Some Shots With The Nikon D600

I had a chance to shoot with the brand new Nikon D600 this weekend. It’s so new that I have no way to post process the camera’s RAW files on my computer, so the frames in this post are camera-processed JPEGs with a little oomph added to them in Lightroom.

The D600 feels just like using a slightly heavier, fatter D7000 with an FX format sensor. Typical of Nikon’s latest digital cameras, the image quality is quite fantastic, but a couple of things immediately bugged me with this camera. First of all, the AF system covers a very small center portion of the viewfinder compared to most other DSLRs, and in practice it seems a little silly selecting between the 39 AF points, all of which are sardined into that little center area.

The other thing? Maximum native flash sync on the D600 is 1/200 instead of the 1/250 I’m used to with Nikon bodies. The small flash lover in me goes “awwwwwwwwww.”

Of course, there’s a lot to like about the camera too. It’s relatively small and light weight for a full frame shooter, it’s packin’ an awesome sensor, and the price makes FX more accessible than ever before. But eh, I already have a compact full framer that I’m pretty happy with =)

Images: Nikon D600 + Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G / Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G

A Few New Tools

Nikon D800 +  Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G | ¹/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 (VSCO’s Kodak Tri-X 400)

The weekend was a little busier than I anticipated, but I still managed to squeeze in some time behind the D800′s finder. I also added Lightroom 4 and the newest, D800-compatible version of VSCO to my software tool-kit. I don’t always process with VSCO, but I always love the result when I do:

We also found this little gem at a camera sidewalk sale today. I can’t believe how incredibly fun it is to shoot with the Olympus XA! This thing is going everywhere with me :)

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Images: Nikon D800 | 50mm f/1.4G | 24mm f/1.4G

Megapixel Madness

Nikon D800 +  Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G | ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100

It’s impossible to appreciate fully by simply viewing the downsized images I’m posting here, but from what I’ve seen so far on my monitor at home, files from the Nikon D800 look downright stunning.  It seems that the big headline feature of the camera is its 36 megapixel sensor. I guess I can see why, because this thing captures an incredible amount of detail:

Same image as above, cropped. Really really cropped.

Besides the amazing sensor, however, other key elements of this new camera system are really impressing me so far. I can see definite improvements in metering, autofocus, and especially in handling over my older D700. I’m in love.

Happy shooting this weekend :)

The Many Faces of Julian Ojeda

A few shots of my little nephew before heading to dinner with family over the weekend. We had to grab him out of his cozy stroller, which he wasn’t thrilled about. But even still, he charmed us with his notoriously varied facial expressions. Love this little guy.

Look at him. Already giving his mom attitude.

Meeting Suki for the second time!

Like I said, he wasn’t too happy to be out of his stroller, but once we put him back in there, he really started modeling for the camera:

From here, all we had to do is entertain him. In return we get the many faces of Julian:

I think Julian out did himself with this look though. The best face of the day, hands down:

Such a ham.

Images: Nikon D7000 + Nikor 50mm f/1.4G AFS