Okay, on initial review you may be saying "what's up with this image?" It certainly isn't the normal fare for this website. No, it isn't. Usually I try to eliminate any of the "Hand of Man" (HOM) stuff from all my images here. Well, this image is special in its own right even though its got that huge Stop Sign in it. Its uniqueness is it was taken with a Nikon D1h. Yup, I've jumped into the digital world with both feet and haven't looked back. What does it mean, you may be asking? I'm not sure. I just started to use the camera so I not even close to exploring its full capabilities. For that matter, I haven't even figured out my new "workflow" with this new tool. I don't know what files I'm going to keep and what I'm going to eliminate. It's an exciting challenge but it sure is taking energy away from shooting images.

There's a couple of interesting factoids about this image. First, it was taken handheld with about 1/30sec exposure. Second, my newly purchased Sb-28DX--acquired with the camera--was used to brighten up the sign. Third, I'm using my new lens; the 18-35 f/3.5-4.5 ED-AF. With the camera's smaller than 35mm format, the lens focal length was equivalent to a 28mm lens when zoomed as wide as possible.

There's a lot of stuff going on here--new lens, new flash, and new camera. Despite all the newness, I simply charged up the battery--more on the battery stuff on a later article--threw on the lens and flash and went out and shot the picture. I read the first couple of pages in the instruction book to figure out how to load the 1 gig IBM micro-drive. The moral of this story? The camera is simple and easy to use.

This sunset quickly developed as I drove home from work. The whole way I admired the spectacular colors and didn't think twice that the colors would be around long enough for me to make it home and get a shot. Well, by the time I got home the light was quickly fading and I needed to act fast. I knew I didn't know anything about the camera except a couple of shots the previous night. I counted on it acting just like my Nikon F5. I even tried to set the White Balance but promptly screwed that up and inadvertently set incadescent light. The image should be hopelessly blue tinted. Fortunately, I shot the image in RAW mode which allows the shooter to post-process away all his mistakes when you use the right software. I've been using MacBibble Vers 1.99 and promptly went to work on my computer to fix my White Balance mistake. The whole process took about 15 minutes. That's the time from walking in the door, setup the equipment, go out and shoot, come back inside, and post process the image. Wow!!

I hope you don't mind that I used such an obvious HOM subject in the image. I wanted to test the capabilities of the camera while simultaneously seeing if it really was as easy as everyone was saying. There's a lot to learn but the camera is ridiculously easy to use. If you're wondering, I haven't given up on my F5's. There's so many things I can do with those cameras that I don't think I can do with my D1h. Resolving power is the biggest issue. Still, the D1h is a blast to use. I'll write some more about the camera in the coming weeks.

Cheers

Tom