_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Second Fiddle

I’m going to be honest with you folks.

You’re not getting anything tonight.

See, I bought myself a Christmas present – a Nikon D5000.   My pal Beastly introduced me to photography many years ago in Navy technical school. Beastly was professionally trained and is a hell of photographer, and he taught me everything I know about taking pictures and over the years I’ve ended up with many of his cameras as he has moved up in technology.  I have his old Pentax wetfilm 35mm cameras and his Sony D770. But somehow he never would part with his professional equipment, i.e. the Nikons. 

Though Beastly’s castoffs have served me well over the years, I’ve always lusted after a truly professional Nikon.

And now I finally own one, and in fact have managed to get a leg up on Beastly – who tonight on the phone referred to me as, and I quote, “The King of Suck.” 

This gives me no small measure of satisfaction (yes, yes, I am a small petty man, tell me something I don’t know).

I’ve wanted this very camera for roughly 25 years now. I didn’t know that it was this particular camera – which actually didn’t exist until recently - but this camera is exactly what I’ve wanted for over two decades. 

And now that I’m actually holding it in my hands, I’m giddy. Like a schoolgirl. Yes, I am.

This is one of the most amazing and beautiful machines I’ve ever seen, let alone owned, let alone handled.  The handful of pictures I’ve taken so far are stunning in their detail.  Here, have a look:

 

image  image

 

Both pictures were taken with the exact same lighting setup and from the same distance under identical conditions. Both bird houses are made from similar materials and finishes. The picture on the left is from my old Sony D770, the picture on the right is from the Nikon D5000 – with the Nikon set to “Normal” jpeg compression mode, which is the low end of its capability.   You can click on both pictures to enlarge them to their original sizes and resolutions, but even here the difference is immediately obvious.

The Nikon’s capabilities are multitude and the manual is the size of middling sized town’s phonebook (Question: in the future when the phonebooks, dictionaries, and other such large tomes have become entirely electronic, what the hell will we compare things to? “The electronic manual download was like downloading the entire Wikipedia!" But I digress). 

So, I intend to spend the rest of my evening reading the manual and fooling with this amazing camera. 

Sometime this weekend when I’ve had sufficient time to fiddle, I’ll post a review.

I’ll try to keep the gloating to a minimum.

I suspect I will be unsuccessful.

15 comments:

  1. Holy Crap! With the new camera, the birdhouse looks like a totally different piece! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dang, that's pretty spiffy!

    Better than what I got for christmas, a pair of guinness pajama pants. Actually mine is kinda nice, soft and smooth and warm and...

    anyway, nice pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Have fun! I picked up a Sony alpha DSLR last spring, and am still learning what all the buttons and dials do. (Yes, I'm slow.) Since Sony bought Minolta, the alpha takes all of my old Minolta lenses, which in the way of such things are worth more than the body itself.

    I love playing with new gadgets!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jim -

    We just purchased the Nikon D3000. I thought about getting the D5000 but the 3000 was billed as having an interface that's very beginner friendly and since my wife is the primary picture taker in our house and not a tech person I opted for the lower end model.

    I'm still working my way through the manual and attempting to instruct her on all the gizmo's and settings.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What Shawn said. ::haha::

    While it could be said that I shoot pics "professionally", (I regularly shoot 300-400 images on a work day), I'm about as far from being a "photographer" as you can imagine. I have an Olympus C-8080, which (when I bought it), was about as much camera as I could get my hands on without making the jump to digital SLR. I've had it for a bunch of years now and it's still way too much camera for me. Among other things, 90% of what I shoot is meant to be uploaded to a website. It all gets degraded and compressed anyway, so why should I double or triple the upload time by shooting higher resolution shots. The only thing I regret is the lack of interchangeable lenses. That, I miss.

    And I suggest, "My Kindle runneth over" as a means of describing over-large books.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "The King of Suck."

    There's a reason I'm Beastly's pimp momma.

    ::snirk::

    apers = pickled ape pieces used in fancy-shmancy cooking.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Pimp Momma?

    Maybe she really does have a snakeskin jumpsuit in the closet folks.

    ReplyDelete
  8. That's a nice piece'o'gear, Jim. But you're not really shooting in JPEG are you?

    pilesses: where Gollum has his unfolded laundry.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I was last night, just so I could compare the images to the older camera.

    Right now I've got it set to JPEG(fine)+RAW which writes two images, both hi-res jpegs and the Nikon uber resolution RAW format, to the chip. Fortunately I bought a couple 8Gig chips to go with the camera.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good call, if you have the memory (which you do). As you may know, the great thing about RAW isn't just resolution, but that it stores the camera state at the time, which expands your processing/editing options (e.g. color balance).

    I need to look at getting an upgrade to my long-in-the-tooth DX40 sometime in the upcoming year.

    Voloql: Aztec deity of personal grooming and good posture.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I repeat King of Suck! King of Suck! Uber King of Suck! how are things in the land of SUCK?

    In case any one had not noticed though the King of Suck may be a small petty man, I am the much larger version of envious frothing at the mouth covetous man. Leave that thing sitting around too long and I may have to put your son on my payroll, though it would probably be cheaper to go buy one of my own. PPPFFFFFFFFTTTTT!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Pimp Momma?

    Maybe she really
    does have a snakeskin jumpsuit in the closet folks.

    You have no idea, Suck Man. No idea.

    imemo = the desire to begin a meme about yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  13. A little late to the party, but which Stone Age Pentax? I've been using my hubby's old ME Super and love it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anon, yep, I have Beastly's old ME Super, and a couple of MX's - and probably every lens and filter Pentax ever made. The MX's I bought new, and a more rugged camera body there isn't. The Pentaxes served me extremely well, all across Europe, Africa, and Middle East. And here in Alaska. But, truthfully, I haven't used wetfilm in years now, and really don't miss it.

    ReplyDelete

Comments on this blog are moderated. Each will be reviewed before being allowed to post. This may take a while. I don't allow personal attacks, trolling, or obnoxious stupidity. If you post anonymously and hide behind an IP blocker, I'm a lot more likely to consider you a troll. Be sure to read the commenting rules before you start typing. Really.