Photo was taken with a little help from my friend, Nandor
(he took the picture based on my intructions :D)
(he took the picture based on my intructions :D)
Friday 30 October 2009
Wednesday 29 July 2009
Nikon D5000 first impressions
So as some of you may know I've sold my K20D, FA50 and DA12-24. The reason behind the move is money. I've bought a Nikon D5000 with kit lens and a retour plane ticket to Budapest :)
So... after the K20D the first thing I've noticed about the D5000 is the size and how it feels to hold. As it is much smaller than the K20D it's less 'handy' for me. I am also missing the upper status LCD but that's something I can live without. After a few hours of holding and shooting :) I got used to the smaller body and now I feel it semi-confortable. It really reminds me my FZ 50 (size, holding in hand and the 'interesting' way the LCD is folding out).
Basicaly I didn't really need a big and expensive machine. I've became a photo-hippie lately so my philosophy now is to have a good sensor (at least APS-C), a fix 50mm and anything but Canon (yes I am a Canon-hater). So that's why I've chosen the cheapest model from Nikon (well that would be the D60 you may say... but c'mon D5000 has better sensor and folding out LCD screen with live view). Now the only thing I've to do is to convince Fuze to sell me his AF-S 50mm :D
The first thing I've noticed while using the D5000 is the dark and small viewfinder (again compared to K20D) but as the hours spent together started to increase I've got used to it. And we shouldn't forget there's the option of Live View and the Folding LCD! Now that's just brilliant for so
meone like me who likes to make photos ground level. I haven't really tried MF lenses with it yet (just very very briefly) so I've no idea about manual focusing with the optical viewfinder, but I believe there won't be too much problem as I've already did manual focusing with my dad's D70s (which has a small and dark viewfinder as well :D). But talking about focusing, it's time to mention the AF. I found AF quick and very silent with the kit lens and what made me some real hard times with the K20D, the D5000 focuses precisely. With Live View the AF is quite slow (like a compact) but still useable.
The picture quality of the D5000 is amazing. Yes. It is. It has the same sensor as the D90 and Nikon claims to have the same (or near) noise level as the D300. I've made a little test and I believe Nikon made a very very good job regarding the noise level of the D5000. You can find the test here. It's a series of 100% crop from NEF file converted by Adobe
Photoshop Lightroom 2.4 without any modifications. I think it speaks for itself. Keep in mind it's 100% crop, so 1:1 pixel-level. If you resize then you can hardly see any difference between the shots, and with selective noise filtering you can get extremely good results even at ISO 3200. So I can say that you can use all the 'real' ISO settings of the D5000 (ISO 200 - ISO 3200) and also the Lo settings (down to ISO 100), but the Hi settings is quite useless (up to ISO 6400).
Another thing I've noticed about the D5000 while using is the shutter sound. No it's not a shutter noise. It's a sound. The D5000 is a very quiet camera. I wouldn't use it at sound recordings :) but it's much more quiet than any camera I've ever used (tbh there aren't many). And top of it all there is the quiet mode which is based on the slam doors closing mechanism (greatly slowing down for dampening at the end). It causes a little shutter lag, but eliminates a part of the sound of the mirror slamming.
I've already tried the AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) feature of the D5000, well in this field the K20D was better, as I was able to configure it to make the 3 or 5 shots by pressing the button once. Oh yes, and I was able to make 5 shots not just 3 (unsure about the D5000... maybe I can set it up somehow :D).
The D5000 has a very good dynamic range, really no complaints about it. The colors of the D5000 are a bit too vibrant for me sometimes, but as I shoot in RAW it's not a problem :)
I've bought a 8 GB card and a small Lowepro bag with the camera (as there was a sale at Curry's with this setup :D) and now I can carry the camera all the time as it's much lighter than the K20D and much smaller as well. With the K20D one of my problems was that I was too lazy to carry it all the time as it was quite heavy.
So overall my first impressions are very good. I believe we will have a lot of fun together :) and once I decide to move further on the 'food-chain' of Nikon (D700 here I come! :D) then this camera would be my ideal candidate for being converted to Full Spectrum (like my FZ50 at the moment).
Oh and one thing! The folding LCD has a very good feature: it can be closed and I can get cured of the DSLR sickness: chimping after every picture. :D
Few pictures:
So... after the K20D the first thing I've noticed about the D5000 is the size and how it feels to hold. As it is much smaller than the K20D it's less 'handy' for me. I am also missing the upper status LCD but that's something I can live without. After a few hours of holding and shooting :) I got used to the smaller body and now I feel it semi-confortable. It really reminds me my FZ 50 (size, holding in hand and the 'interesting' way the LCD is folding out).
Basicaly I didn't really need a big and expensive machine. I've became a photo-hippie lately so my philosophy now is to have a good sensor (at least APS-C), a fix 50mm and anything but Canon (yes I am a Canon-hater). So that's why I've chosen the cheapest model from Nikon (well that would be the D60 you may say... but c'mon D5000 has better sensor and folding out LCD screen with live view). Now the only thing I've to do is to convince Fuze to sell me his AF-S 50mm :D
The first thing I've noticed while using the D5000 is the dark and small viewfinder (again compared to K20D) but as the hours spent together started to increase I've got used to it. And we shouldn't forget there's the option of Live View and the Folding LCD! Now that's just brilliant for so
meone like me who likes to make photos ground level. I haven't really tried MF lenses with it yet (just very very briefly) so I've no idea about manual focusing with the optical viewfinder, but I believe there won't be too much problem as I've already did manual focusing with my dad's D70s (which has a small and dark viewfinder as well :D). But talking about focusing, it's time to mention the AF. I found AF quick and very silent with the kit lens and what made me some real hard times with the K20D, the D5000 focuses precisely. With Live View the AF is quite slow (like a compact) but still useable.
The picture quality of the D5000 is amazing. Yes. It is. It has the same sensor as the D90 and Nikon claims to have the same (or near) noise level as the D300. I've made a little test and I believe Nikon made a very very good job regarding the noise level of the D5000. You can find the test here. It's a series of 100% crop from NEF file converted by Adobe
Photoshop Lightroom 2.4 without any modifications. I think it speaks for itself. Keep in mind it's 100% crop, so 1:1 pixel-level. If you resize then you can hardly see any difference between the shots, and with selective noise filtering you can get extremely good results even at ISO 3200. So I can say that you can use all the 'real' ISO settings of the D5000 (ISO 200 - ISO 3200) and also the Lo settings (down to ISO 100), but the Hi settings is quite useless (up to ISO 6400).
Another thing I've noticed about the D5000 while using is the shutter sound. No it's not a shutter noise. It's a sound. The D5000 is a very quiet camera. I wouldn't use it at sound recordings :) but it's much more quiet than any camera I've ever used (tbh there aren't many). And top of it all there is the quiet mode which is based on the slam doors closing mechanism (greatly slowing down for dampening at the end). It causes a little shutter lag, but eliminates a part of the sound of the mirror slamming.
I've already tried the AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) feature of the D5000, well in this field the K20D was better, as I was able to configure it to make the 3 or 5 shots by pressing the button once. Oh yes, and I was able to make 5 shots not just 3 (unsure about the D5000... maybe I can set it up somehow :D).
The D5000 has a very good dynamic range, really no complaints about it. The colors of the D5000 are a bit too vibrant for me sometimes, but as I shoot in RAW it's not a problem :)
I've bought a 8 GB card and a small Lowepro bag with the camera (as there was a sale at Curry's with this setup :D) and now I can carry the camera all the time as it's much lighter than the K20D and much smaller as well. With the K20D one of my problems was that I was too lazy to carry it all the time as it was quite heavy.
So overall my first impressions are very good. I believe we will have a lot of fun together :) and once I decide to move further on the 'food-chain' of Nikon (D700 here I come! :D) then this camera would be my ideal candidate for being converted to Full Spectrum (like my FZ50 at the moment).
Oh and one thing! The folding LCD has a very good feature: it can be closed and I can get cured of the DSLR sickness: chimping after every picture. :D
Few pictures:
Thursday 23 April 2009
(Re)Born!
As my Flickr Stream got full recently (I just don't have the "mood" to get a Pro account) I will keep posting my pictures here.
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