Tima is running and again, we have the same question however in newer jacket. Which one is better? We are not going to talk about Canon D5. Now it is good time to decide if the older model is good enough to buy or not since the price of the older one will go down very soon. Same story again. :)

Why to buy Nikon D300 now?

Maybe we wanna the best of the best and we want it now. However we should think about the older version Nikon D200 because its price is going down and it could be enough for our needs. Lets have a look on both and try to find difference.

Nikon D300 Key Features

These ones you can on Nikon D700 as well however...

• 12.3 megapixel CMOS senso (dx format -> crop 1.5x)
• Self-cleaning sensor (vibration agains dust)
• 3.0" LCD monitor (0.9Mpx), can be used as viewfinder!
• Really fast operation (powerup 13 ms, shutter lag 45 ms, blackout 100 ms)
• Improved autofocus (AF): 51 points, tracking by color, auto-focus calibration up to 20 separate settings by lens
• 6 fps (frame per second - machine gun mode)
• And more...

There is much more I just tried to find the most important features which makes Nikon D700 unique now and especially when we are going to comparte that to Nikon D300.

Nikon D300 vs. D700 main differences

Lets have a look on our difference sheet

Nikon D3

The Nikon D3 is the only Nikon pro camera nowdays. It is the biggest, bulkiest, fastest, heaviest, toughest, most expensive with the fattest and longest lasting battery. The D3 is the camera to get for action and sports. Its AF system is superb extra fast. You no longer have to pick and chose AF sensors, or have to focus, lock and recompose. When you set it up as I do, you just compose and fire, and everything comes out perfectly. The frame rate of 9 FPS is the easy part, however not fastest nowdays.

Intro

One day, almost every photographer decide or at least start to think about his own studio. The easiest way is to make some kind of amateur studio (atelier) at home. The problem is to find some relevant info or how tos. There just a few articals about this important topic for beginers or people without good infos or friends whit such know how. I have written this artical in czech years ago however its is still relevant even today.

Lighting is the key of a lot of types of pictures. We are not going to talk about expensive soft boxes and pro lighting. The only thing we use is the Nikon DSLR with one wireless TTL comanded flash (Nikon SB-800). The brand here is absolutely not important here, you can get the same with Canon, Pentax, Sony, Panasonic or Sigma. We also use 5-in-1 light reflector / diffuser and some cheap umbrellas (rain umbrellas :)).

What we need here?

Not much and not very expensive staff...

• Nikon D70 - old DSLR as camera and flash commander. aperiture 5,6, time 1/160, iso 200, white ballance - auto, flash in commander mode.
• Nikon SB-800 - our main light source. Setings: remote TTL with difusion dome and adapter (14mm).
• Holder - we need to hold external flash outside camera, the same whit diffusor and umbrella.
• Silver umbrella - original photo umbrella, cost 30,- USD
• Silver semitransparent umbrella "Tesco" - low cost, low quality Tesco umbrella for 2,- USD (or free). The main advantage of this umbrella is the fact that it is half transparent. You can use it as a diffusor or reflect umbrella. The color is about bluesilvergrey something.
• Reflector 5-IN-1 - we use it as diffusor to make "softbox" efect.

Few days ago I have posted small artical about comparsion of Nikon D200 vs D300. Now I found Nikon D300 sample gallery on some chinese forum. So lets heck it out and see its noise and detail capability. Its still good time to decide if the older model is good enough or not. D300 or D200? That is the question...

Nikon D300 sample pictures gallery

Browsing on my favourite forum and finding out nice link with real sample pictures from D300. So ladies and gentlemans here is brand new Nikon D300 sample gallery. Its well done and you can compare details, noise reduction etc. there. Original non-translated link is here.

Anyway... still thinking that buying Nikon D200 in sale is better option for me. All Nikon D200 vs D300 battle seems to be pretty interesting. Btw. Where is Canon and its 40D? Or Canon 50D?

My last post about this topic: Nikon d300 better than Nikon d200?

Israel, small country with high media coverage. Country some people dream about. Some ones hate it. The others fighting for and the rest is afraid of. Me and two friends of mine decided to make a short trip to israel and try to visit all places we have heard about from news and bible. So this is photo report of our israel trip because my camera made me a company of course! So pictures from Israel!

Landing Tel-Aviv straight to Hebron

Its 18.1.2007 arround 5:00 am. We are getting to friends of mine flat. Just quickly throw away our luggage and then directly to Central Bus station.

For everyone who is first time in Israel. Just visit of central bus station is pretty shocking. First of all they the security check is the same like on airport (you get use to very fast because they check you in the same way even at the entrance of every restaurant or club). Secondly young soldiers are everywhere. The israel is the only country which has military duty for man and woman as well. Boys has to serve 3 years, girls just 2. So you see them all around and to be honest they do not lookl frustrated at all. :)

Our destination is Hebron located on west bank (under palestinian authority control) and the way will not be easy because there are no any lines there. It is pretty dangerous place and most of isrealis have never been there during their whole life. We are getting in armoured bus (bullet proof windows etc.) direction the nearest settlement: Qiryat Arba. Btw. We are the only non-uniformed passengers.

There are no real bus stops in settlements so sometimes its pretty confusing to get off at the righ place. Anyway we decided to get out because friend of mine though it is the place. So no we are in the middle of nowhere trying to find a place to hitchhike to Hebron. After one hour we find out we are completly wrong. Qiryat Arba is next settlement around 4 kilometers away and tt is danger to go there by foot so we have to hitchhike to Qiryat Arba first and then to Hebron.

After two hours we are in Hebron. Hebron is one of the most ancient cities in the Middle East. And one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world as well. Population around 150000 palestinians and 500 jews (which are guarded by 5000 israel soldiers). Its is holy city because allmost all patriarchs are buried here (sara, isaac, rebekah, rachel), second holiest city for jews called the city "the City of the Patriarchs". We are staying right in front of the Cave of the Patriarchs. Synague, thomb and mosque at once. Today some muslim festival take place there so there are a lot of policemans and atmosphere is pretty hot.

Very soon we are getting to know some settlers. They are really interested in what we are doing there because not very much visitors comming here in general. Look at picture bellow even ambulance has to be armoured here!

These guys are very nice to use and they offer to give us a tour guide. So we are walking around idf checkpoints. On every second corner there is a story who died here and when. Wanna bit of frustration?

We did not want to go too far from last checkpoint because it was quite obvious that there are some problems all around (shooting can be heard clearly).

When we get back to the cave it was around 6pm. and no car have been parking there anymore. So question was how to get back to Qiryat Arba. After 30 minutes some one give as a lift to the nearest bus station and on the we found out why everybody told us that comming back on foot to Quiryat Arba is almost suicide. A lot of strange people were rubberneck on the streets and so on. 10:00pm we are safe home in Tel Aviv Jaffo which is very nice by night:

Jerusalem, capital of all

10:00 am we are on the way to Jerusalem. No armoured bus anymore. Around noon time we get to the ancient city and we were walking around famous sights and our favoured places and restaurants. Lunch we spent in Praha restaurant eating fake hungarian goulash with dumplings (we got ordinary goulash with potatos something instead however good taste after days of eating just falafel :) ). Here are some pictures next day at night in Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Kotel (western wall of second temple).

Now we are on the way to Afula to get to kibbutz Ein Harod to visit my realtives. Kibutzs are collective community villages (cities). Its kind of ideology way of living: everybody share everything and no one owns anything. People working for kibbutz and gets everything they need (like house, food, goods). Most of kibbutzs are willage type of setlements around some factory or farm which giving people jobs. They provide corporate dinning hall, swiming pool or car renting (free for members). Around 8% of all israelis living in Kibbutz. Getting less now days because for young people this way of living is not cool anymore. We were quite surprised by visiting nice club near by Ein Harod. On our way back we drive golf car (pretty drunk) which was very funny. :)

Golan Heights

Next day we were going to Golan Heights. Israel captured land during Six Day War in 1967 and Yom Kippur War in 1973. Nice piece of nature full of mines and other war artefacts.

Last picture is from Syrian border with anti-tank barrier. On our way back we went to Kineret lake and Nazareh. Then by bus back to Tel-Aviv.

Gaza, Ber-sheba, Massada, Dead See and back

Gaza strip is very small area with around 1.4 mil residents, mostly Palestinians. Probably most dangerous place in middle east. To be honest I do not know why we wanted to go there. Maybe just kind of adrenalin. Anyway we were able to get just to the border line. No way to get in. Gaza is surrounded by defence wall (security fence), 6 m high concrete wall. It takes exatly 1.5 minutes israeli army HMMWV (idf) to capture you when are waling near by this wall. They were quite angry to us however at the end they were happy to see just stupid tourist and not something else.

Our next steps goes to the judea desert to visit massada and dead sea. Massada is really unique fortrest in the world. It was build on the top of flat mountain and it had everything you need to survive: rainy watter tank, fields. No wonder Romans spent few years at mountin foot and even after that they won just because all of defenders self-murdered.

And this is the end of our journey... just map of travel.

Landscaapes... most of peoplelove it. There are nice colorful with lot of details. Why in hell none of my picture looks the same? Probably I do not have Eur 5000+ camera equipment. No no. The truth is much simplier. Hot to shoot landscape? Hot to make landscape pictures? Lets have a look hot to do it step-by-step. Simple manual how to make landscape that all of your friends say just wow.

Any camera can produce wonderful landscape

I am really sorry but you do not need to buy new camera. Here are list of thing we need to make nice landscape pictures. Basically we have two parts of our work. One is field work - you need to shoot landscape somewhere. You probably can not use any of your older pictures because their are simply bad for this purposes. Two is a bit of photoshop magic or better call that digital black chamber work. Do not worry. It takes 5 minutes no more!

You will need this:

• Any camera (with some manual control is better)
• Tripod
• Circular polarizer filter (higly recomended)
• Good weather condition (no landscape is nice without clouds, sundown, sunrise... sun and noon-time is not a case here at all!)
• Some software, here we are going to use HDRsoft Photomatix
• Mars bar :)))

Lets go shooting

Go to the woods and find some nice scenery. Put your camera on tripod. Now we are going to shoot more pictures that has to be exactly same except exposition. These pictures we are going to compose to get one which much higher dynamic range. If your camera support bracketing feature use it (set 3 pictures witch step 1 EV). Bracketing means that camera by itself make more images at once with different exposition. No bracketing? Do not cry about. You simply shoot one picture on auto mode then set exposition compensation down (-1 EV) and shoot another one. 2 pictures can be enough however always make 3 (+1 EV). No one never know which one you need. Try to focus on closer subject if you know how (rock on the picture for example).

Important thing is that all pictureas has to be exactly same so do not move with camera. If your camera support bracketing try to use selftimer to avoid any handshaking. Better pictures you have larger landscape you can produce (better details). Result should look like this (yes this kind of pictures we usually get):

Note for the lucky ones who having manual controls: To get best results set lowest ISO (means best quality), high Aperture - f8 on compact cameras (usually maximum) and f16 on DSLR (no more because average lens giving best result around this) and focus on 1.5 m for wide picture (this distance is close to hyper focal lenght which means everything above 1.5 m be sharp).

Honey, I'am home!

So lets start our computer work. Run Photomatix and get this

Our case is probably second option so lets continue. Open pictures you made in nature. Be sure they are the same (if not the result will be pretty blurred. Sometimes you have to use just pictures because of handshaking or wind blowing - it has moved camera or plants on the picture). When you open them it should look like this:

Menu HDRI -> Generate HDR. As result you get very strange looking picture. Do not worry about it.

Menu HDRI -> Tone Mapping. And now we are getting to interesting part which you will like the best:

Now we have to tune our picture. (1) is control of dynamic of the picture. Usually is better to not using max so -5 is best here. (2) is histogram control. Good picture need shades as well as shine parts. Try to make histogram wide by black and white point controls. Last control is whole saturation of the picture. Its all upon you: wanna colorfull picture or rainy-like dark scenery? My setting here are following:

And thats it. Easy, dont you think? The final result in this case is here:

Conclusion

There is nothing to conlcude... I whish you luck!

Just 3 days after anouncing brand new Canon D40 new Nikon horse arrive as well. Welcome Nikon D300 successor of the famous Nikon D200. Thats marketing we are not that much interested in. New model come old become to be a part of history. This is the best time to decide if the older model is good enough to buy or not since the price of the older one will go down very soon.

Why to buy Nikon D300 now?

Maybe we wanna the best of the best and we want it now. However we should think about the older version Nikon D200 because its price is going down and it could be enough for our needs. Lets have a look on both and try to find difference.

Nikon D300 Key Features

These ones you can not find on Nikon D200...

• 12.3 megapixel CMOS senso (dx format -> crop 1.5x)
• Self-cleaning sensor (vibration agains dust)
• 3.0" LCD monitor (0.9Mpx), can be used as viewfinder!
• Really fast operation (powerup 13 ms, shutter lag 45 ms, blackout 100 ms)
• Improved autofocus (AF): 51 points, tracking by color, auto-focus calibration up to 20 separate settings by lens
• 6 fps (frame per second - machine gun mode)
• And more...

There is much more I just tried to find the most important features which makes Nikon D300 unique now and especially when we are going to comparte that to Nikon D200.

Nikon D300 vs. D200 main differences

Lets have a look on our difference sheet

Nikon D300 vs. D200 main differences

From average user pespective there are not many reasons to upgrade from Nikon D200 to D300. For pros (especially press and sport reporters) it could be faster shutter and better watterprofing (not everybody likes to handle bulky Nikon D2xs or D3). Everobody who works in studio enviroment enjoy 2 more megapixels. Better autofocus is good for everyone how ever most of people can stay with "just 11 points". The only real feature is live view which most of people find out to be newbie option. I do not agree at all. There are many situations where this can help a lot. I remember few shots I have made in the past with compat camera and I can not make any more with my DSLR.

So nothing special for 500 USD dont you think? From Nikon D200 the only trouble is its battery life: not everyone know that average D200 can shoot just 300 pictures on battery charge. My old D70 can do 700 more (yes, thats why most of the D200 users buying grip! :) ). Lets hope D300 can do better job. I am pretty shure about.

Result

If you want to have latest thing go for Nikon D300. If value for money is the power for you take Nikon D200 in sale (comming soon i think) or Nikon D80. In most cases you can not be disapointed by them.

Every photographer have been thinking about buying softbox lights at least once. However especially for amateurs there is a question of need and if its good idea to spend few hunders bucks for softbox or should I buy new lens instead.

Since I have been thinking in the same way I decided to do softbox by myself and found out that very basic think can be done for 20 USD maximum. How? Lets make a list what we need:

What we need

For homemade softbox studiolight we need following:

• Big Nutella package :)
• 2x "Universal underlay", no idea how its call corectly in english. Anyway It is simply silver underlay that protect you when you sleep in nature (protecting human budy from humidity and temperature when you lay down in the forest).
• 1x light diffuser, simply something what makes light softer. You can use what ever. If you have Collapsible Reflector Disc with semi-transparent white fabric, you win. Easyest way is to buy 1 meter of curtain without any texture/pattern. Such a small piece you can get even free in special shops with curtains.
• 4x wooden Lath (thiniest one), for framing front rectangle of softbox
• Sticky tape, stickers, binder and pencil.
• Flash light

Make a template from paper of final form. You will need for several reasons: first you wanna to make same sides of the softbox, second its better to make a paper model first because its quite dificult to make it right at first try. Do not forget that you need few cm (1 inch) on the borders. I have used A3 paper for template. When you have temlate simply copy it to underlay and make sides of softbox which you can put together by binder. Sticky tape you can youse for finishing. The rest is clear i think, just use tripod as softbox stand and you win.

Results

Its is definitevly not the pro version of softbox which you can use outside however for playing and fun its not that bad. Here are the results:

Its just few days I have started to use Wordpress and I am not sure it is right system for me. There are few things I am really missing here like possibility to delete more than one post at once (sometimes delete all posts). I am not real bloger and maybe I need true CMS instead. Anyway... since I am too lazy to do relocate to other system and even one friend of mine having same problem I decided to make my first Worpress hack (or plugin how its cool to call hacks now :) ).

Whats going on here? Select all and delete

Instalation

• Backup everything you have online
• Replace edit.php and post.php files in wp-admin folder
• Enjoy deleting your posts

Download

Donation

It is always very interesting to follow whats going on at lowest segment of the market. Canon and Nikon are fighitng everywhere and pro level cameras are pretty much the same. Everything is just about few parameters like shutter speed and megapixels. The low ened segment is much more interesting because real featuters for common users are done here. So lets have a look on Canon Rebel Xti (EOS 400D) and Nikon D40x.

Low-end camera, high-end result

First of all do not be ashamed of buying these camers. There are low end according to the price of profesional equipment however good enough for almost everything. Lets be honest: the result you get nowdays from Canon D400 or Nikon D40x is far better you got from pro-level cameras in the past. Picture from Nikon D40x is far better than Nikon D1, Nikon D1h, D100 even D70s and most people say that it is pretty much the same like Nikon D200 (which is 3 times more expensive). The same you can find for Canon Rebel Xti: it can beat Canon 10D for sure!

The real difference betwen pro and non-pro cameras are just few features which are not important for average photographer:

• Megapixels for huge prints
• Anti-dust and watter proof protection
• Fast shutter speed
• Studio ready features
• fast control layout
• And few more...

Megapixels are not a case anymore. Even with 4 Mpx you can make A3 prints. Antidust and watter proof is nescesity for profesionals which have to work in the war conditions in any case. Fast shutter is nice for sport reporters which have to make proper picture of the match that happen just once and they must take the picture othewise got fired. Studio is clear and most of the families are not having their own photo studio at home. Fast control layout means more levers and switch which are cool for profesionals and pretty confusing for my mother.

Real difference

I am gonna to disapoint everybody who expect long artical about technical differences between these two cameras. For most of people Nikon D40x and Canon D400 are same cool cameras. The only real difference is how you feel the brand and how do you like its handling. Anyway everobody expect that so here is our difference sheet:

Result

Lets keep it short. From my point of view. Canon Rebel Xti (EOS 400D) is sligtly better camera acording to feature list. From the other hand none of them are important for most people. Nikon D40x is for me better camera according to automatic function and handling (really guys, try both and you will see. Nikon is much better here i think). My vote goes to Nikon for better design and control layout however try both for sure! Yes, Nikon is 1 mm smaller and 50g lighter. No one care about here.