sales, support, and marketing (again, especially in the critical US market). Unfortunately, that's not likely to get fixed.

Samsung: bet on everything except DSLRs, where they've retreated. However, I still scratch my head about them. What are they really trying to prove? That they can create all the same products as ALL other consumer manufacturers? The synergy is missing. Samsung cameras don't really drive anything else Samsung, and Samsung TVs, et.al., don't really drive camera sales. If any maker was going to take a flying leap and reinvent the camera (programmable, modular, communicating), it should have been Samsung, as they have all the components to do so, and that would create synergy with other products. That's the problem with copying others rather than leading. Instead of copying the curves of iPhone and iPad, Samsung should have been sticking in bigger sensors and making better smartcameraphones.

Pentax/Ricoh: incomplete information as they're still meshing. Ricoh was primarily a niche compact company and Pentax had become primarily a DSLR company. The growth is in between, so they have a lot of work to do.

Meanwhile, one compact camera producer, Kodak, is rumored to be very near filing for bankruptcy (source: Wall Street Journal).

The overall problem is only going to get worse, I think. On a recent trip to the Galapagos I counted cameras: smartphones outnumbered everything else in use, and by a substantial margin. That was a bit of a shocker to me, and shows how fast things have changed in the photo taking world. Not too long ago, Galapagos tourism was mostly a SLR/DSLR world.

The trend lines in photography have a lot of conflicts in them. Overall, the smartphone trend is driven by the young (and getting younger), the retro/interchangeable trend driven by an older, more mature user. Photos are heading more and more into the cloud rather than local hard drives, getting printed less, and neither camera companies nor camera users seem to get the fact that electronic display is the likely future but is typically maxed out at 1920x1080 due to HD TV definitions (and 16:9 aspect ratio, to boot). Workflow is still broken, and more so for the mass market than the pro user. There's opportunity in all this confusion and conflict, but no camera maker has managed to take advantage of it. Maybe it's time for a startup...

This article also posted here.

Canon Bets on X
Jan 9 (news and commentary)--X apparently was recently discovered in Japan to have magical properties, as virtually everyone except for Nikon has come out with a product using the letter. This time, it's Canon with the G1 X.

Take a G12, make a few refinements and stick in a 14mp slightly bigger than m4/3-crop sensor (18.7x14mm), and you have a G1 X (technically, in Roman numerals, that a G9 ;~). The lens is 28-112mm f/2.8-5.8 equivalent, the camera shoots 14-bit raw, has a Speedlite compatible hotshoe, keeps the swivel LCD, and ships in February for US$800. Should you want a lesser camera, the G12 will continue to be sold.

Note: I'm going to call Canon on marketing hype here. Their press materials all use the term "near APS-C" in terms of size. The sensor is not close at all. It is "near m4/3" (262 mm squared area versus 243, with APS-C being somewhere above 350 depending upon whose definition you accept). Still a large sensor, but it's actually about about two-thirds of a stop smaller than APS-C (see my sensor size article on sansmirror.com for what I mean by that).

My D4 Introduction Analysis
Jan 9 (news)--I've posted a long article and commentary on the new Nikon D4. If you're interested in the camera, you'll want to read that from start to finish (and I'll update it as I learn more).

If you want the short synopsis: nothing revolutionary this time, just a great deal of iteration. Indeed, at least three things I've long requested have been fixed/added, so either Nikon finally got around to discovering those problems themselves or they finally got the message from users.

Video shooters will be impressed with the D4. There's little Nikon got wrong with the changes to the video, and the D4 now becomes the best of the bunch in terms of DSLR-based video, I think. Full manual control, uncompressed output (via HDMI), remote control and monitoring, plus audio monitoring are nice additions. What did they miss? Dual mic audio, mini-XLR, AVCHD 2, under/over cranking, multi-camera syncing.

In terms of still use, it's mostly tweaking. Bigger buffers (with the right cards), better autofocus, and improved metering are the main bits. But there are some hidden pluses, too, including IPTC data entry, a built-in HDR mode for JPEGs, silent shooting (2mp), and more. The 15% resolution increase isn't going to excite many, though it is welcome, and just enough to produce visible differences.

One gotcha with the D4 is cost. No, not the US$6000 price tag, which is in line with inflation and currency conversion changes. You'll need new batteries. If you want the best remote capabilities, you'll need the new WT-5 and an iPhone/iPad. You'll want new, faster cards (both XQD and UDMA-7 CompactFlash). In short, you'll spend a lot of money updating the ecosystem around the camera.

Again, read my full article for the details.

Oh Yeah, There Was a Lens Announced
Jan 9 (news)--A curious sub-item in the Nikon D4 introduction was the 85mm AF-S f/1.8G announcement. An update of the budget f/1.8D portrait prime, this new US$500 lens will be released in late March (so why announce it with the D4?). Details are nine element design, seven blade rounded diaphragm, AF-S focus motor, 31.5" (80cm) close focus distance, 67mm filter size, and a weight of 12.5 ounces (360g). Comes with the HB-62 hood and CL-1015 carrying case.

Should be a welcome addition to Nikon's prime lineup, especially given the dramatic price differential between the f/1.4 and f/1.8 models. But really, Nikon, how many 85mm lenses do we need? We now have four, but no DX wide angle primes. Did the lens designers all major in telephoto?

That said, I'll go out on a limb here: the 85mm f/1.8G will be a huge seller. Not to D4 users. Not to D800 users. Not to D400 users. Not to existing Nikon DSLR users. Nope, it will turn out to be the lens of choice for Nikon 1 users. At 230mm equivalent, f/1.8, and relatively compact on a Nikon V1 body, it becomes the poor man's 200mm f/2. What soccer mom/sports dad wouldn't like one of those?

Bye Bye Bibble
Jan 8 (news)--Bibble was one of the first third-party raw converters, and one of the few that pushed back when Nikon started encrypting white balance data. Corel has acquired Bibble and announced that it will use the core technology in a new workflow product called AfterShot to be announced at PMA this week. Unfortunately for Bibble users, the current 5.2.3 version is to be the last, as Bibble is now to be discontinued and no longer available for sale.

It's always sad to see a pioneer disappear, but particularly so in this case because Bibble was at the forefront of many raw conversion capabilities and trends. Let's hope that the technology finds a good home with its new owner and in a new product. One other thing to note: AfterShot will only support Intel Macs. PowerPC users have suffered another casualty.

Nikon D4 NPS Orders
Jan 6 (news)--Just a note to those of you who are NPS: you should have received an email from Nikon today with information about how to go about a Priority Purchase of the D4. Don't ignore that, as Priority Purchase orders are shipped based upon the date of the order. If you wait, you may find yourself not getting a D4 on February 16th (delivery date in the US).

Nikon D4 Announced
Jan 6 (news)--Nikon today announced their new pro camera model, the D4. The D4 will be available in mid-to-late February at US$6000. Nikon is demonstrating the new camera at PMA, amongst other places.

Rather than rush my analysis of the new camera, I'm going to wait until Monday to publish a full description and commentary on the camera. As usual with Nikon, there's a lot of good news and a bit of bad. While the outside of the camera isn't much changed, the list of internal changes is very extensive, and it's easy to overlook significant new features (completely silent shooting mode, for instance).

My initial assessment: the D4 looks like a nice iteration of the Nikon pro DSLR. Lots more on Monday.

If you have seen a piece of Nikon news you think I might not have, send a URL pointer to me by email.

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