Nikon D80 eBook owners data page

News:

Nikon Issues D80 Firmware Update to Version 1.0.1

Minor fixes. Small improvements. Vista support. Corrects errata in Polish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese and even English.

Click here for the Nikon Site USA details.

Eratta: Diffraction science description update here.

Up Data: PS CS3 Notes: Photoshop evoles. CS3's need for the telephoto Action iTelePanoSetup is zero. It won't do squat for you in CS3. PS CS3's version of Photomerge is so well implemented that it solves 99+% of your panoramic assembly needs.

Just run Photomerge with the Telephoto example images and use "Cylindrical," "Add Open Files" and make sure the "Blend images" box is checked. Boom! Instant perfecto pano.

If you shoot panos--even hand-held--Photomerge CS3 is close to perfection. If you get an image that somehow fails to line up right (usually due to parallax issues), then Photomerges's option to "Reposition Only" may get you close enough to manually tweak the sides into alignment with the center. At least for a three-part pano.

This one is from the examples in the D80 and D200 eBooks. Hand-held, standing on a rock ouside of Taos, New Mexico. CS3's Photomerge has found a non-obvious, but well-considered path through the shots and on close inspection, no flaws of stitching are at all obvious. Rollover this shot to see the exotic paneling that Photomerge has achieved.

MAJOR RAW POWER CHAPTER UPDATED!
AND YOU CAN NOT BEAT THE PRICE!

When we produced the D80 eBook, we had a bonus in mind for readers in the works that wasn't going to be ready for the day the eBook premiered.

It's a special version of Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins' The Art of RAW Conversion specially targeting Nikon NEF files. Future copies of DSLR: Nikon D80 will include it under the RAW Materials link.

Today, you can receive this volume for the lowest possible price: Free. But only here and only to current D80 eBook owners.

It contains over 200 pages of valuable RAW workflow and converter information for ACR, Adobe Raw Converter, Nikon Capture NX, LightZone and Apple Aperture plus Adobe Lightroom.

Since it is so large, you will have to download it from here. Please check back then. A special button will be here for the download.

  About the new RAW Materials volume:

The Art of RAW Conversion by Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins is the definitive work on high quality RAW file acquisition, conversion and preservation.

This is a 208 page excerpt from the larger 2007 version of the popular The Art of RAW Conversion containing the chapters most appropriate to Nikon photographers who shoot with Nikon's NEF file format.

It's profusely illustrated with examples and step by step instructions guiding you through the maze of options each RAW converter offers.

  As a D80 eBook owner, your price is zero. Some of the material in this new volume already appears in the RAW Materials volume that came with the eBook, but all of it has been updated for 2007 and the latest versions of various software items.

  The download size is just about 18 MB.

  If you wish to have the entire The Art of RAW Conversion 2007 eBook for your photo library, you may purchase it here when it debuts in February, 2007.


Ready for your new, improved RAW Materials?
Here's how to download it:

1. Look at your copy of DSLR: Nikon D80. In particular you are searching for page 0-3, column 4, line 10. The second word is your password for downloading. Capital letters count. Hold that thought and click here.

2. Browsers that work with this download process include Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Others may not.

3. Note: This file is 17.6MB. It only takes a few moments on a DSL line, but a dial-up connection will take a while, so you may wish to do this during a break in your browsing.


Bad Science! Down, boy!

Diffraction descriptions in the eBook missed some points. Moving to the real world...
As physicist Richard Feynman said, “if you don’t like the laws of nature, go somewhere else.”

In the discussion of photons in DSLR-series eBooks, diffraction was mischaracterized. Here’s the update and more correct model.

Cross off the notion of diffraction increasing as focal length shortens. It’s not that kind of linear function. It can look that way because of digital photography’s practice of packing more and more sensors into smaller and smaller spaces served by shorter lenses, but the reality is that at any given f-stop, the diffraction effect is independent of focal length.

In other words, the degree to which sharpness is compromised by the “diffraction limit” stays steady, regardless of the focal length of the optical system. This limit on sharpness changes with the wavelength of each photon, but can be expressed as a general diameter for a digital image. As the f-number changes, the diffraction limit changes in a direct relationship.

Long tele and wide angle lenses both focus detail as sharply as they can, but below the diffraction limit of each f-number, no more finely resolved detail can be had. This disrupts our ability to simply dial in smaller and smaller iris settings to increase depth of field. As the diffraction limit is crossed, depth of field still rises, but overall image sharpness begins to blur.

Smaller format cameras see diffraction limits before cameras with larger pixels do because their individual photosites are smaller. The allowable size for diffracted detail is in the range of 1.4 pixels before it becomes visibly disruptive to the ultimate sharpness of fine texture and small detail. In many lenses, other factors of design may lower sharpness before diffraction phenomena take over.

For 10MP Nikon DSLR image chips, that makes the phenomenon fit inside a single photosite until about f/10 is reached. Gradually, as the iris is closed to smaller than that, diffraction blurs the maximum resolvable detail into adjacent photosites, continuously lowering the sharpest details. By f/13 you might notice it if you looked extremely critically at single-pixel detail, comparing it from two identical shots, but in practical terms, the image will hold quite good sharpness up to about f/16.

Because the 6MP Nikon DSLR photosites are larger, they won’t see diffraction until a lens reaches about f/13 and will hold good detail to around f/22.

Smaller photosites will experience sharpness loss due to diffraction at wider iris settings. The image sensors in a pocket camera (such as a Nikon Coolpix 5000’s 1/1.8” image chip) may contain 10 million pixels, but the dimension of each pixel is small enough to cause noticeable diffraction compromises starting at about f/4.

Obviously, this makes simply packing more pixels into a given area something of a trade-off. The image surface of a 10MP Nikon DSLR is within a trice of 23.8 x 15.7 mm, making a surface area of 373.6 square millimeters. Each photosite is 6.1µm (micrometers) square, and the fuzz ball of detail that optimum focus, moderated by diffraction, can park on its face is caused by a lens at just a hair over f/10. If that same area were to attempt to hold 40 million pixels, each 3 µm square photosite would only be pixel-perfect up to f/5-ish. If it held 16MP, one could stop lenses down to f/8 before running afoul of diffraction limits to sharpness.

Diffraction imposes a technical upper limit to DSLRs in their current sizes. Even with a full frame imaging chip (24 x 36mm) holding 20MP, diffraction limits stay the same as for today’s 10MP models (D200, D80, D40x) while the dimensions of the image by pixel count rise to about 5472 x 3648. Packing density for the image doubles because the area doubles, but the dimensions rise just 41%. Still, that’s the difference between a 19-inch print and a 27-inch print.

Full frame note: While a full-frame format image chip may seem desirable from a More-Is-Better standpoint, the competing factors in designing, debugging, manufacturing, marketing and recovering from the investment involved are considerable.

Manufacturers are faced with a balancing act. Doubling the surface area of an image chip is technically possible but about 300% as expensive as packing more pixels onto the current surface area. Questions they ask include “What mass market is willing to pay for cameras that may cost 250% of today’s top models for a 41% bigger image?”

Especially in light of the idea that a denser image (16MP, for instance) could be developed for the current format and delivered for perhaps a 50% price premium or less. That denser chip would lose one stop of perfect-pixel sharpness as the diffraction limit was reached, but its cost-to-benefit formula would cause a lot of credit cards to spring forth.

Reference here.

There Is Always More To Learn Department

This is just a guess, but I think that when digital photography was new, a lot of film photographers thought it would just be some sort of fad, and if they held their breath long enough, it would blow over.

That has turned out to be NOT the case, and Nikon, Canon and others have ground their film gears to a halt starting in 2004. No more 35mm SLRs will be developed.

If you enter a photography course that insists you learn traditional wet darkroom techniques, quick, print this page out and wave it under the nose of the registrar as you politely, but firmly, insist on a refund.

Other photographers, such as Uwe Steinmueller, recognized immediately that the D-word was the direction photography was evolving into, so he wasted no time learning everything possible about it.

If you haven't visited his site, you can click to it here for an instant connection. There you will find advanced topical publications of several kinds. Some in paper, others in eBook form, but all of them delivering graduate courses in digital photography's many facets.

Uwe wrote the RAW Materials volume included with the D80 eBook and, of course, the special download offer hinted at above for current eBook owners. As a Nikon photographer, it will add greatly to your understanding and use of RAW format images, but there is always more to learn.

His books on Digital Fine Art Printing, RAW Conversion, Fine Art Photography, California Earthframes and Digital Photography Workflow can take the serious photographer far forward in persuit of excellence.

As an owner of the D80 eBook, you can obtain many of Uwe's publications at a nice, satisfying discount. Visit this special page for details.

Bon Aperture,

-iNova, January, 2007

We are finished with production. Let the distributions begin!

Don't forget to download your updated RAW Materials volume.

Picture Story 1:

Buffy! Obviously tangled up in light from several sources. There's the Sun, off camera to the left, and some sort of blast of white light coming from off camera from the right, and of course, the glow from the sky seems to be filling in, somewhat, but actually the camera fill flash is doing most of the fill. The whole thing was orchestrated with the Commander Mode camera menu which told the off camera SB-800 on the right to pump +1 stop more light out while limiting the camera flash to -1 stop, to dimish its papparazzi contribution. Which it did. A third control told the camera to expose the scene with EV-0.3 to preserve as much sky detail as was reasonable and the whole image was shot in Program Exposure mode.

Picture Story 2:


D80, Nikkor 18-200 zoomed to 27mm (equivalent to a 135 format shot at 40.5mm--slightly wider than normal. Exposure was 1/50 sec at f/4 using ISO 125 in uncontrolled Auto Show mixed-source lighting. I picked a spot and waited for the visitor-free moment and pose. The crop here trimmed the image to about 3350 pixels wide, making the view angle slightly more normal.

The subject car is a Mazda concept vehicle that has zero chance of ever appearing in this exact form, but is one of the most appealing concept cars we saw at the L.A. Auto Show in December, 2006.

The treatment here is via the iHalWarm variant in the iHalcyon.atn folder--one of the many iNovaFX Photoshop Actions included on the DSLR: Nikon D80 eBook CD. This image represents almost the default setting of that Action. As is, it disguises the fact that the wheels/fenders are strictly impossible. The rubber on these babies is about 1/2 inch thick and a 5 mph connection with a minor pothole would generate massive fender strikes. Or maybe Mazda knows something different, like an all-poly body and wheel? Still. I want it.

Rollover for the original image.

177,000 Words Later Department:

Errata:

D80 eBooks currently may contain some of these errata:

1. Page 1-20. Column 3, line 6. It should have said Check the Appendix, with Appendix linking to page Ax-3. If you click int the space before the period, it may still link you there.

2. In Chapter 4, some of the data got smacked by a typo. Page 4-96, that 18-200 lens does not focus to 0.5mm, rather 0.5m, which is close enough. Page 4-95, the 18-55mm kit lens focuses to 0.28m.

3. Page 9-17, we blew a comma. Instead it shows up as a period. I leave it to you to find where.

Note: Uwe Steinmueller's first language is German. Some syntax from that language shows up in his English writing. By and large he has gotten English down better than many native US English speakers and writers, but some minor typos may be in his text. You might ask that little voice in the back of your head to adopt a light German accent as you read though his profoundly helpful material. This will help you float over any errors, and will add character and memorability to the concepts he lays out.

As you come across novel ideas, new information and stunning revelations (which will be frequently), slap your head and repeat the phrase "Auch du leiber!" That's German for ohmygod! Literal translation: Oh my heavens! This will help embed that new idea in your memory.

Previous Duplication runs contained some of these:

1. We don't know if this is a problem or a single disk failure--or perhaps even a computer or OS - generated "issue," but at least one person has seen the Windows file fail to divulge its contents. In there are the Adobe Reader, Panorama Tools software and demos of 20/20 MD and PhotoRescue for Windows. So we are making the contents of this folder available here:

Use your browser's "Download Linked File" clicking on the titles of files.

You may also get Adobe Reader from Adobe directly. Advantage: It's always the very most current.
Demos of Panorama Tools may be found here. Check the Appendix for links to Tutorials for this interesting software.
Demos of 20/20 MD are found here. Now in a new version.
PhotoRescue for Windows and Mac are here. Always the latest.

2. An omission. Some of the first run of duplicates are missing the Bookmarks. These are handy ways to jump around to chapters and bookmarked items. If your disk shows no list of Bookmark entries, contact us (describe the issue) and we will send you a replacement CD.

3. Page ix has the header "Nikon 200D". What the? Of course, it's still the D80. How many times did I stare at that page without seeing this? The fix: ignore it. I'ts joust a typografic erer.

4. Wrong art. The chart on page 4-130 wasn't updated for the D80 from its original D200 form. The information in it is the logical sequence of message content between camera and SB-800/600 flash units when the camera assumes Commander mode, and that stays the same no matter what Nikon camera is employed. But just for accuracy, here's the correctly-labeled chart:

Of course, these are verbose translations of ping-ponging minimalist signals between camera and flash, but I continue to marvel at how clever Nikon's Speedlight engineers were to create this system.

Feature Breakthrough: In-camera RAW ISO expanding.

Let's say you shot a RAW image using ISO 100, but your shot would have been right at ISO 400. Or 1600. In other words, it was way the heck too dark. But the moment changed, the emu e-moved, Bigfoot closed the hatch on the UFO and was never to be seen again after you fixed the ISO. It's happened to all of us. It seems that every time we see Bigfoot--or any of the Yeti family--step out of that beat-up old UFO, we get all flustered and shoot way underexposed.

So in your camera you have this NEF file, and you can bring it into Nikon Capture NX or Photoshop and lift the exposure, but what if you could lift it IN THE CAMERA to ISO 400 or 1600 or 6400 so you could show the Sheriff that you weren't completely mad?

Can do. Here's how:

1. Dial in Retouch Menu > Image Overlay. This allows superimposing two RAW shots and balancing their relative strength in order to create a new image.

The new image is saved at whatever QUAL settings are currently in place. If RAW is the current QUAL setting, then the resulting two-image combination will be saved as a RAW file in NEF format.

2. In the dialog screen fill both Image 1 and Image 2 with your same underexposed original RAW shot.

Immediately you will see that the Preview image is both of these, double exposed over each other. What's not instantly obvious is that the result is EXACTLY what you would have gotten from the shot at one-stop brighter.

3. Lift the exposure factor below each image from x1.0 to x2.0.

The Preview image is brighter by another full f-stop. What started out as an underexposure at perhaps ISO 100 is not not so underexposed, looking like the same f-stop and shutter speed were used at ISO 400!

4. Save the image as a RAW file. If you didn't set the camera to RAW before starting this process, you may have to start over.

Being a RAW file, it can be returned to Image Overlay and processed (brightened) all over again, if you need ISOs greater than 400% of the original dim shot. The very dark ISO 100 original above shows this. Rollover to see it lifted by four stops in the camera. Grainy? Sure--it's ISO 3200 being teased out of an ISO 100 underexposure. But you don't have to wait until you get to the computer to see what's there. Click the image for a correctly exposed shot made four stops more correct at minimum ISO.

We discovered this technique on the newer D80 but it works on the D200, too. Professional photographers, take note: Your back up camera could easily be the D80.

Feature Emphasis Department: Auto ISO

Various D80 features are more or less important to different photographers, which is only right. Some will favor shooting in P mode and others nearly always in M. I shoot mostly in JPEG and Uwe nearly always shoots RAW, and that's why all those features are in there--to let you decide things for yourself. Here's a suggestion I pass along from a photographer who is particularly fond of the Auto ISO option: Get to Know It.

Auto ISO seeks to save your shots from camera shake. Even with a VR lens to smooth out vibrations and the trembles of hand-held shots, there are upper limits on how long you can hold that rig steady or how big of a motion blur you might wish to allow in your shots. (Menus at right are from the D200, but you have the identical ideas in the D80.)

The feature is set with CSM 07; ISO Auto, and its options include the ability to set a maximum ISO that the camera will be allowed to reach for along with a maximum shutter duration that you wish to impose. If you're shooting sports, kids or pets in motion, you might wish to limit shutter speed to 1/250 sec. If you're shooting scenics at twilight with a VR lens, you might set shutter speed to a maximum of 1/8 to 1/30 sec.

Internally, the camera will respect the target ISO you have set with the ISO button or through the shooting menu ISO Sensitivity selection [Shooting Menu > (4 clicks down) > 100 ~ H 1.0] until the auto exposure system reaches the minimum shutter speed. If you have set ISO 100 and 1/8 sec, the camera stays at ISO 100, adjusting f-stops and shutter speeds until the exposure solution has opened the lens as far as it can go and thinks it needs more time to make a proper exposure. Instead of increasing shutter time, it increases ISO.

Allowed ISO increases span from 200 to 1600. Given the noise characteristics of the D80, setting this option to 400 or 800 is prudent. That gives you +2 to +3 stops of grace over ISO 100, but only when push comes to shove in the shutter speed requirements. Any need beyond that leads to an underexposure.

Of course in A or S modes, the ISO lifts automatically once the walls of Aperture or Shutter speed alone are bumped into.

Why would you give up ISO control so cavalierly? Grace. Expansion. Low Maintenance. Not to mention convenience, a sense of relief from the tedious pressures of having to be aware of everything and/or simplicity.

When you gracefully expand the range of proper exposures, the camera presents a lower profile of required interactive maintenance to achieve pictorial results. Getting the picture at all is often far more important than getting it at the lowest noise chosen for a given ISO.

SUPER TIP: Photoshop RAW interpreter combined with Smart Objects.

Photoshop CS2 is the only Photoshop that opens D80 RAW images directly. Other versions can do it with a little help from Nikon Capture, but that program (NC NX) is a hundred and fifty bucks! Thank you not very much. Of course, the newer Photoshop CS3 Beta for previous Photoshop owners handles D80 images, too.

But Photoshop's ACR 3.6+ (Adobe Camera RAW) feature opens Nikon NEF files with great dexterity and a rich set of features. It looks like prior versions of ACR in its functions, but a new wrinkle has joined the mix in the form of Smart Objects.

A Smart Object is one that can be changed, later, once you see what really should have been done instead of your initial guess. A Smart Object image can be changed long after other changes have been made to it. Color tweaks, geometry changes, masks--all can be added or altered long after the shot has neared its final stages. Included in this mix is the RAW conversion and interpretation processes.

All RAW images need to be interpreted--just as all film negatives need to be evaluated and tweaked to print. The original image holds more than any final image could possibly use, so intervention must occur in order to find the image interpretation you want. Color, contrast, hue, chromatic aberration, saturation, shadow treatments--all are available, but usually you make your choices, then fiddle with the result in either 8-bit or 16-bit modes.

Not Any More.

Using this technique, you turn your image into a Smart Object, make your best initial guess, change things, tweak things, adjust things--then go BACK to your original interpretation and update your fundamental adjustments in order to get a better image.

Here's a 14-minute downloadable QuickTime tutorial on this from RadiantVista.com: click. You may wish to jump to about 3:55 and skip some of the basics.

Here's a more succinct written description from CreativePro.

Once you go through these, you probably will want to include Smart Objects more frequently in your workflow.
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