Its been a long time coming but Nikon has finally officially announced its new line-up of professional level camera bodies, the D800 and D4.  The question is if the new bodies are revelations in the imaging world or have they completely missed the mark resulting in Nikon users moving to camp Canon?

Firstly lets have a brief looks at the specs and how they differ from the D3 and the D700 they replace.

D3s vs D4

The D4 is very similar to the D3 it replaces, but as far as I can tell, most of these changes are nothing more than tweaks.  Both are full frame bodies with integrated grip and should retail for around the same $6,500 AUD.

D700 vs D800

Here is where things get more interesting, whilst the D700 featured a sensor very similar to the D3 but in a smaller body the D800 makes a radical change featuring a substantial 32MP full frame sensor.  Along with the increase in pixels comes an increase in retail price, up from the D700 price of $3,000 the D800 is expected to retail for close to $4,000.

What do I want?

I’m a general purpose shooter, I don’t spend all my time in a studio nor do I sit on the sidelines catching sporting action, I need a camera that is a ‘jack of all trades’.  My main body is a D300s which is Nikons ‘pseudo’ flagship cropped frame body, pseudo as the consumer level D7000 has a number of features which in my opinion place it inline or even above the D300s.  I am happy with the D300s, it is a pleasure to use and has served me well, as always however there is some additional features I would like.  Lets have a look at these features and see if the new releases could be my dream body:

1. Full frame sensor
Both the D800 and D4 offer a full 36x24mm full frame sensor.

2. Greater performance in low light
The D4 is the clear winner here with larger individual pixel size resulting in greater sensitivity with less noise.

3. A method to save and recall settings
This is an almost critical feature for me, the ability to setup the camera just the way I need it for a particular task and save the settings to an easily recalled memory bank.  This is a feature Canon has had for a while and has recently been added by Nikon with their D7000.  This feature is disappointingly not available on either the D800 or D4.

4. Decent frame rate
I don’t regularly require massively fast frame rates but on the occasions I am shooting some motorsport or other action it can become important.  The D4 is impressive at 11fps if not slightly excessive, the 4fps of the D800 is lower than I would ideally like.

5. Dual card slots
This is a feature I love on the D300 where I can insert both a SD and CF card and have it record images simultaneously to both media, I can even save RAW on one a JPG on the other.  When you’re getting paid to shoot a job redundancy is gold.  The D800 shard the SD/CF arrangement of the D300 whilst the D4 uses a new XQD card along with the traditional CF card.

Which will be my next body?

Neither!

In summary neither of the new Nikon offerings can meet all my requirements.  In the process of making cameras to meet the demands of specific types of photographers they have persuaded me, as well as many other photographers I imagine, to look at alternatives.  What I was hoping for was basically a full frame Nikon D7000 which could have offered full frame performance, ability to save user settings and a respectable frame rate.

The D800 would be an amazing bit of kit for the shooter who needs massively high detailed images at the expense of frame rate and low light sensitivity.  Whilst the D4 is an action shooters dream with great frame rates and amazing high iso performance meaning sharp images with big lenses.

What about me though? I need a high performance, easy to use, multi purpose camera body that can make great images in a studio as well as the race track.  I don’t need 36MP resolution, nor do I want to store and process image files that large.  I don’t regularly require 10+ fps, and certainly wouldn’t sacrifice other features or expense for it.  At events I would like to easily switch from a slow shutter panning shot to a sharp portrait of a car or model.  Where does this leave me?

Enter Canon stage left

I never thought I would have said it but jumping camps to Canon is seeming more and more like a viable option.  The release of the new 5d Mark III in imminent, rumour has it later this month.  Much like the D3-D4 upgrade the Mark III will be a tweaked version of the Mark II, the exact specs are yet to be published, but based on what I know how does it stack up with my requirement list?

1. Full frame sensor
Check

2. Low light performance
Should be an improvement over Mark II but probably not as good as the D4.  Still should be more than adequate for my needs and a massive step up from the D300s.

3. Save and recall settings 
Check, three banks where every function and setting of the camera can be stored, I don’t imagine this will change significantly on the Mark III.

4. Frame rate
Check, early reports are 7fps on the Mark III.

5. Dual card slots
Probably not, the Mark II doesn’t and I haven’t read any reports of it coming on the Mark III.

So far its performing well against Nikon on my requirement list, there are also a few other items that could help the Canon across the line:

Resolution
Sensor resolution will be 22MP, pretty much right between the D800 and D4′s 36 MP and 16MP.  This brings a much greater pixel density and detail than my D300s, hopefully without sacrificing low light, high iso performance.

Price
The Mark III is expected to retail for roughly the same as the Mark II it will replace at around $2,800 for the body only.  This could make it $1,000 less than the expected price of the D800 and $3,500 less than the D4.

Changeover?

Changing from Nikon to Canon is certainly not something to be taken lightly.  Along with going back on all the years of being a Nikon fan boy taunting Canon shooters there is the investment in lenses and other accessories.  There will be a cost to change, although with Nikon lenses and flashes commanding a decent price on the second hand market the changeover cost shouldn’t be too bad.  Take into account the amount I wouldn’t be spending on a new Nikon body it should all work out the same.

Will I change?  Time will tell, for now I’ll keep enjoying my Nikon (and occasionally the wife’s little Canon) and wait to try them all.

With the event being practically in my backyard I thought I’d head along and grab some pics!

This 33 Ford was one of my favourties, simple, clean, a great combination of historic styling with modern build.

Its always great to see such well built and presented cars like this XP Falcon driven on the road.

Burnout champions Peter and Debbie Gray enjoyed the day in their stunning rat styled ’57 Chev.

Another impressive ’57, this blown beast was built by Slamed Creations.

It wasn’t all about the cars, there was a large number of custom bikes on display in Healesville.

’49 Mercury sled, awesome!

It wasn’t all shiny and modern, this Chev pickup is some local history.

1950 Dodge truck, used by Herald Weekly Times in amazing condition considering its history, Slamed Creations are planning to restore it.

I can never go past a 70′s American muscle car, the Dodge Challenger is a prefect example of timeless design and this example was one of the best I’ve seen.

The thing I love about events like this is the amazing variety of vehicles and the attitudes of participants respecting the work, history and performance of each car.  Where else do you see a heavily modified R32 GTR next to a Pontiac Bonneville next to an modified Aussie V8 Falcon!

Well done to the organisers and all participants for putting together an event to bring together the Melbourne car community for an excellent cause.

Photography Info:

I travelled very light for this one, its always fun to head out with one lens, particularly a simple prime lens which forces you to think about the shot and move around to get the image you are after.  All images shot using a Nikon D300s with Nikon 35mm f2 lens, most at f2.

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The four bedroom weatherboard house.  Nikon D300s, Tokina 11-16mm, ND Grad.

The large family/rumpus room featuring plenty of wall space for ‘trophies’.  Nikon D300s, Tokina 11-16, blended from several exposures.

The large open plan kitchen has recently been updated with new paint and flooring.  Nikon D300s, Tokina 11-16, blended from several exposures.

A veranda runs across the back of the house offering great views of the property and surrounding bush land.  Nikon D300s, Tokina 11-16.

The bathroom with separate bath/shower has very recently been renovated.  Nikon D300s, Tokina 11-16, two off camera flash units.

The property is a horse lovers paradise with 4 large fenced paddocks and large well kept fenced arena.  Nikon D300s, Tokina 11-16, ND Grad.

Photography Information

All photos taken with Nikon D300s and Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens.  A variety of techniques were used to get realistic exposures of each scene; multiple exposure blending, multiple off camera flash and graduated filters.  Where flash used, SB-600 and SB-24 speedlights, both on manual triggered with RF-603.  All images retouched in Lightroom.

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Voodoo Ride is an exciting range of car care products designed and developed by a group of car enthusiasts in the USA.  The Australian distributor is Voodoo Ride Australia, one of the HPF Group of companies who was my previous employer!

This is the second side I developed for Voodoo Ride during my time with HPF, the design brief for this iteration was to create a current edgy design that highlighted the product range and detailed how to get the best from each product.  The most important requirement for the new site was to allow for simple online purchases.

Backend

I evaluated many options for the backend, from fully fledged e-commerce applications, to hosted commerce solutions and cart plugins for CMS packages.  All probably would have done the job however I had a pretty firm idea how I wanted the site to look and feel so in the end I ‘rolled my own’ solution!

There is no CMS backend per se, I used some code I built years ago that uses text files to populate some simple php template files.  Updates require ftp access to the site and editing of files directly, this is no big deal in the application as I would be the only person updating the site.

Cart

The shopping cart functionality uses Paypal for order processing and a great Javascript based application Simple Cart (js) to handle the shopping cart facility.

The end result is a lightweight, easy to use, attractive and effective site and cart solution.

Trickery

As with most custom built sites like this there is a whole lot going on behind the scenes to enhance the user experience that most users would never be aware of.  Here is a few clever bits:

• Most images on the site are actually css sprites.  This avoids delays in displaying the hover state of buttons and makes the site seem faster for the user. See example image here: http://voodooride.com.au/images/buttons_sprite_8.png
• Cufon is used for most titles fonts as it was the only solution that rendered properly in all browsers at the time.
• There is some Javascript code on the stockists page that sorts the stockists alphabetically.  This way there is no need to shuffle items around if a new stockist is added.
• The contact form is provided by Wufoo.  Sure I could have hand coded a form, however Wufoo provides the ability to link submitted data to Mailchimp, an excellent email marketing provider. If the user accepts, their name and email address is automatically added to the email database, neat huh!
• There is around 460 characters of code for each one of graduated heading background to make it as cross browser as possible without the use of images.

Head over to voodooride.com.au and have a look.  If you are looking for some car care products I can’t recommend the range of products high enough, the Mojo product in particular is simply amazing!

On an usually hot spring day late in September this year Victoria’s iconic Calder Park Thunderdome was host to the inaugural round of the Track Battle Time Attack Series as well as the Australian Drifting GP.

Peter Wrench from HPF Rally Drive fame was my host for the day as he punted his well prepared Mitsubishi Evo X in the Track Battle series.  This is his Australian Tarmac Challenge round winning EVO built by TMR and HPF.

Pete was impressive to watch in what is essentially a street car, the car has been fitted with a roll cage, race seats, and upgraded with exhaust, HPF tune, Ohlins suspension and some R Spec tyres.  Unfortunately an issue with vehicle classification ruled him out of competition.

Winner of the tuner class at the end of the day was Adam Newton, driving the Tech Sport Evo X with a blistering 0:53.875 run.

Also participating in the Track Battle was Harrop Engineering in their LS7 powered VE fresh from the Motor Magazine Hot Tuner Challenge in Sydney.  All competition miles are important for Harrop to test and fine tune their products in the harshest conditions.

I had seen drift demos at plenty of events but seeing these amazing creations sprawled all around the pit area was a site to see!

Watching them in action took things to a whole new level.  The complete lack of mechanical sympathy the drivers give to their cars is as awe inspiring as the vehicles that take it all day long!

Luke Fink would take honours at the end of the day, seen here lining up with Nigel Petrie in the Engineered to Slide 180.

As with a lot of these kind of events some of the most interesting and unique cars are behind the scenes.  This RB30ET powered Australian R31 Skyline Ti was slammed over a set of beautifully restored vintage BBS rims and dressed with venetions, roof racks and the obligatory import spoiler.  I’ve seen this styling a lot in the international scenes but this is the first time I’ve see it done tastefully locally.

Nigel Petrie not only managed to place well in his 180SX drift machine he also brought his in development Engineered to Slide drift Hilux for all to see.  The engineering and craftsmanship that has gone into this build is captivating and well worth subscribing to updates via his blog at www.engineeredtoslide.com.

This was my first foray into the Australian professional drift competition and I was definitely entertained!  Make sure you check out all the photos below….

Photography Details

All shots taken with D300S and either 35m f2.0 or 18-200VR.  Most static shots with 35mm shot at f2 with the inbuilt ND filter in the D300 activated for correct exposure in bright daylight.  Minor retouching in Lightroom 3.

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