Fireworks, Darling Harbour, Sydney

Last week I was in Sydney, staying at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel, Darling Harbour, Sydney. It is a wonderful place to stay and the service was magnificent.

I love fireworks photography and as it happened there was some fireworks directly outside the window of our room over the harbour. Normally I will use a tripod for this type of photography, however it all happened so quickly as I was not expecting any fireworks and I did not have a tripod available at this time. This image is a composite of two separate exposures which were merged in photoshop and the camera was hand held with the image taken through a dirty glass window. Considering the conditions and that this was my first attempt at fireworks images without a tripod I was quite happy with how the image turned out.

Captured with a Nikon D700 camera and 24-120mm lens, ISO200 at 100mm.

There are some more fireworks images here.

These are the top ten most visited posts at all digital photography  for the month of April, 2012.

• Nikon Lens Review of the Ten Best Nikon Lenses
• Nikon View NX-2 Review
• Photo Galleries
• Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G AF-S Lens
• The Nikkor, Nikon, Super Telephoto Lenses for Bird Photography
• Nikon, Nikkor, 300mm f/4D IF-ED AF-S, Lens Review
• Nikon Wide Angle Lens Reviews
• People Gallery
• Nikon Lens Reviews, Recommendations and Articles
• Modified Nikon PB-6 Bellows Units – Focusing Rail – Nodal Rail

Yes there is a relatively easy way to geotag  your Nikon image files. Until recently I did not realise that Nikon View NX had the capability to imprint the GPS coordinates on each image file in a bulk process. However there are some important steps to go through.

There are many different GPS add on devices which plug directly in to your camera to input the GPS coordinates, but it generally involves a cost of several hundred dollars and also the extra bulk of the added device and the cable to the camera.

I already possess a portable GPS system in my motor vehicle and thought, why should I purchase another GPS for my camera. My vhicle GPS is a Garmin Nuvi and it is easy to download the relevant travel log file from the GPS unit using a USB cable. In the case of my Nuvi the file required is a .gpx file which is compatible with Nikon View NX.

Before capturing your images it is important to ensure that the camera clock is synchronised to your GPS unit clock. Most GPS units will automatically get their time from the satellite, so set you camera clock to the same time as the GPS unit.

When you go out photographing take your camera and GPS unit with you, with their time synchronised, in my case I carry the GPS unit in my backpack.

When post processing I use Nikon View NX and all the following GPS files;

• .nmea
• .nma
• .log
• .gpx

are compatible and can thus be processed by View NX.

After you have loaded Nikon View NX, across the top of the screen there are various selections. Selact Log Matching.

View NX

When the Log Matching screen comes up you will see the following:

Log Matching

Select Add to add the file from your GPS device, in my case it was the .gpx file. Then press save to save the specific coordinates to each of your image files. Job done.

What essentially happens, is that the View NX software checks the time each image was captured and then checks from the GPS data where you were at that particular time and stamps each image file with the location.

It should be noted that the View NX software is a free download from Nikon.

Many photo sites such as Flickr, which I use, will enable you to include the geotag and make it visible with the image on the Flickr site.

I do not have an iPhone, but since the iPhone has a built in GPS, I  believe you should also be able to download your GPS locations from an iPhone and import the information into Nikon View NX.

Nikon 28mm 1.8G AF-S Lens

I love using fixed focal length lenses, as in my opinion they appear to have more clarity and give a sharper image. One of the main advantages is also the lower apertures, in this case f/1.8 which will enable the photographer to achieve a really thin depth of field for selective focus.

Up to this time, the only AF-S lenses for Nikon FX users were the 35mm f/1.4 and the 24mm f/1.4 at a very high cost premium, so this lens will be very welcome at a much lower cost.

This lens at 28mm, will have minimum distortion compared to some of the wider fixed focal length lenses and zoom lenses and consequently will be excellent for panorama type photography. Many of the wider lenses down to 10mm, 14mm and 16mm have lots of distortion at those focal lengths and I am a great believer in constructing panoramas using a wider lens such as this 28mm lens. For landscape work I rarely use a lens wider than 24mm or 28mm and where I do require wide I generally construct a panorama, it give a much more pleasing image with less distortion.

I really like the focal lengths around 24mm and 28mm and I can really see myself getting this lens in the near future.

Nikon are now producing an excellent range of  f/1.8 G  AF-S lenses for the FX and DX camera users. Some are listed as follows:

• 28mm f/1.8 lens
• 35mm f/1.8 DX lens
• 50mm f/1.8 lens
• 85mm f/1.8 lens

According to Nikon’s description, this lens is a wide angle lens that will match the high pixel count of the newer digital SLR cameras. The recent D800 has 36 MPixels and each new camera seems to gain more and more pixels with each new release.

This new lens has Nikon’s Nano Crystal Coat which does effectively reduces ghost and flare within the lens. It has a large maximum aperture of f/1.8 for low light shooting and also to give a very nice selective focus.

The lens incorporates a Silent Wave Motor (SWM) to give a quiet auto focus operation. There are two focus modes available, M/A (autofocus with manual override) and M (manual focus) for complete manual focussing.

The lens should give a beautiful image blur, bokeh.

Take a look here for some sample images from this 28mm f/1.8 lens on Flickr.

For details on the range of Nikon lenses take a look at the Nikon lens review page.

Specification

• Focal length, 28 mm
• Maximum aperture, f/1.8
• Minimum aperture, f/16
• Lens construction, 11 elements in 9 groups
• 2 aspherical lens elements
• Lens elements with Nano-Crystal coatings
• Angle of view, Nikon film SLR and FX-format D-SLR cameras: 75°, Nikon DX format D-SLR cameras: 53°
• Focusing, Rear Focusing (RF) System
• Silent Wave Motor
• Separate focus ring for manual focus
• Minimum focus distance, 0.25 m, 0.82 ft
• Maximum reproduction ratio, approx. 0.22x
• No. of diaphragm blades, 7 (rounded diaphragm opening)
• Filter attachment size, 67 mm (P=0.75 mm)
• Dimensions, 73 mm maximum diameter, 80.5 mm
• Weight, 330 g, 11.6 oz.

Osprey, Iluka

Recently I spent a week at Iluka, New South Wales and was able to capture many varieties of different birds.

The above nesting Osprey was building a nest on the top of a mobile telephone tower on a purposely built platform for the nest. The nest was very high off the ground and I used a Nikon D700 with a Nikon 300mm AF-S lens combined with an older TC-200 teleconverter. This teleconverter is designed for the older manual focus lenses and consequently needed to be manually focused. I used a tripod and remote cable release.

The camera settings for the above Osprey image were  f/11, 1/5000 sec, ISO2000.

Pelican, Iluka

The above Pelican has been captured wit the Nikon 300mm f/4 lens. Flight images are relatively easy to capture as they are quite a slow moving bird and I find them quite easy to follow and focus. The beauty of the pelican is that they are quite common in many areas, they are a large bird, generally quiet and not shy, they do not require a really long telephoto lens to capture.

The camera settings for the above Pelican image was  f/5.6, 1/4000 sec, ISO400.

White Faced Heron, Iluka

The above white faced heron is a beautiful bird. The bird was slowly moving across a rock wall and was making short flights from rock to rock. I was fortunate enough to be able to capture the bird as it made its short flights. This image was captured with a Nikon D700 camera and 300mm lens. These are quite a large bird and I was able to get reasonably close to it. These are magnificent creatures and I was fortunate to get a very nice flight image.

The camera settings for the above image were  f/5, 1/5000 sec, ISO1250.

In general any flight image requires a fast focussing camera and quick reflexes. Also a camera capable of 4 to 5 frames per second or more will help to capture that elusive image.

All of the above birds were photographed around Iluka, on the North coast of New South Wales.

Nikon D3200 Digital SLR Camera

The pixel density of the entry level cameras keep increasing with each release and the new entry level Nikon D3200 is evidence of this. I am not sure when this increase in pixel density will cease.

The D3200 is a high performance entry class camera. This compact lightweight camera utilizes the newly developed Nikon DX format CMOS sensor and the EXPEED 3 image-processing engine that delivers 24.2 megapixels high image quality and ISO sensitivity range from ISO100 to 6400.

There is an easy to use Guide Mode that shows you how to capture great pictures. The camera is available in both black and red.

The image processing engine EXPEED 3 is the same as that used by the Nikon D4 FX format flagship camera and achieves high speed, multiple functions and high performance.

The Scene Recognition System enables beautiful pictures with sharp focus and appropriate brightness and color by recognizing the subject and scene conditions prior to capture.
High-speed continuous shooting at 4 fps to capture decisive moments is provided.

The optional WU-1a Wireless Mobile Adapter transmits images to smart devices wirelessly.

There is a variety of in camera image editing functions such as Selective color, Miniature effect, and Trim.

Also, with high-speed readout from the image sensor integrated with the superior image processing capability, Full HD D-Movie at 1,920 x 1,080/30p is provided.

The camera will identify the light source precisely, auto white balance, to ensure perfect colour reproduction.

Here are some sample images from the D3200 camera.

Specifications

• Type, Single lens reflex digital camera
• Lens mount, Nikon F mount, with AF contacts
• Effective angle of view, 1.5 x lens focal length
• Effective pixels, 24.2 million,
• Image sensor, 23.2 x 15.4 mm CMOS sensor
• Total pixels, 24.7 million
• Dust reduction System, Image sensor cleaning, Image Dust Off reference data optional Capture NX 2 software required
• Image size (pixels)
• 6,016 x 4,000 (Large)
• 4,512 x 3,000 (Medium)
• 3,008 x 2,000 (Small)
• File format
• NEF (RAW): 12 bit, compressed
• JPEG: JPEG Baseline compliant with fine (approx. 1 : 4), normal (approx. 1 : 8), or basic (approx. 1 : 16) compression
• NEF (RAW)+JPEG: Single photograph recorded in both NEF (RAW) and JPEG formats
• Picture Control System, Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, Landscape
• Media, SD (Secure Digital) and UHS-I compliant SDHC and SDXC memory cards
• Viewfinder, Eye-level pentamirror single lens reflex viewfinder
• Frame coverage, 95% horizontal and 95% vertical
• Magnification, 0.8 x (50 mm f/1.4 lens at infinity, -1.0 m-1)
• Eyepoint, 18 mm (-1.0m-1; from center surface of viewfinder eyepiece lens)
• Diopter adjustment, -1.7 – +0.5 m-1
• Focusing screen, Type B BriteView lear Matte Mark VII screen
• Reflex mirror, Quick return
• Lens aperture, Instant return, electronically controlled
• Compatible lenses, Autofocus is available with AF-S and AF-I lenses. Autofocus is not available with other type G and D lenses, AF lenses (IX NIKKOR and lenses for the F3AF are not supported), and AI-P lenses. Non-CPU lenses can be used in mode M, but the camera exposure meter will not function.The electronic rangefinder can be used with lenses that have a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or faster.
• Shutter Type, Electronically controlled vertical travel focal plane shutter
• Speed, 1/4000 – 30 s in steps of 1/3 EV;
• Bulb;
• Time (requires optional ML-L3 remote control)
• Flash sync speed, X=1/200 s; synchronizes with shutter at 1/200 s or slower
• Release mode, Single frame, Continuous, Self-timer, Delayed remote, Quick-response remote, Quiet shutter release
• Frame advance rate, Up to 4 fps (manual focus, mode M or S, shutter speed 1/250 s or faster, and other settings at default values)
• Self-timer, 2 s, 5 s, 10 s, 20 s; 1 – 9 exposures
• Exposure Metering, TTL exposure metering using 420-pixel RGB sensor
• Matrix metering: 3D color matrix metering II (type G and D lenses); color matrix metering II (other CPU lenses)
• Center weighted metering: Weight of 75% given to 8-mm circle in center of frameSpot metering: Meters 3.5-mm circle (about 2.5% of frame) centered on selected focus point
• Range, (ISO 100, f/1.4 lens, 20°C/68°F)
• Matrix or center-weighted metering: 0 – 20 EVSpot metering: 2 – 20 EV
• Exposure meter coupling
• Modes, Auto modes (auto; auto (flash off)); scene modes (portrait; landscape; child; sports; close up; night portrait); programmed auto with flexible program (P); shutter-priority auto (S); aperture-priority auto (A); manual (M)
• Exposure compensation, -5 – +5 EV in increments of 1/3 EV
• Exposure lock, Luminosity locked at detected value with AE-L/AF-L button
• ISO sensitivity, ISO 100 – 6400 in steps of 1 EV; can also be set to approx. 1 EV above ISO 6400 (ISO 12800 equivalent); auto ISO sensitivity control available
• Active D-Lighting, On, off
• Autofocus, Nikon Multi-CAM 1000 autofocus sensor module with TTL phase detection, 11 focus points (including one cross-type sensor), and AF-assist illuminator (range approx. 0.5 – 3 m/1 ft 8 in. – 9 ft 10 in.)
• Detection range, -1 – +19 EV (ISO 100, 20°C/68°F)
• Lens servo,
•  Autofocus (AF): Single-servo AF (AF-S); continuous-servo AF (AF-C); auto AF-S/AF-C selection (AF-A); predictive focus tracking activated automatically according to subject status
• Manual focus (MF): Electronic rangefinder can be used
• Focus point, Can be selected from 11 focus points
• AF-area mode, Single-point AF, dynamic-area AF, auto-area AF, 3D-tracking (11 points)
• Focus can be locked by pressing shutter-release button halfway (single-servo AF) or by pressing AE-L/AF-L button
• Built-in flash
• Auto, portrait, child, close up, night portrait: Auto flash with auto pop-upP, S, A, M: Manual pop-up with button release
• Guide Number, 12/39, 13/43 with manual flash (m/ft, ISO 100, 20°C/68°F)
• Flash control, TTL: i-TTL flash control using 420-pixel RGB sensor is available with built-in flash and SB-910, SB-900, SB-800, SB-700, SB-600, or SB-400; i-TTL balanced fill-flash for digital SLR is used with matrix and center-weighted metering, standard i-TTL flash for digital SLR with spot metering
• Flash mode, Auto, auto with red-eye reduction, auto slow sync, auto slow sync with red-eye reduction, fill-flash, red-eye reduction, slow sync, slow sync with red-eye reduction, rear-curtain with slow sync, rear-curtain sync, off
• Flash compensation, -3 – +1 EV in increments of 1/3 EV
• Flash-ready indicator, Lights when built-in flash or optional flash unit is fully charged; flashes after flash is fired at full output
• Accessory shoe, ISO 518 hot-shoe with sync and data contacts and safety lock
• Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS)
• Advanced Wireless Lighting supported with built-in flash, SB-910, SB-900, SB-800, or SB-700 as a master flash and SB-600 or SB-R200 as remotes, or SU-800 as commander;
• Flash Color Information Communication supported with built-in flash and all CLS-compatible flash units
• Sync terminalm, AS-15 sync terminal adapter (available separately)
• White balance, Auto, incandescent, fluorescent (7 types), direct sunlight, flash, cloudy, shade, preset manual, all except preset manual with fine-tuning.
• Live View
• Lens servo, Autofocus (AF): Single-servo AF (AF-S); full-time servo AF (AF-F)Manual focus (MF)
• AF-area mode, Face-priority AF, wide-area AF, normal-area AF, subject-tracking AF
• Autofocus, Contrast-detect AF anywhere in frame (camera selects focus point automatically when face-priority AF or subject-tracking AF is selected)
• Automatic scene selection, Available in auto and auto (flash off) modes
• Movie
• TTL exposure metering using main image sensor
• Metering method, Matrix
• Frame size (pixels) and frame rate
• 1,920 x 1,080, 30 p (progressive)/25p/24p, (fine)high/normal
• 1,280 x 720, 60p/50p, (fine)high/normal
• 640 x 424, 30p/25p, (fine)high/normal
• Frame rates of 30p (actual frame rate 29.97 fps) and 60p (actual frame rate 59.94 fps) are available when NTSC is selected for video mode. 25p and 50p are available when PAL is selected for video mode. Actual frame rate when 24p is selected is 23.976 fps.
• File format, MOV
• Video compression, H.264/MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding
• Audio recording format, Linear PCM
• Audio recording device, Built-in monaural or external stereo microphone; sensitivity adjustable
• ISO sensitivity, ISO 200 – 6400; can also be set to approx. 1 EV above ISO 6400 (ISO 12800 equivalent)
• Monitor, 7.5-cm/3-in., 921k-dot (VGA) TFT LCD with 160°; viewing angle, 100% frame coverage, and brightness adjustment
• Playback, Full-frame and thumbnail (4, 9, or 72 images or calendar) playback with playback zoom, movie playback, photo and/or movie slide shows, histogram display, highlights, auto image rotation, and image comment (up to 36 characters)
• Interface, USB, Hi-Speed USB,
• Video output, NTSC, PAL, HDMI output
• Type C mini-pin HDMI connector
• Accessory terminal, Remote cord: MC-DC2 (available separately)GPS unit: GP-1 (available separately)
• Audio input, Stereo mini-pin jack (3.5mm diameter)
• Supported languages, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian
• Power source, Battery, One rechargeable Li-ion EN-EL14 battery
• AC adapter, EH-5b AC adapter; requires EP-5A power connector (available separately)
• Tripod socket, 1/4 in. (ISO 1222)
• Dimensions (W x H x D), 125 x 96 x 76.5 mm (5.0 x 3.8 x 3.1 in.)
• Weight, 505 g (1 lb 1.8 oz) with battery and memory card but without body cap; approx. 455 g/1 lb (camera body only)
• Operating environment
• Temperature, 0 – 40°C (+32 – 104°F)
• Humidity, Less than 85% (no condensation)

Supplied accessories

• EN-EL14 rechargeable Li-ion battery (with terminal cover),
• MH-24 battery charger,
• AN-DC3 strap,
• EG-CP14 audio/video cable,
• UC-E17 USB cable,
• DK-5 eyepiece cap,
• BS-1 accessory shoe cover,
• DK-20 rubber eyecup,
• BF-1B body cap,
• ViewNX 2 CD-ROM,
• Reference CD