Apparently the May long weekend is a busy time for gardening in Vancouver.  Our tulips have already come and gone, but there is always something in bloom.  I took a few shots while my wife was busy in the garden.  Nikon D800 with a 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro lens.

I took a short walk around Vancouver’s Gastown with friends recently.   Here are some photos from my walk which started at the Irish Heather and ended at the Pourhouse.

The first photo is not from my trip to the Vancouver Aquarium, but it was taken during the same weekend when my brother was in town.  We decided to visit the lookout at Cypress Mountain at sunset, and lucky for us it was a fairly clear evening.  This photo is taken looking south east, the sun is setting to the right of the frame and Vancouver is in the foreground.  Mount Baker (which is in the USA), is visible in the background.  The use of a zoom lens (@ 155mm) provides the compression in the scene.  I have used zoom lenses for a few landscape shots in the past (Mountains at 400mm) and they can certainly provide an interesting perspective.

I also created a panorama from the same location starting just to the right of the image above.  I’m not that happy with the processing but I’m posting the image anyway.  If you want to see this image much bigger, you can do so here.

Now the photos from the trip to the Vancouver Aquarium.  Photos from previous visits are also online.  I have a new favorite tank, the cuttlefish!  Those guys are fascinating to watch.

Also got a great shot in the frog display area, these little guys were lined up like they were on duty.

A few other shots from the day.

This post is to test the WP Retina 2x plugin for WordPress. The image was uploaded at 2880×1500 (603kb).  I’m also using CloudFlare and CloudFront with w3 Total Cache so I want to test it out to see if this configuration will actually work.  The photo is from my trip to Belize.

This is the third time I’m posting about the testing of my D800 autofocus system.  The first time was not long after I purchased it, just to see if it had the problem.  I found that it did have the problem, and I sent it to Nikon for repair.  When the camera came back, I tested it again.  Initially I thought it may have been fixed, but further testing showed there was still a problem.

During this time, I also purchased LensAlign and FocusTune to help me more accurately fine tune my lenses and camera, but also to help me quantify the results.  When I tested my lenses, I noticed that the recommended fine tune values for three of my five lenses was +20 (the highest possible).  This suggested to me that the actual sharpest fine tune value may be even higher than than, but the scale does not allow further adjustment.  Said another way, if the fine tune is at the maximum value, the calibration is not within spec for the camera/lens combination.  I decided to give my D800 and my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G, Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8D, and Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 to Nikon along with my results to see if they can fix the left autofocus problem plus calibrate the camera for the three lenses.

I finally received my camera back, and had a chance to test it with two lenses.  I tested with the 24-70 and the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR (this lens didn’t go to Nikon).  I did not fine tune the camera and lenses before testing, this is how Nikon sent it to me.  I used the same test procedures I outlined previously, with a small twist because I now have FocusTune to help me out.  The results here are all RAW conversions (the only adjustment I made in Lightroom was to convert to grayscale).  I shot in RAW+JPG (L/Fine), I shot a manual focus control shot for each of the five focus test points tested (center, top, bottom, left right – all at the farthest AF points).  Between each autofocus test shot, I defocused away from infinity and took five shots for each focus point.  I then loaded all of the JPG files into FocusTune and for each focus point I found the SHARPEST result from the five samples, so the results here are the best shots from the group.

One thing to note, last time I sent the D800 to Nikon the work order showed “ADJ FOCUS SYSTEM” and “ADJ AUTO FOCUS OPERATION”. This time, the work order had:

It is worthwhile to note that I was not having any problems with my D800 outside of the autofocus system, I’m not sure why they replaced the o-ring and worked on the electrical system. I see no mention of them even looking at the autofocus system.

Lenses Tested

AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G

AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED

AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

Test Results

The grouped results for the 105mm lens, 100% crop under the autofocus sensor tested.

Apologies that some of these are dark, I didn’t want to make any adjustments so they are presented straight from the camera with no editing.  I don’t see any major issues here, the focus system seems to be fairly consistent between all of the points.  Here is a closer look at the 105mm left side results.

I would say this is fine, doesn’t quite match the manual focus using live view and 100% zoom but I don’t think phase detect AF is ever going to be as good.

The grouped results for the 24-70mm lens at 24mm.

Here, the left side AF sensor is clearly softer than the others in the group.  Here is a bigger version of just the left side results.

The grouped results for the 24-70mm lens at 70mm.

Once again, some softness on the left side.  Bigger version of 70mm left side results.

I would say it’s not as bad as the 24mm left side test, however I would not say this is acceptable performance.  The lens works fine at the other focus points, here are details of the performance at the center focus point at 24mm.

The 24-70mm center focus point at 70mm.

Both of these are completely acceptable and would not give me any reason for concern.  However, the left side AF sensors continue to give me grief.  I’m not sure if it’s the lens or the body though, because the 105mm seems to focus fine at the left side.  I’ll try to test with my 50mm f/1.8G to see how it performs, and I’ll post the results here when I’m finished.

 Update, April 2, 2013

The grouped results for the 14-24mm lens at 24mm, center and lower AF points are good, others soft.

The 14-24 @ 24mm L5 sensor detail.

The grouped results for the 50mm, again center and lower AF points are good, others soft.

50mm L5 detail, not terrible but could be better.

In general, the whole AF system seems to be a little off.  Fine tune won’t fix this as the various AF points don’t correlate to each other in how far out of focus they are.  If they were all equally off, fine tune could fix that.  Some, such as the center and lower (C, D2) AF point are excellent, others (such as L5) are consistently off.  If I fine tune, I’ll be throwing off the good ones.

I was coming back from taking some sunset photos in Lions Bay.  On my way home, I saw that BC Place Stadium was lit up green for Saint Patrick’s Day.  It was a clear night, so I had to stop to get a few extra shots.

I picked up a new set of wheels yesterday, a 2013 Acura MDX Tech Edition.  My first vehicle purchase in 9 years, and it’s a nice upgrade.  The car is Dark Cherry Pearl, which looks good on this car.  A quick shot I took at the dealership, which is just meh.

Since it was a beautiful sunny day in Vancouver, I decided to go for a short drive on the Sea To Sky Highway to Brighton Beach.  I found a nice place to pull off and get a few shots.

Another batch of puppies and dogs available for adoption from Vancouver Animal Control. You can see the animals they have available at PetFinder.com (not just dogs but rabbits, lizards, and at times even more strange things).  You can also see previous shelter dogs I photographed here.  Don’t buy a pet through Craigslist or other online sources, adopt a pet from your local animal shelter.

A while back, Out There Images posted a list of recommended settings for the Nikon D800. I used that as a starting point to create four custom menu banks for my most common shooting situations.  The menu banks are not great because they don’t save all of the settings you need to change, but they are better than nothing.  The U1/U2 settings of the D7000 and D600 are superior to the menu banks both in terms of features and ease of use.  I have no idea why Nikon has decided to leave out such a fantastic function on their high-end cameras.  Neither the D800 nor the D4 have the U1/U2 settings.  Nice work Nikon.

Here are the four menu banks I created:

• HDR - sets up the camera for high dynamic range shooting.  I usually use a tripod, have time for manual focus, etc.  If the shutter speed is fairly slow, I also turn on “Exposure delay mode” (custom setting d4).
• Action – I often use this when photographing dogs at the local animal shelter.
• Portrait – useful not just for portraits but for any stationary or slow moving target.
• Point & Shoot – Since I use the “AF-ON” focusing technique (*1), it makes it difficult to hand my camera to a stranger if I want to be in the photo.  Rather than try to explain the technique, I just change the settings and let them shoot.  I also use this mode when I give the camera to my wife, sometimes she just wants to take a few simple shots so this mode shoots in jpeg with things configured to make shooting easier.

The settings for all four modes are outlined below.  Note that the settings just make the starting point for configuration easier.  It doesn’t mean these are always the settings I use when shooting.  I may not use ISO100 for all situations nor the same AF settings.  If you want to use them as a starting point for your own custom settings it is easiest to just download my config file here: Nikon D800 custom settings file. You should also grab the custom picture control explained in footnote 3. To use the custom settings file, copy it to your media card, insert the media card into your camera and navigate to SETUP MENU -> Save/load settings -> Load settings. This will copy the settings over to your camera.  You may want to save your own settings before you copy mine to your camera in case you need to revert back.

Note the [change this] in the settings below, these are things you will want to change in your own camera before you start shooting.  At the bottom, you can also see what I put in “MY MENU” to access some controls I often change on the fly.

To switch between the various menu banks, you have several options:

• The slow way.  Go to menu -> shooting menu -> shooting menu bank -> select your bank.  Then go to custom setting menu -> custom settings bank -> select your bank.
• I have ‘shooting menu bank’ and ‘custom settings bank’ as the top two items of ‘my menu’.  This allows me to change the settings relatively quickly but also provides a visual reminder of what banks I’m using when I go into this menu.
• The fastest way is to simply press the “info” button twice, that should select your shooting bank.  Press the center button in the multi-selector, pick your setting.  Do the same for custom settings bank.

If you have questions, or a suggestion feel free to leave them in the comments at the bottom of the page.  If you want more detail on the settings below download Nikon’s D800/D800E manual (free), for something even better I recommend Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the D800/D800E ($30).  Thom not only covers the options but gives you a recommendation on what to use for each setting.

Footnotes

*1 – Autofocus : I have started using the “AF-ON” technique (for lack of a better term) to focus my camera. You can read more about the technique here. You will see that in my settings, I primarily use AF-C as the default focus mode when I use the camera. With the AF-ON technique, you decouple the focusing of the camera from the shutter press. The nice thing is that you can have both continuous and static autofocus at the same time. Focus and recompose is also easier as you don’t have to keep the shutter half-pressed, just release the AF-ON button and the camera stops focusing. It works very well, but takes a bit of getting used to. This technique works on both Nikon and Canon cameras (likely other brands as well but I haven’t checked into it).

*2 – Image comment : There are two spots to put your personal info into the file EXIF data: “Image comment” and “Copyright information”. Some people use both, but there isn’t really a reason to do so. I have found one reason not to use the ‘image comment’ field, and that is because the comment shows up in the description field when you post images online (facebook for example). At times, I post images to facebook and I don’t want the description for each one to say “copyright 2013…”, blah, blah, blah. My friends want to see something about the image, not a copyright notice. For me, it just makes the upload process more time consuming and it doesn’t add any value. You may like it, so feel free to use the field if that fits into your workflow.

*3 – Set Picture Control : The live view of the Nikon D800 isn’t great, but I still use it at times to get sharp focus. I zoom in the live view display and manually focus the lens to the best setting. If you change the picture control to the highest sharpening level you actually get a better display. Since I almost always shoot in raw, this has no effect on the final image. You can edit your existing picture control but it’s best to create a new, custom, one. To make this easier, you can download a custom picture control I created called Live View Max Sharp. Unzip the file, you should see a “Nikon” folder, copy that to the top level (root) of your flash card and put the card into your camera. In the menu, go to SHOOTING MENU (camera icon)-> Manage picture control -> Load/save -> Copy to camera => Live View Max Sharp, click “OK”. Select one of the custom picture control spaces to use (C1..C9) and you are done. Now you still have all of your default picture controls plus the new one to pick from.

It was a foggy afternoon and I decided to venture down to Granville Island to see if I could get any interesting shots.  I couldn’t get inspired, so I just watched a few street performers to pass the time.  I thought the evening light would make a difference but again, things just didn’t come together as expected.  I took a few shots but didn’t get anything great.  After sunset, I walked around the seawall to Science World and took a few shots in the area.  It was one of those nights where I went out to get a specific shot and just couldn’t get it.  Some people things you can just go out and get a good shot, but in reality I may have to visit the same site 10 times before I get a shot that I’m happy with.  Here are a few shots from that night.