Initial Impressions of the Thom Hogan D600 Guide

I finally got the Thom Hogan Guide to the Nikon D600 "eBook". I have wanted it but I have the D610 and even though there really aren't any big differences, especially regarding using the D610 vs. the D600, I have procrastinated purchasing his book. I wish I hadn't waited.

If you aren't aware of Thom Hogan, he's an old school photographer who has also had an interesting career in a number of fields which give him a good, thorough background in technology. You can visit one of his websites at http://bythom.com/ (which is where you can pick up his books). 

Thom did photography work with Galen Rowell. If you're not aware of Galen Rowell, he was a significant landscape photographer (and more), worthy of researching as well. You can check out his website at http://www.mountainlight.com/. Thom's background makes him eminently qualified to offer a book on a camera.

In the last week or so, Thom updated the book to include information specific to the D610. That was enough for me to buy the book. I will say, however, that the version I received is still the first edition which does NOT have the D610 material. I emailed Thom and he replied in about an hour, stating he was working out some issues with the PDF formatting. So, I'm still waiting for the D610 version...

I am not all of the way through the book yet. It's over 800 printed pages. I'm on about page 150. The book, up to this point, is providing a detailed overview of how the sensor works. And I mean detailed. But, well explained - if you're the type to want his book you should be able to understand what he's saying. I have read about sensors before, but Thom mentions the material that the AA filter is made out of and how it's constructed and where it sits with respect to the actual photosites. Then he goes on to show how it affects resolution and why and what you should be aware of when shooting images that may be impacted adversely. I thought I already had enough to think about when taking a picture - Thom just increased that requirement and made me start worrying again. He kicked me out of my comfort zone and I'm only about 18% through the book!

Sidebar Thom mentions in a number of the articles on his website that if you're reading his information you're likely to be the type of photographer that is looking to derive the highest quality possible out of your equipment. Consequently he makes assumptions about certain things, such as that you have at least a basic understanding of what ISO is and how it is involved in taking a photograph. I like that about his information. When I was first getting involved in photography I needed to stick to the sites that explained over and over what an f-stop was. Now I don't want to hear the basics any longer. I want to dig deeper and Thom provides that.

Thom continues by giving a great explanation of the EXPEED3 processing system, the camera power system (you want to read the info about how to care for your batteries), storage cards, image formats (get ready for details about the NEF format and how the data is compressed to JPEG). I haven't finished this section yet (what he calls "D600 Basics") and I already know I need to re-read portions before I'll completely understand them.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book, and at this point I'm really interested in how to fine tune my lenses. I also know that he has great info about getting the best sharpness possible out of an image and want to get that info as well.

I know I haven't fully read the book yet, but I have two other D610 books and of the three, this has the most detail, background information, and in my opinion, insight regarding the camera. If I had this book I probably would NOT have purchase the other two even though they aren't bad. They're just not enough for me. (The other two books are: "Mastering the Nikon D610" by Darrel Young, and "Nikon D610 Experience - The Still Photography Guide to Operation and Image Creation with the Nikon D610" by Douglas Klosterman.) Based on my experience with these three books, as well as a LOT of online reading, I can't recommend Thom's books enough.

And, for full disclosure, I have no affiliation with Thom other than I have come to enjoy his insight and website more than any other single source. I have recommended his article on buying a tripod (http://bythom.com/support.htm) to a number of people.

The tripod article describes a philosophy that can be applied to any non-trivial equipment purchase, and one that I'm struggling with now regarding a GPS (I'd really like a more robust GPS. I'm on my second device in less than two years and I think it's going out again. I'd really like one that included the camera direction and the ability to use it as a shutter release (since it uses the shutter release connection on the camera).

So unless the rest of the pages in the book are blank, I think everyone, at least Nikon users, should own the Thom Hogan guide for their camera. It may not make you a better photographer but it will give you a lot of information on how to become a better photographer.

Nikon D610 Sensor - Cleaned

In my last post I discussed how it was time to get the sensor of my Nikon D610 cleaned and that I'd report on the outcome. Here it is, as promised...

I took Friday, 4/3/2015 off from work and headed north to stay in the Sedona, Arizona area. Usually you can get a campground spot by doing that as long as you get there about when the 3 National campgrounds open up along the Oak Creek Canyon, State Route 89A. This weekend was close. I don't know if I've never gone camping on Easter weekend, or if I've just never gone to the Sedona area.

When you get off of I-17 at Exit 298 to take State Route 179, you will pass through Village of Oak Creek seven miles before hitting Sedona. Seven miles. I think it took me about an hour to get from Village of Oak through Sedona before hitting State Route 89A. In other words, traffic moved an average of probably 7 to 10 miles per hour. To put it another way, it was not pleasant or fun.

The delay made me too late to get a spot at Manzanita, the southernmost campground. I kept going until I got to Cave Springs at about 12:30PM but they would only let me add my name to a list which would let me get access if I returned at 2:00 PM. And, I was on the second or third page of the list. I had the attendant add my name but wasn't sure if I'd go back.

I continued on to Pine Flats, the northernmost campground. They had one spot and would let me take it so I did. The spot was closely tucked in-between two other spots but it was level and the tent area had been freshly raked. I felt lucky to get it.

Our campsite at Pine Flats, Spot #10, 4/3/2010

I put up the tent and did a few other things although I was again travelling very light. I didn't have a stove or gear for a fire nor did I plan to make one. I had a cooler with 3 beers, some lunch meat, and some apples. I had a loaf of bread, granola, craisins, and jerky. Oh, and a couple of gallons of water. It doesn't take long to make or break camp. I headed back to Sedona thinking I could tolerate the traffic now that I had secured a camp site.

I wanted to scope some picture locations during the day with the intent of returning at dusk to shoot. I'd seen a promising location near the Sedona airport so I checked it out. From the junction of 179 and 89A, you head southwest on 89A towards Cottonwood, turning south on Airport Road at the light.

Since it was mid-day and the sky was mostly clear (and therefore uninteresting) I didn't end up taking any pictures but it looks like would be good at dusk and night. There should be a good amount of city lights below the rock formations and it's a good vantage point.

Red Rocks at Sedona, AZ

I continued along 89A towards Cottonwood and then drove the Red Rock Loop Road, turning south at Sedona Red rock High School. After a couple of turns I found a little turn off with a number of other cars parked there so decided to see what was over the rise. That's where I snapped one of two pictures that were worth spending time post processing.
 
It's still a mid-day shot but I think it's okay. Maybe I think that because I had to move the camera a number of times in order to get the foreground trees to hide the houses that are at the base of the hill. You can't see them in the shot but they're all along the base, ruining the shot unless you hide them. I'm not positive of the rocks but I believe its the formation that the Chapel of the Holy Cross is up against.

I completed the Red Rock Loop Road and it was a nice drive but other than a rabbit I didn't see much else to warrant returning - and the other reason to take the loop is to visit the Red Rock State Park but it was closed at 4:00 PM.

I decided I'd seen enough. The traffic other than Red Rock Loop Road was awful. I ended up driving back to the campground, got there a bit before dark, enough to feed my dog and myself, and we went to bed, giving up on the dusk shots. I was hoping I'd wake up early and get either midnight shots or dawn shots.

I woke up a number of times throughout the night and early morning but it was so cold that I couldn't bring myself to get out from under the sleeping bag. I hadn't really brought a warm jacket and it was about 40F.

San Fransisco Peaks near Flagstaff, AZ

When we did get up, it was after the sun had been up and warmed up the place. We broke camp and headed north on 89A to Flagstaff in order to avoid the Sedona traffic. I drove up to Lowell Observatory but didn't go in because of my dog. I took this shot of the San Fransisco Peaks and their lack of snow pack. Then I headed back to Phoenix after a disappointing photography trip but which was still pleasant on other levels.

I have described the outing because there's not that much to report as far as the sensor cleaning other than I am very happy with the results. Before getting the sensor cleaned I normally had to get rid of maybe 50 or 75 different spots, depending on the aperture and how much sky was included in the shot (and whether or not there were clouds that might have hidden some spots).

Even using the Nikon Capture NX2 Dust Off functionality meant I still had to spend some time. Lightroom was about the same. I really disliked the amount of time required to get rid of the spots (on the other hand, I was very thankful the tools existed to do the clean up).

After the cleaning, when I post processed the pics I had a total of 4 or 5 dust spots per pic that I had to remove. The San Fransisco Peaks pic had 5 spots, all others only had 4. That was amazing and put a grin on my face! It took maybe 5 minutes in post processing per picture or less -mainly less since in Nikon Capture NX2 you can save the edits and then run them on additional pics as a batch. (I did go through that on additional pics but they were just more snapshot type pics of the campground.)

My conclusion is that Tempe Camera did a great job cleaning the sensor for $US65.00. It still had some spots but since I mounted the lenses in the field they could be new dust spots. They were in the center and upper right side of the image. It looks like they cleaned the entire camera and shrink-wrapped it for returning. It was clean inside and out. They returned my exact battery. They don't have you leave a SD card in it so there's no question about that. I recommend their service and will have it done again when I need it. Now I can change my lenses in the field without fear.

 



Spring Cleaning for the Nikon D610

I decided to try having my D610 cleaned. I've grown tired of trying to clean all of the dust spots off at post processing time. I often will use the feature in Nikon Capture NX2 software that automatically detects and corrects for dust spots (using a dust off reference image) but it doesn't always do the job satisfactorily. It does pretty good but I think it may be lens dependent if not aperture dependent.

Capture NX2 often times will partially correct a dust spot but not completely, meaning I still have to manually correct those. I think it does take care of a lot of them and I think if you're using a larger aperture the dust spots are less noticeable anyway and I think that's when Capture NX2 can really save some time.

Note: I refer to larger apertures where the opening size is larger, such as f/4, compared to smaller apertures where the opening is smaller such as f/20. I know a lot of people think of a bigger aperture when they see a bigger "number", but apertures are ratios or fractions defined as the focal length (f) divided by a number. Any number divided by 4 is a bigger result than the same number divided by 20. 1/4 is bigger than 1/20.

In Lightroom I can clean one image and then copy and past the cleaning to other images, which also saves some time but still I have to go through and at least look at the images where I've pasted the corrections. Sometimes they don't do a great job, other times there are additional spots showing up that need to be cleaned, and sometimes there are corrections I don't want such as on a hill side (where the original image had sky and showed the dust spot more clearly.

My time spent cleaning dust spots has gotten to the point that it bothers me enough to try to do something about it. I contacted one of our main camera stores in the Phoenix area, Tempe Camera, and they said to make sure that having it cleaned would NOT violate the warranty. So, since this is a refurbished camera and I got an aftermarket New Leaf warranty from Adorama, I contacted New Leaf and they said that they consider the cleaning to be maintenance and any issues would be covered. I hope they still feel that way when I get the camera back if there are any issues!

Home from the Cleaners

I picked up the camera from Tempe Camera on 4/2/2015. I talked to the person that actually cleaned the camera - he said there was one really good (and by that, he meant bad) spot on the sensor. He said it was like a bug on a windshield. We talked about how you can help prevent the sensor getting dirty by not changing lenses in dirty environments, and I told him I have a friend who avoids changing lenses as much as possible and really wants a single, do-it-all lens (like a 18-300mm) because he can avoid changing lenses.

I then told the technician that I'm kind of the other way. I bought a camera to take pictures. I bought different lenses to provide better quality at their focal lengths. I'll change from one lens to the other in order to use the lens that I think is the best for a given picture. Now that I know I can get the sensor cleaned for $US65, I can afford that once a year or more as necessary and I'll get to use my different lenses.

I received the camera with shrink wrap around it. I joked to myself that they'd wrapped it to keep the bad spots from infecting other cameras. When I unwrapped it, it looked like they also cleaned the exterior of the camera.

I haven't taken a picture with it yet, but when I do and if it is spot free, I'll be a happy camper!