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Author Topic: Nikon History  (Read 15569 times)

NancyP

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #40 on: April 05, 2016, 10:57:39 am »

All that being said, the mid-level Canon 6D is a very functional camera for what I tend to shoot with it (landscapes and macros, not needing elaborate autofocus and auto-everything else, because I tend to use manual focus and manual exposure). Every once in a while, I reflect that ALL current DSLRs are amazing miracles compared with the significantly older digital cameras and compared to the very primitive all manual film SLR I started with in 1968.
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muntanela

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #41 on: April 05, 2016, 12:39:30 pm »

Yes, the tech lead flip flops.  Nikon basically created the DSLR and then couldn't follow up.  Canon introduced the CMOS sensor and owned the best imaging and then couldn't follow it up.  Nikon (with help from Sony and Toshiba) now has the lead. 

"Credette Cimabue ne la pittura
tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,
sì che la fama di colui è scura.

Così ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido
la gloria de la lingua; e forse è nato
chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà del nido.

Non è il mondan romore altro ch'un fiato
di vento, ch'or vien quinci e or vien quindi,
e muta nome perché muta lato."

Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio XI, 94-102
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Osprey

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #42 on: April 06, 2016, 02:31:21 am »

You say this stuff as if Nikon had a choice.  Heck, I remember my N90s supposedly couldn't offer leader out film rewind because Canon had a patent on it, and that's why I needed a film leader retriever if I ever wanted to mid roll rewind.  I imagine Canon had some USM patents that were problematic.  I also assume that Nikon would have gone full frame much earlier were it commercially and  technically feasible for them at the time.  It is interesting how they've seemed to leapfrog Canon in still photography in the last 5 or so years, basically since the D3 the gap started closing fast. 

Spot on... The delay to introduce a FF sensor was a fatal marketing mistake for Nikon that established them as followers than being leaders...  Also... Nikon should have followed Canon in having in lens motors for AF and aperture control from day 1... Instead, they where 10 years late to make the AF-S lenses (which do focus by using an internal AF motor) and they first introduced an electronic aperture lens with the 24mm PC-E lens introduction which was ...20 years later!
The strange thing is that all the changes didn't require a different CPU pin layout than the one introduced with the axle driven AF lenses (and lasts until today)... Needles to say that the G series of lenses was the most stupid thing a maker could ever do... the G series operates the aperture mechanically exactly like if it was a D series lens... but drops the aperture ring (for no reason whatsoever) which makes them incompatible with all the (superb) cameras that where introduced before the axle driven AF models...
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BrianVS

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #43 on: April 06, 2016, 05:26:48 am »

The F3 had the MF-6B back which implements leader-out when used with the MD-4. I wonder what the Canon patent covered, as the idea goes way back. The MF-18 (looked it up) was the Data Back version which implements this feature.
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Osprey

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #44 on: April 06, 2016, 06:52:19 am »

If you believe ancient internet scuttlebut, it appears the patent was a Minolta patent that covered the user selectability of having the leader left out on rewind.  Apparently Nikon could reprogram N90s, F100 and F5 cameras to leave the leader out, but there was no custom function for it.

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Rob C

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #45 on: April 06, 2016, 10:48:57 am »

Why on Earth would anyone want to run a film more than twice through the cassette's light-traps? Once is risk enough!

From my brief life with Nikon's so-called self-loading F4s, which never did the job first time - the less automation the better, especially when it's unnecessary.

I had a couple of Exaktas for a while; they let you cut the film, which was, I suppose, a sop to the days of extreme photographer poverty.

I still think the best Nikon (film) was the F2.

Rob C

razrblck

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #46 on: April 06, 2016, 12:02:18 pm »

The automated loading is nice, but on some cameras it wastes so much film simply because the roll has to end at 36. Was this done because some labs expose too much film while loading the machines?
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John Koerner

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #47 on: April 06, 2016, 12:54:23 pm »

Curious how many folks still shoot film.

Other than nostalgia, there appears to be no practical reason to do so.

The cost of darkroom equipment, materials, etc. seems to favor "Lightroom" (with limitless digital potential) over darkroom (with costly consumables).

Does film produce even "one" advantage over digital at this point?
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razrblck

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #48 on: April 06, 2016, 01:17:39 pm »

I still shoot it because it's fun and I can use the same cameras I started photography on. The best part has to be developing and printing in the darkroom with friends and beers.

That is for black and white. Color (negative and positive) are too much a pain in the ass without expensive equipment. Scanning film is also a mess. Basically if you don't already have the equipment necessary and a honed down workflow for it, don't bother shooting film except to have fun every once in a while.
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John Koerner

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #49 on: April 06, 2016, 01:42:03 pm »

I still shoot it because it's fun and I can use the same cameras I started photography on. The best part has to be developing and printing in the darkroom with friends and beers.

That is for black and white. Color (negative and positive) are too much a pain in the ass without expensive equipment. Scanning film is also a mess. Basically if you don't already have the equipment necessary and a honed down workflow for it, don't bother shooting film except to have fun every once in a while.


Makes perfect sense, thanks.

If you already have the equipment, then keep using it (for fun).

If not, digital.
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BrianVS

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #50 on: April 06, 2016, 02:46:14 pm »

Some lenses cannot be used with Digital cameras, the Nikkor 2.1cm F4 is an example. I can use it on the F and F2. The Nikon SP is a camera that I use with Film simply for the pure joy of it. Some people still use paint and brushes to make pictures. Others use film. I've been shooting less film after getting the M Monochrom.
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Rob C

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #51 on: April 06, 2016, 03:02:08 pm »

I still have a perfect Nikon F3, but donated all the darkroom stuff to a local school when I gave up trying to have a darkroom here on Mallorca. Too difficult to filter/clean the hard, dirty water; water too scarce and expensive to run a print wash for an hour, starting from when the first print hits the wash, ending an hour after the last one does. I tried those multigrade plastic papers here for the first - and last - time and hated them: I couldn't get what I could with real, graded papers, and the plastic was only used for the brief wash times it offered.

I would go back to film if I got back to Britain and close to doing any pro work again - but probably on 120 film ¡f it would still exist...

To me, the single benefit of digital is this: I can play, and it doesn't cost me any more money than the camera, lenses and computer stuff. Film would still require scanning (I have that already) and computers, so, adding film cost, it would end up being expensive for a hobby. But, becase of that, I'd probably be a damned sight more careful of what I shoot!

I think film looks better on a print or even on a monitor. Hell, I seem to be tying to noise up and artificially beat the emptiness of digital capture with every picture I do. It has no "medium-beauty" of its own; it's just colour suspended there in a frame of nothingness. Maybe that's why so many modern guys feel a need for canvas: something to relieve the emptiness. I detest the look of canvas. I love a very highly glazed black/white print; rather than add a texture of its own, it allows the nature of film to shine through and out. Not the same thing at all.

I simply don't subscribe to the theory that something new is automatically better. My eyes prove to my satisfaction that it ain't necessarily so with photography.

Rob C

dwswager

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #52 on: April 06, 2016, 09:20:41 pm »

Curious how many folks still shoot film.

Other than nostalgia, there appears to be no practical reason to do so.

The cost of darkroom equipment, materials, etc. seems to favor "Lightroom" (with limitless digital potential) over darkroom (with costly consumables).

Does film produce even "one" advantage over digital at this point?

Donated all my film bodies and equipment to my local high school.  Not worth the effort and expense given I already have digital bodies.

Some people like the look (grain) of film, I'm not necessarily one of them.  Reminds me of the album vs CD debate early on.  I really think it is the lost exclusivity film gave over digital.  Because it was harder and more expensive, less people could print really well versus with digital where you can tweak endlessly till you get it right.  I just wish I was better at post processing.  Every time I finish an image, I go back to it and think of 9 million things I wish I'd changed in some way.  The difference is that you can or at least you can reasonable tweak digital so much more and easier than film.
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John Koerner

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #53 on: April 14, 2016, 12:00:36 pm »

I am digging these old school Nikon lenses for nature photography.

I can take the 50mm  f/1.2 Ai-S and take a "normal" bokeh shot of a flower:



Then slap a reverse-ring on the filter mount, flip the lens over, and take a super-close 1:1 shot of that same flower:



Same flower, both hand-held, both natural light.

The ability to do this is even more dramatic with the 28mm f/2.8 Ai-S ... doubling the width perspective as a wide-angle ... then being able to go 2:1 lifesize as a macro. (Tripod is needed this close.)

The flexibility, small-size, and high-quality of these all-manual lenses is pretty nice :D
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NancyP

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #54 on: April 14, 2016, 07:30:54 pm »

Yep, small size and relatively light weight make the little AIS lenses a good fit for a hiking kit, even on a Canon. I have a few that I inherited from my dad, and I bought the 50 1.2 cheap on fleaBay. The only problem is that live view needs some fiddling with to get usable exposure for 10x focusing.
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John Koerner

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #55 on: April 14, 2016, 11:46:20 pm »

Yep, small size and relatively light weight make the little AIS lenses a good fit for a hiking kit, even on a Canon. I have a few that I inherited from my dad, and I bought the 50 1.2 cheap on fleaBay. The only problem is that live view needs some fiddling with to get usable exposure for 10x focusing.

I have no problem getting my live view to work with these old school lenses.

Here is an example of the great range in what can be done with one 28mm f/2.8 Ai-S on a hike:

I can use the "infinity" end of the wide-angle lens and document the entire area where I hiked:



I can use the mid-range end of the lens and document the plant/flower upon which I found a spider:



And I can flip the lens around, with a simple $35 adapter, and take this 2:1 macro shot of the spider that was on the flower:



This is closer than any 1:1 macro lens can get, wider than any 1:1 macro lens can get, and for about half the price of any decent macro lens.

(You can fit 4 of these little spiders on your pinky fingernail :o)

All from a 9oz, $539 lens  ;D

Jack

PS: Here is the Encounter
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NancyP

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #56 on: April 15, 2016, 04:53:01 pm »

John, I like your web site, and the emphasis on organism and its environment.

The fiddling is minor. Since the Nikon lens plus adapter doesn't talk to the Canon body, if shooting live view in dim light one has to up the ISO a lot to brighten up the live view sufficiently to check focus at f/5.6 or 8, then dial the ISO back to where you want it. I have been pleasantly surprised by the fine optical quality of the AIS 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor in the few-feet to 1:2 range. There is a little chromatic aberration, but this is a 40 year old lens with 40 year old coatings that sat around in my dad's closet for years. I have to say every once in a while I like to get nostalgic and use the old MF/manual aperture lenses. I really feel nostalgic for the split prism viewfinder  ;D
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John Koerner

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Re: Nikon History
« Reply #57 on: April 16, 2016, 12:34:04 am »

John, I like your web site, and the emphasis on organism and its environment.
The fiddling is minor. Since the Nikon lens plus adapter doesn't talk to the Canon body, if shooting live view in dim light one has to up the ISO a lot to brighten up the live view sufficiently to check focus at f/5.6 or 8, then dial the ISO back to where you want it. I have been pleasantly surprised by the fine optical quality of the AIS 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor in the few-feet to 1:2 range. There is a little chromatic aberration, but this is a 40 year old lens with 40 year old coatings that sat around in my dad's closet for years. I have to say every once in a while I like to get nostalgic and use the old MF/manual aperture lenses. I really feel nostalgic for the split prism viewfinder  ;D


Thank you for the comments (it took a lot of work!)

That's true about the viewfinder; it gets tough focusing with these aging eyes :o

Here is another example:

Wide-angle view of plants and ecosystem in which the spider is found:



Close-up of flower type on which it was found (normal lens mounting):



Ultra-close 2:1 macro shot with reverse-mount shot of spider on the end of a flower bud (stacked image, natural light, macro rail):


(This is no crop--it filled the frame--and it looks awesome at full-size!)
That is a pretty wide gamut of uses for 1 simple, inexpensive lens ;D

Jack

PS: Here is the Encounter.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2016, 12:37:48 am by John Koerner »
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