Sonolta wrote:This is a bit surprising since live view can be used to pretty good effect on static landscapes and you do seem to shoot a lot of those.
-Sonolta
The landscapes may be static but I am not, and nor are the people in the 'landscapes'. I do not do much pure landscape photography, I shoot more urban scenes than countryside. Observation and timing are important, and sometimes the camera must not appear to be in use, it's a matter of lifting to the eye and shooting very quickly to avoid the wrong reactions. When out shooting scenics, I may 'chase the light' a lot, and that can involve driving a couple of hundred miles but only stopping for seconds to take each shot. The shot just shown is an example - the light was changing/fading so fast I had to run through crowds to get several pictures I wanted with the floodlighting perfectly balanced against the sky and ground light levels. A tripod would have been impossible (even just standing in this position for a few seconds caused enough people to have to push others to get round me).
I left the fairground midway down Princes Street at 16:09 and shot 14 different subject views before 16:20, all within about 1/2 mile allowing for various road crossings/returns to find to correct camera positions. That's about one shot every 40 seconds average. By 16:22 the light had faded so much there was no longer any sky colour to work with; before 15:50 the sky was to bright for the earlier shots of the big wheel, Christmas markets, skaters, city lights etc. Whole shoot - 15:29 left mall, paused to take first shots in (open) shopping street and immediately accosted by a security guard saying the management did not want photography outside their shops. Told him exactly where he stood legally on this ("Is this a public street?" - "Yes" - "Then it doesn't matter what the management says, you can't stop me taking photographs" - goodbye!). Took 92 shots in the next hour, with fifteen minutes break for essential shopping, walked about two miles back and forth.
Most live view DSLR users, I think, would not try to use hand-held mode on the D3X in these circumstances (nor would it really help in any way with the shots). The firing delay is so long that action shots can not be timed, while the normal response of the D3X is superb - shots can be timed perfectly. Here's one at 6400 - and the A900 would not manage anything as clean or resolve the links on the seat's chain:
http://upload.pbase.com/image/107496207
Back to Christmas spirit, and to getting the angle of wide-angle convergence right, too!
Re A900/D3X - the Image Reports examples have been widely discussed and criticised/praised variously. At ISO 800, in practice there's not much between the cameras and the peculiar effects on the D3X JPEG need more study. I would use the A900 with confidence in the same situation. At 6400, different matter, but I would expect to see much stronger colour. This is also getting a lot of discussion by early D3X buyers - the Hi settings on the camera, clearly marked that way by Nikon to show that they are beyond the normal performance limits, drop the colour saturation dramatically.
And re macro - I've never done much insect etc stuff, don't really live in the right place. I used to do specialised engineering and scientific macro photography at magnifications up to 25X and had the full range of gear - XM (XK) system with high magnification finder and graticle screen, Minolta Auto Bellows with movements, 100mm lens head, 50mm macro, 25mm and 12.5mm Minolta micro lenses, focusing rails, illuminated bench with vernier control to position subjects and cold light sources, subject table with crossed polarisers - the lot. Today I am sure LV would be part of the setup but I would not use the camera rear screen because it would be above eye-level, have to stand on a chair to look down on it. I would use the LV HDTV viewing mode, focus on something like a 22 inch TV/monitor. But no-one is wanting images of power station ash or the crystalline structure of failed metal parts from me now.
David
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