Our Nikon rep brought by a D2X demo today. I was given the chance to go shoot some photos with it. I mounted a Nikon 28-70mm 2.8, then wandered around Little Italy taking photos.
Some observations:
Very good feel to the camera....... pretty much the same as the D2H, but I gotta admit that the camera feels very good in the hand -- better than the 1 series canon bodies.
The controls are laid out very logically, and the big LCD is VERY nice. The added crop mode was kind of interesting, but I really wish they fully masked the viewfinder in this mode. Instead, it just indicates with a rectangle.
The focus points were a bit on the dim side, but I imagine the brightness can be kicked up.
I shot about 600MB worth of jpegs, and have them on a CD. I won't be able to upload any this evening, but I'll have some full res samples online tomorrow. The shots at ISO 100 looked very good -- clean and good detail. However, I want to view them on my 21" monitor at home before I draw any final conclusions. I also shot some indoor photos at ISO 800 to see how they look.
Overall, I was rather impressed with the camera. It lacks quite a few things compared to the 1DsmkII, but featurewise, it certainly holds its ground --- especially at the price point.
thanks Ben , I look forward to hearing from you regarding this camera once you take a peek at the files. I could care less about anything above ISO 800 as that really isn't the thing this camera was made to deliver and I rarely shoot over 320 anyway
Ben's stuff is always FIRST RATE. You'll get an honest appraisal --warts and all from him.
BTW M-R has removed his "review" if we can call it that -- as others have posted so I'd wait for some real reviews from people who've actually shot with the Cam.
My indications are that the Camera will MORE than please those who've been waiting for it.
I'm not saying another word over the FF issue as this has been thrashed to death --either you want it in which case you'll have to go MF or with Canon (or wait for an unspecified period of time) or you are quite happy with the 1.6X format or will adapt and use it anyway.
Nikon on all accounts (with Sony) have more or less fixed the problem of cramming more pixels on a smaller sensor without generating too much noise.
So let's wait and see -- I for one am hoping (and I think it will) that this cam delivers raising the stakes yet again for future developments from BOTH NIKON AND CANON.
Thanks Ben. I look forward to hearing about your results. I did this with the 1DMK-II when it came out. It is almost impossible to get a good feel for a camera in a few hours when you are used to something different, but I liked the MK-II and I am glad to hear that you liked the new X.
It will be great to see a review from a real photographer.
I would also like to know what you felt the D2X did not have that the MK-II does have. Do you mean features or capabilities.....?
I am glad Ben is able to review and compare some of the features for us. I am waiting to hear how the D2X performs in low light, high ISO situations. Nikon definitely needs to come up with a winner there. I shoot with both the D2H and the 1D Mk2 and so far, the Mk2 outperforms the Nikon.
I would be interested to hear how the D2X High ISO photos look compared to the Mk2 at the same setting and in the same situation (light, etc.).
Stripper wrote:
Thanks Ben. I look forward to hearing about your results. I did this with the 1DMK-II when it came out. It is almost impossible to get a good feel for a camera in a few hours when you are used to something different, but I liked the MK-II and I am glad to hear that you liked the new X.
It will be great to see a review from a real photographer.
I would also like to know what you felt the D2X did not have that the MK-II does have. Do you mean features or capabilities.....?
The main thing is the full frame sensor. It isn't quite as big of a deal with Nikon since they have a great selection of digital wide lenses, but I am a huge fan of the full frame sensors. Unfortunately I did not have a 1DsmkII handy to comare them side by side....... or for that fact, even a 1DmkII. If we have some downtime at work today, I'll go through the shots more in depth at work so I'll be able to hit the ground running after work today when I upload the image samples. I shot some NEF files, but they were just to test the buffer. I was able to take 16 NEF files at full res before the buffer filled --- not bad! Unlike the canon cameras where you can continue to hold down the shutter and it will take a shot as soon as the buffer clears a little space, I had to let go of the shutter, then depress it again to take more shots.
I just had a chance to sit down and view the shots.
The Outside shots at ISO 100 look very good. Good tonality. The color is also good. When there areas of overexposure, it is very natural. There are smooth gradients from the light tones to the overexposed areas. The images definitely have the CMOS look, but I really like them. It's different than the images from the canon. Fine detail looks very good, as I will show later. They could use a little more sharpening than the default amount, but I think they'll print very naturally, and film-like without it. Tonality in the bokeh was very good. The images were virtually noise free at ISO 100. I had my doubts about the noise performance on this camera, but it looks very good. We didn't have any blue sky when I shot the images, but I would have wanted to see how it would perform with a polarizer. That deep blue sky is a good test for noise performance.
Now to the high ISO stuff. After reading the notice on MR's site, I was expecting some pretty bad stuff. However, I didn't find that to be the case. The camera did have a tendency to underexpose some of the shots (likely thrown off by some bright areas in the images --- nothing new here), but the noise levels at 800 were quite good.
Nikon has done quite a bit of in-camera noise processing on this camera. They have done a VERY good job controlling the chroma noise. There is next to no random color noise -- unlike any of the current canon cameras. However, this does not come without a price. Just like if you remove the chroma noise using software, you'll get some artifacts. In the bokeh, there can be some odd splotchy areas of color that don't look very natural. I've gotten the same thing when using chroma reduction in post production. It may look a little odd in print, and I hope there is SOME way to control the in camrea chroma reduction. If not though, it's not a huge deal.
Since there is some pretty strong chroma reduction, the images take on a more film-like look. There is a bit of a grit to them, but nothing out of the ordinary for the modern crop of digital SLR cameras. I don't have a direct comparision available, but I would venture to guess that straight from the camera, the D2X may have a little more noise at ISO 800 than the 1 series cameras from canon, but the images will likely print nicer, and more film like.
this camera has 2 or 3 User Selectable noise reduction settings that can be turned on and off at will , hopefully allowing us to take charge of some of the issues too
Did you use any of them , I know it is a tough thing to grab a different camera than one is used to and make any headway
I'm not sure which of the modes were enabled, but hopefully the EXIF should help to give an answer. The interface on the camera was pretty similar to the 1 series canon bodies. It took a couple minutes to get use to the controls, but after that I was at home. I ventured into the menu to make sure everything was at the default settings, and the color was set to adobe. The samples I'll be uploading later are jpegs with the default settings in the adobe color space.
Kyle Yates wrote:
Ben's stuff is always FIRST RATE. You'll get an honest appraisal --warts and all from him.
BTW M-R has removed his "review" if we can call it that -- as others have posted so I'd wait for some real reviews from people who've actually shot with the Cam.
My indications are that the Camera will MORE than please those who've been waiting for it.
I'm not saying another word over the FF issue as this has been thrashed to death --either you want it in which case you'll have to go MF or with Canon (or wait for an unspecified period of time) or you are quite happy with the 1.6X format or will adapt and use it anyway.
Nikon on all accounts (with Sony) have more or less fixed the problem of cramming more pixels on a smaller sensor without generating too much noise.
So let's wait and see -- I for one am hoping (and I think it will) that this cam delivers raising the stakes yet again for future developments from BOTH NIKON AND CANON.
Cheers
-K ...Show more → It is good to hear someone who understands the fact that both companies make great stuff and that we all have a stake in not having either one of them become a monoploy, I am really looking forward to the D2X , I hope it will be everything we are hoping for.
I am an ISO 100 to ISO 400 shooter. I need ISO 100 to be flawless, or at least 20D levels since that is what I am moving from, and ISO 200 to be pretty close. I only ever use ISO 400 for shooting detailed subjects with a non-uniform background as this hides the noise to a great extent.
If I asked you to go out on a limb, how do you think the noise at ISO 200 and
ISO 400 is compared to a 20D or 10D in general? Do you think I could print a 12 x 18 ISO 400 pic of something like the following and get great results without needing noise reduction? This shot was taken with a 10D and is typical of when I would be willing to ramp up to ISO 400. I only needed ISO 400 here as I was at 500mm with no IS. The colors are off but when printed at large size, I see no noise. Again this is with the 10D.
I too just tried the D2x at the PMA booth and am impressed. Shot both longish and shorter shutter speeds and I concur with Ben that the D2x's jpgs at 800 iso, while *still* not as clean as those from the 1D2, have film-like contrast and grain qualities. Personally for me, thats better than the 1D2's buttery look.
This new camera is definitely superior in terms of ergo, response, metering, and weight--no surprises there. This makes the D2x really tempting to me!
I predict that once the reviews are out, the % of switching stories will drastically drop.
Ben Horne wrote:
Overall, I was rather impressed with the camera. It lacks quite a few things compared to the 1DsmkII, but featurewise, it certainly holds its ground --- especially at the price point.
Very good news indeed.
I am certain that even if price is not considered, the Nikon D2x is a picture-taking machine worthy of consideration by all serious photographers. It is more than likely that it will prove its mettle in the coming months. It may not be as tremendously capable as Canon's best model with a larger sensor, but it can be expected to be close, and above all close enough to meet the highest standards for landscape photography. When Nikon finally came with a top model, it is right up there.
Personally I use both Nikon and Canon and will continue to do so, and I will not hesitate to say that I welcome competition from Nikon on the digital side. Nikon truly deserves success; their company is arguably the very best when it comes to film equipment. The Nikon LS-series desktop scanners are second to none, and their FMx-series manual bodies have proven to be unparalleled workhorses that can survive conditions where very few if any other cameras can go.
I am very happy to learn that Nikon is back again, and therefore I would like to thank Ben very much for his reassuring words confirming that Nikon is indeed alive and well also in the digital realm.
