On Christmas morning, my husband totally surprised me with a new monitor. Not just any monitor either: a 24-inch monitor! I had been planning to get a new monitor, because my old one was so scratched up and muddy I could have used it as a photoshop texture, but I never would have chosen one so big. It’s pretty nice being able to see my photos all big and unscratched like this. Unfortunately, having such a great monitor really shows up the limitations of my camera. I’m noticing noise at ISO 400 that I never noticed before.
About a month ago, someone suggested I get a new camera when I complained about the noise at high ISO ratings. They said the newer cameras are much better at high ISOs, especially full-frame cameras (for the non-geeks in the crowd: most digital cameras have sensors that are smaller than old 35 mm film but now they make digital sensors that are the same size as 35 mm film, which hold more detail with more sensitivity to light). Since that seed was planted, I’ve been researching Nikon’s dslr line-up obsessively. I figured I still had a few more months of saving and rationalizing to do before I bought the D700. Until Christmas morning. Seeing my images on the new monitor really jump-started my rationalization and accelerated my obsessive researching until I couldn’t stand myself anymore.
So I just did it.
And I gotta say, that D700 is SWEET! I would say the noise of the D700 at ISO 1000 compares with the noise of my old D70s at ISO 400. Plus, D700′s noise is finer, more like film grain, with a lot less chromatic noise, even above ISO 1600. I’ve also noticed that I can hand-hold at much slower shutter speeds than I could with my old camera, and my new flash, the SB-900, is A LOT more responsive. As much as I was enjoying the results of my explorations into flash photography with it, with my old camera the flash created a shutter lag of at least five seconds. And I haven’t even mentioned the auto-focus that’s like a hot knife on butter, the bigger dynamic range, or how much nicer my 50 mm f1.8 lens is on it (AND I learned a new word from all this: bokeh).
I’m feeling decidedly bloated from all this consumerism. I’ve never felt so materialistic. But the bottom line is that I’ll be starting the New Year with new gear: new flash, new monitor, and new camera. Yeehaw!
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I spent the last few days at my parents’ place hanging out with my family and playing with bouncing flash off the ceiling. Here are a few of the results (these are all from my old camera – I’ll share stuff from the new camera later):
