Seb Rogers: mountain bike photography

How much do you love your camera?

A camera is just an inanimate object - a collection of metal, plastic and glass designed to do a particular job. And for most people, most of the time, it's actually the end result that's more important than the tool used to get there. But that doesn't prevent people from developing certain attachments to their image-recording devices. F'rinstance, I've got a soft spot for my Olympus OM1, which has a beautifully engineered feel to it. 

But immortalising a team of Japanese engineers' efforts as a piece of body art? Not sure about that (and it would've been a whole lot cooler in manual mode rather than the default Program...)

ISO 102,400 - the new standard?

When Nikon launched the D3 a couple of years ago, the combination of enough-but-not-too-many pixels, high speed, great dynamic range and frankly astonishing high ISO performance won it many fans. It's continued to set the standard for clean high ISO files ever since, but things have moved on and some of the (indirect) competition offers similar high ISO specs with higher pixel counts. Oh, and video. Ya gotta have video these days (apparently).

Enter the imaginatively named D3S. Yes, it's got video (but, disappointingly, only 720p). It also has a completely redesigned sensor with the ability to shoot at up to ISO 102,400. Eek.

Over the past year-and-a-bit that I've been shooting with the D3 I've become a huge fan of its ability to deliver clean files full of detail in lighting conditions that would've been near impossible to shoot in just a few years ago. Although I was sceptical at first that it would make any real difference to my photography, I just take this low light performance for granted now. I routinely find myself in some shaded, wooded corner, shooting happily away at ISO 1600 - or even higher - happy in the knowledge that no-one but me will know. It's that good. 

The less-publicised side benefit of the D3's extraordinarily well-behaved sensor is its incredible dynamic range, which has also changed the way I shoot. It's straightforward to recover at least 2/3 stop of 'lost' highlight detail from the D3's files, which makes it possible for me to deliver shots with detail-rich skies to an extent that simply wasn't possible before. A subtle improvement? Sure, but it's the small details like these that count.

Although I won't be rushing out to buy a D3S (particularly at the suggested retail price of over £4000), it's clear that Nikon intend to maintain the camera's reputation for ultimate high ISO performance. All I can say is that the hype about the D3 is all true, which gives the D3S a high bar to climb over. By my reckoning ISO 102,400 should allow pictures in conditions that it's hard to even see (or focus) in. If the resulting images are in any way usable, that's a remarkable achievement.

I know nothing...

My D3 suffered a bit in the wet shoots I've done in the past couple of months. The first I knew of it was when the rear monitor fogged over in warm sunshine. I let it dry out, but there's a discoloured patch which makes viewing in bright light a bit of a pain. I can probably live with it, but it'd be nice to get it fixed. Provided, of course, the price is reasonable.

So what do I do? I phone Nikon's technical support line and ask how much a new rear screen is likely to be. 

'I don't know' is the helpful reply. 

OK, I say, just give me a ballpark. 

'It could be anywhere between £5 and £1000'.

I'm speechless for a second. Obviously, I point out, it's not going to be £5. Can't you just give me an idea of the cost of the parts so that I can work out whether it's worth my while sending it in?

'I'm sorry, no'.

And so on, round and round a few more times until I give up and phone independent repairers Fixation instead. In complete contrast to Nikon's total intransigence, the friendly person who answers the phone trundles off to find a technician and comes back with a straightforward answer. Job done.

This isn't the first time I've been on the receiving end of Nikon indifference. It's infuriating, and it's inexcusable. Nikon, sort it out. How hard is it to have a parts price list available to the support line staff? It ain't rocket science, it's basic customer service.

In the meantime, it looks like Nikon UK has lost a repair job. Fixation, my D3 will be in the post shortly...

Counting the cost of repairs

Twenty years after buying my first Nikon camera - and having owned 15 Nikon SLRs in that time* - I can honestly say I've had very few reliability problems. The least reliable of the lot was my F100, with which I had a love/hate relationship. I liked the fact that it was a junior F5, with much of that camera's functionality in a more portable package. I hated the fact that it suffered a slew of random mechanical and electrical glitches - and that it ate AA batteries by the dozen.

Anyhoo, when my D300's rear selector lock switch packed up a few months ago, I didn't pay much attention. After all, the only practical upshot was that my selected AF point couldn't be locked in place... hardly the end of the world. But then I remembered the camera came with a free 2 year warranty, so I took the opportunity of a quiet couple of weeks to send it back to Nikon for some attention.

I was slightly shocked, then, when the following invoice turned up in my email inbox:

Here's the bit I didn't like:

Around a fiver or so to replace the offending part... and nearly 75 quid for the labour to fix it. Eek!

Luckily the invoice was an administrative ****-up and, after I queried it, Nikon confirmed the camera was still under warranty and the work had been completed FOC. But it was a salutary reminder that kit can be expensive to fix. And that, rather like other manufactured goods (cars come to mind), it's often not the cost of the spare parts that pushes the cost up, but rather the price of labour.

I'm not for a moment begrudging Nikon their right to charge what they do for skilled repair work. But for any photographer contemplating setting up in business, it's worth factoring the cost of repairs and servicing into your business plan. My accounts include a 'camera repairs' section that, most years, accounts for a few hundred pounds' worth of servicing and repair expenses. Y'knoow, stuff gets dropped, or wears out, or just needs a bit of TLC. And it's not cheap. But without well maintained cameras and lenses, you're not going to get very far.

* That's a terrifying number, and one that surprised me. But it's true:

2 x F801 (I still have one)

1 x F90X

1 x F80

1 x F100

3 x F5 (I still have one)

1 x F6 (still in the bag)

1 x D100

1 x D200

1 x D300 (current)

1 x D40X (current)

1 x D2X

1 x D3 (current)

iPod 0, washing machine 1

No-one deliberately puts electronic gear in the laundry. But, well, y'know... it happens. Not so long ago half a dozen of my AA NiMH batteries emerged unscathed from a 40 degree wash and have been behaving impeccably ever since. But I'm not always so lucky.

So I'll just say this: don't leave your iPod in a pocket (it won't thank you for it). My first generation Nano died last week after I remembered 10 minutes into the first rinse exactly where I'd left it. Despite careful drying and even, after many attempts, successfully mounting it on my desktop once and accessing the contents of the memory, it turns out that both the logic board and (unsurprisingly) the battery are toast. Soggy toast, but toast nonetheless.

I'd been hoping to get away with a new battery, but the cost of replacing essentially all the innards is exactly a pound more than a refurbished current generation Nano with double the memory and a colour screen. Decision made. And lesson learnt.

Check. Those. Pockets.

Lies, damn lies... and internet rumo(u)rs

Anyone who keeps half an eye on what's going on in the Nikon world will probably already have seen the supposed leak of an internal Nikon memo detailing the company's release schedule over the next couple of years. It's got a lot of people rather excited, but as far as I can see it's hokum.

There are a lot of details that don't add up, but it's the lens releases that sound particularly implausible to me. Let's see... 14-28mm f/3.5-4.5... 17-65mm f/3.2-4... both more or less duplicate existing lenses that are only a couple of years old. Hmmm. How about a DX 60-95mm f/2? Yep, I can see that flying off the shelves. 

And so on.

Of course, I could be wrong. But the whole lot comes across as the product of someone with far too much time on their hands. So let's just leave it there...

Ode to a Speedlight

Like many photographers, I'm not immune to the lure of shiny new kit. In the 2 1/2 years or so since I've been blogging i've spent so much cash on new kit I'd actually prefer not to sit down and work it out. And I don't regret a penny of it - the changes I've made have increased the scope of my photography in ways I couldn't have foreseen (and have written about here, at length, several times).

But it occurred to me the other day that there's one bit of kit that I couldn't do without that's survived all the upheavals unscathed. In fact, although it's been superseded in the Nikon lineup by a newer model that's got some nice touches (like a user interface that actually works), I haven't changed. Because, despite its flaws (stubbornly unresponsive rocker switch being the main one that springs to mind), it's survived more abuse than I dish out to the rest of my gear put together and has always done everything I've asked of it. 

It's been rained on, covered in mud and dust, dropped countless times and taken a tumble down the odd rock face more than once. The scars it bears - including bits of ingrained mud and countless dings and scratches - are testament to a life lived well.

A ripple of applause, then, please for my brace of SB800 flashguns. I don't give them much thought (or care), but they're what illuminate a large proportion of my images and I literally couldn't do my job without them. They may not be as exciting as a new lens or camera body, but I sure as heck would be lost without the ability to direct light where I need it.

Maybe I'll even give them a wipedown with a damp rag. Tomorrow, perhaps...

The remote flash holy grail

I'm a little late to this one (it's been a busy couple of months, one way or another), but it looks as though photographers who rely heavily on remote flash (yep, that's me) may finally be close to a useable system that should increase control and reduce the amount of wombling backwards and forwards between the camera position and remote lights.

Pocket Wizard's new TTL-compatible wireless remote triggers always looked promising, but the one glaring omission from the original design was the ability to independently control output. With the nattily-titled Zone Controller, that should now be possible. The only question is, why was this functionality not built into the original design? Although the new add-on looks like a small, neat solution, I'd be in favour of an all-in-one unit. It would reduce bulk and limit the number of hotshoe  contacts to get damp when it's raining.

In the meantime, us Nikon users are still waiting for the backbone of the system to become available. 

Still, I've been shooting manual remote flash for nearly a decade. Another 6 months won't kill me...

Pocket rocket?

My search for the ideal lightweight, compact riding camera has taken me nearly 15 years so far. And I still haven't found it. Along the way I've tried (and rejected) several:

- Ricoh GR1 (the original film version). Too fiddly, controls too easy to knock, lens not nearly as good as the hype.

- Olympus 8080 - too bulky, too menu-driven and just too damn slow. Shame - it had a great lens.

- Nikon F80 - horrible slow flappy mirror and dreadful shutter lag

You'll notice that, Olympus 8080 aside, there's nothing digital in there. That's because there's never been anything compelling enough to make me want to break out the credit card. There's always a compromise somewhere, whether it's noise above base ISO, shutter lag or the lack of a viewfinder.

And now Olympus comes along with something that's got a decent-sized sensor, is ridiculously small and light, has a full range of manual controls and with access to some of the best lenses ever made for digital cameras. Since I've long had a soft spot for Olympus (my first camera was a Trip 35 and I still have my OM1N), it's not hard for me to see the appeal.

And yet... early hands-on reports suggest that the new camera's achilles heel may be sluggish AF. That might be excusable if the manual focus option were reasonable, but the electronic viewfinder isn't exactly over-endowed in the pixel department.

Let's hope Olympus pulls something out of the hat for the production cameras. Panasonic developed an entirely new - and remarkably fast - AF system for its micro Four-Thirds system, but didn't share the technology with Olympus. Shame. With decent AF and / or usable manual focus, I could see one of these with a 7-14mm f/4 and something a bit longer being a permanent companion on rides...

It's the little things...

Pro press photographer Andrew Wiard (co-founder of the excellent Editorial Photographers UK mailing list and one of the UK's most respected newspaper snappers) has written a revealing account of why he switched recently from a Canon 5D to a Nikon D700. His comments echo the general tone of many pro's attitudes to gear - it's the little things (like shutter lag) that make the difference. 

Whilst camera maker marketing departments and interweb forums may trumpet megapixel counts, frame rates and autofocus modes, pros whose livelihood depends on getting the shot may have other fish to fry. I think it's particularly interesting that increasing numbers of pros are turning away from the bulky, expensive offerings at the top of both Nikon and Canon's ranges in favour of smaller, lighter, cheaper alternatives like the 5DII and D700. With the Nikon, in particular, you give up very little opting for the D700 over the D3. And it's (roughly) half the price.

Intriguing, too, that many Canon-based bike snappers have been picking up 5DIIs. Why intriguing? Well, as Andrew Wiard points out, it's kinda slow on the uptake. Throw in the ho-hum frame rate and alright-ish AF, and on the face of it it's a surprising choice. 

So there must be something else going on. Is it the video? The pixel count? The full frame-ness? My hunch is it's a mix of all of these things. But given that these same snappers have been relying on Canon's sports-orientated 1DII and 1DIII bodies to earn their living, the fact that they're prepared - in some circumstances at least - to give up the high speed and accuracy of those bodies for something significantly slower tells us at least as much what's wrong with the current high end bodies as what's right.

I have a hunch that the next big pro body bun fight is going to be around the £2-£2.5k mark. Canon 3D and Nikon D800, anyone?