D70 – Kyle Clements

(Note: It’s 7am as of my writing this, and I have things to do this afternoon, so I’m going to declare this post a work in progress for now and go to bed. more details to come.)

My recent YouTube video comparing the nine year old Nikon D70 to the 9-months old full frame Nikon D600 has received a lot of attention. And it has also received a lot of criticism for being a very sloppy, uncontrolled test. The intention of the last batch of tests was to show the differences you get when you just pick up the camera and go. The output was neutral profile Jpegs, no sharpening or noise reduction. Each of the cameras exposed the shots differently, rendered colours differently, and handled noise differently.

This second batch of tests was a lot more strict. Auto white balance was the only area where the camera got to think for itself.
I used manual exposure mode, and used the exact same settings between cameras.
I shot RAW, not JPEG, to ensure the cameras weren’t doing anything sneaky to the images.
I took screenshots from inside Darktable, my RAW editor of choice, showing each of the images zoomed in to 100%, along with the camera settings.
The results were saved as PNG files, so there would be no softening as the images were compressed.

I’ll go from worst to best, starting with the D600. Click on the image to see the original, full size PNG screenshot.

Continue reading D70 vs. D600 ISO Comparison

Last month, I shot my first wedding.

I wanted to use this as an opportunity to write up a three-part series, starting with an instructional post about how to prepare for a big photo shoot. The second post was going to be a raw, stream-of-consciousness reflection written the day after the shoot. The final follow-up post explaining what I had learned was going to come a month later, when the job had settled in and behind me.

But, things didn’t quite work out that way. It’s a month later now and that first post was never written. Instead, you are stuck with one long, meandering, disorganized post covering everything.

Before I begin, I will give you some of the relevant details:

1. Some of my very close friends were getting married.
2. I’ve never shoot a wedding before, and I don’t have all the fancy gear.

Because of these two factors, I’m obviously going to cut them a deal.

A meeting between myself and the Bride is arranged.
I talk with several other wedding photographers about rates, work-flow, gear, expectations, etc. So I can walk into the meeting with honest industry rates in my area.
Weeks before the big day, The Bride and I work out the details: The shoot is going to be done for next-to-nothing, but the prints will be sold at the regular rate.
In addition to prints, I will design a wedding photobook, and make it available through a print-on-demand service. Information about the book will be given to all of the guests. Hopefully, all of them will buy 300 copies each and I can retire.
We have a deal we are both happy with.

As the wedding draws nearer, I realize that having some sort of plan is probably a good idea. Ignoring my own advice, I make plans going forwards, rather than backwards (meaning I started with ‘step 1’ and worked my way forward. Planning backwards, starting with the final step and asking “what do I need for that to happen?” always seems to give me far more reliable and realistic results).

The Plan:

Research “how do I shoot a wedding” (1 day)
Shoot wedding (1 day)
Sort photos. (1-2 days)
Edit photos (3 days)
Design book (1 day)
Estimated turnaround: one week

I’ve got my plan! I’m all set.

“This is going to be easy.”

I will take this opportunity to make a little digression: Whenever the phrase “this is going to be easy” is uttered, that person is just minutes away from being spectacularly wrong.

“This is going to be easy…”

Continue reading Shooting my First Wedding.