Cabrini Green / Chicago Skyline Photos

I keep thinking that I'm done posting Cabrini Green photos, and I keep finding more that I like.  These three were taken during a second trip to the demolition, on April 9th.  (It's still in progress, by the way).


Nikon D7000 w/ 70-300 Nikkor lens, 1/800sec at f8, ISO200


Nikon D7000 w/ 70-300 Nikkor lens, 1/800sec at f8, ISO200


Nikon D7000 w/ 70-300 Nikkor lens, 1/800sec at f8, ISO200

The titles that I chose for flickr all play on the obvious juxtaposition: "We Fall, We Rise," "Poles Apart", and "Past and Present".  I processed these minimally to accentuate the haziness of the skyline.  I could have made these much darker, but I think the compositions speak for themselves and don't need a lot of dramatic effects.

Nikon D7000 (sort of) in stock at B&H

I received an email today from B&H that surprised me: apparently the D7000 (body only) version has come in stock.  Only it's not really in stock-- they're just accepting pre orders again:

You've previously requested to be notified when the following item comes in to stock:
Nikon - NID7000
D7000 DSLR Camera (Body Only)

This item did not come in to stock yet, However, we are now accepting pre-orders and the item will be shipped when it comes in to stock.  If you still wish to be notified when it actually comes in to stock, please re-submit your request to be notified.

I purchased my D7000 last November through B&H, and to be honest, I'm surprised to see that it's still hard to find three months later.  Either Nikon is selling more cameras than anyone expected, or they're doing a terrible, terrible job at getting these puppies off the production line.  Probably a little of both.

Here's a link to the B&H preorder page, for anyone interested.  If you don't want to wait for the preorder, Amazon currently has both the body only and kit version in stock.

Having used the camera for three months now, I really don't have any complaints that I didn't touch on in my unboxing and first impressions post.  The image quality, weather sealing and 100% viewfinder are still fantastic.  the Mode dial still annoys me.  Overall it's a great piece of gear.

Chicago Snowpocalypse 2011: Lake Shore Drive

Did I mention that we got a bit of snow the last couple of days?  20.2 inches to be exact.  I'll be posting lots of photos here and on my flickr account over the next couple of days, but I wanted to start with this batch that I took on Lake Shore Drive on February 2nd, the day after the storm.  Actually, this was literally about two hours after the storm had ended.  Lakeshore Drive was closed to traffic on Tuesday night, and remained closed all day on Wednesday, due to multiple accidents during the blizzard.  Hundreds of motorists were forced to abandon their cars on the drive.  These photos were taken between Bryn Mawr and Foster, a bit north of the main incident, but still there were signs of what had happened the night before. 


I'm looking south in this shot, from near Bryn Mawr Ave, where I entered the drive.  The police had blocked off the entrance to automobiles, but no one seemed to care (or have time to worry about) pedestrians.


This is the view north.  I had jumped over to the north bound lanes for this one.


This poor car had Arizona plates.  I bet the driver wishes he or she was there right now.


Another abandoned car.  Looking south, you can see the pink facade of the Hollywood Beach Apartments in the upper left corner.


That's an abandoned car and an abandoned tow truck.  My favorite shot of the whole set.  This really shows what a mess things were.


Tread marks from a passing tow truck.


A fleet of snowplows drives past, nearly plowing me over in the process.


This is the exit ramp at Foster Ave.  A little blue sky peeked out for this shot which was a welcome sight.

Photo Details: All photos in this set were taken with a Nikon D7000 and 16-85mm lens, with shutter speeds between 1/800sec and 1/2000sec at f8, and ISO200 to ISO400.  I tried to keep the processing fairly simple on these-- the scene itself was more than interesting enough and didn't need any extra flair.

Photo of the Week: Chicago, January

This week's photo was taken just east of Montrose Harbor (on the narrow peninsula that surrounds the Harbor-- click over to flickr if you'd like to see the mapped location).  I tried several abstractions with the skyline from closer to the waterline, but wound up liking this photo the best, which I took while retreating back to my car.  It was pretty cold out there.

I shot this at f14 to preserve as much of the background as possible while still putting it nicely out of focus.  For me, the key to defocusing the Chicago skyline is to leave just enough detail so you can still see the antennas on top of the Hancock or the Sears Tower.  Once those are lost you've gone too far.

Photo Details: Nikon D7000 with 55-200mm lens (at 200mm), 1/160sec at f14, ISO400. I did minimal processing to this one-- just the standard RAW conversion and a levels adjustment.

Nikon D7000 available through Amazon

Following up on my previous post about the Nikon D7000, I just noticed today that Amazon has the D7000 kit version with the 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 lens in stock.  They still don't have the body only version for sale.  I also checked with B&H and Adorama but neither store has either version of this camera in stock.  B&H lists the camera as "unavailable" where as Adorama will take your order but offers no promises on when they will ship it to you.  As far as local stores go, I checked Calumet, but they list the D7000 as back ordered.

In short, if you were hoping to get this camera before Christmas, Amazon may be your best bet right now. 

I should mention that I own the 18-105mm lens (it came with my D90).  Though I haven't used it recently, it's not a bad lens at all.  Check out some of my photos on flickr if you need more proof.  Its pros are: a) it's fairly compact and lightweight, b) it's very sharp, and c) it has an effective VR system.  Its main con is the all plastic construction including the lens mount.  I also noticed that it vignetted quite a bit, but this is easily correctable in post processing (and often I liked the vignetting).

Festival of Lights: A Tale of Two Photos

Canon S95 at 28mm, 1/15sec at f2.0, ISO400


Nikon D7000 with 35mm lens, 1/100sec at f1.8, ISO1600

I took these two photos during and before the Festival of Lights Parade in Chicago on November 20th, 2010.  Both are attempts to take essentially the same photo-- a shot of the crowd, but beyond that, they couldn't be more different.  The first photo is during the parade, and captures the excitement of the crowd with hints of the parade going by in the background-- it's strictly an editorial image.  The second was just before the parade began, and reveals more mixed emotion in the main subject, who is isolated from the out-of-focus background.

Technically speaking, the top photo was taken with a Canon S95 and the bottom with a Nikon D7000 and 35mm lens.  Due to the Canon's tiny sensor I was able to capture a large depth of field even though this was shot at f2 (it's VR also did a nice job keeping things in focus at 1/15sec and ISO400).  Where as, with the larger sensor in the D7000, a shallow depth of field was almost required.  Due to the low light and lack of VR in the 35mm lens, this was shot at f1.8 and ISO1600.

People often will say that camera equipment doesn't matter-- only the photographer matters, they'll tell you-- but this is naive and never entirely true.  The fact is, I would have had a hard time capturing the top photo with the D7000, while the shallow depth of field of the bottom photo is simply impossible with the S95.

Nikon D7000 unboxing and first impressions!

I received my Nikon D7000 on Friday, November 19th.  The date is significant as it was exactly 2 months and 2 days since I preordered the camera from B&H.  I don't blame the delay on B&H, but wow, that's a long wait.

The camera arrived about 5 minutes before I left to meet some flickr friends for lunch.  I quickly unboxed it, attempted in vain to put my D90 battery inside (The D7000 takes a new battery-- I had forgotten this), then tried the battery that came with the camera.  To my surprise it had about half a charge.  Cool, I thought, I'm bringing it with!





What follows are my first impressions of the camera from that day and the following weekend.  This will not cover every aspect of the camera (for that, check out the preview at DPReview), just what I've noticed or what's important to me.

Size and Build:
I think too much has been written about how the D7000 is bigger and heavier than the D90.  This is overblown.  Yes, the spec sheet may show the D7000 as just a bit taller and heavier, but for all practical purposes, they're the same size and weight.  From a distance it's very hard to tell these two cameras apart.

Weather sealing:
Of course, there are differences, and significant ones at that.  The first is the improved weather sealing.  All the doors and openings now have rubber seals.  By no means would I describe this camera as water proof, but it's definitely an improvement from the D90 and should stand up well to light rain and snow.

Quieter Operation:
The D7000 has a much quieter shutter and mirror flap.  It was almost disconcerting the first time I heard it-- I actually wondered if there was something wrong.  And if that isn't good enough, there's also a quiet mode that makes even less noise.

Updated shutter release:
The shutter release button has a more mushy feel than the D90.  I don't think this is necessarily better or worse-- it's just different and will take some getting used to.  With the D90, the shutter had two very distinct clicks, one halfway down to focus, and the other to take the photo.  The D7000 has a distinct halfway point as well, but it doesn't click the way the D90 does.

Viewfinder:
I love the new viewfinder.  It shows 100% of what's being captured by the sensor as opposed to 96% by the D90.  I'm pretty anal retentive about my compositions, so this was one of my main reasons for buying this camera.

Autofocus:
The D7000 uses 39 autofocus points vs 11 with the D90.  In contrast, the D300 and up all have 51 points.  39 seems like plenty and I have no complaints with this system-- it works and works well in my limited use.

Autofocus Switch:
The autofocus switch that sits below the lens mount has been combined with the AF button that used to sit on top of the camera.  This made for quite a comedic few minutes the first time I tried to change the AF settings.  "Where did you put that button, Nikon!"  Of course, it's actually a great change, nicely combining all the AF functions into one place.

Mode Dial:
I have mixed feelings about the new mode dial.  It's now two tiered, which is great, but it also sticks up higher and the top dial is easier to bump out of place.  With the D90 I would periodically find the mode dial moved accidentally, and this is a problem that I expect will persist with the D7000.  It's not a deal breaker, and I'm not returning the camera, but it's pretty aggravating that Nikon screwed this up.  That top dial should either have a lock or be much harder to turn than it is.

Func and Preview Buttons
Both the function and depth of field preview buttons are now programmable.  On the D90, only the function button was.  So, if you're someone who never uses DOF Preview, you can assign that button to something else.

Live View & Video
There's a new Live View switch on the back and it has a nice snap to it.  The autofocus in Live View seems to work better than in the D90, and the camera will now autofocus while shooting video.

Larger file sizes:
Something to bear in mind when upgrading to this camera-- although the sensor is only 4 megapixels larger (16 vs 12), the file sizes are actually about twice as big.  This is because the D7000 gives you the option of shooting 14 bit instead of 12 bit RAW files, and also uses lossless compression.  With these settings turned on, the end result is a file of about 18-20mb vs 10mb for the D90.

Image Quality:
I may address image quality (IQ) in a second post, but in short, I don't think anyone will be disappointed with this camera.  From what I can tell, The D7000 equals the D90 in terms of noise control through ISO800 and is a touch better at ISO1600 and 3200.  With the D90, I would generally shoot from ISO200 to 800 without worring about image quality, with ISO1600 and 3200 saved for emergency use only.  With the D7000, I expect that my normal use will increase to ISO1600, with 3200 and 6400 being much more usable.



Final Thoughts:
Other than the too easy to move Mode Dial, I have little to complain about with this camera.  If you're a Nikon D90 owner looking to upgrade, this is a very capable camera, and I think you'll be pleased with the professional feature set and modest IQ improvements.  If you own an older camera and skipped the D90 generation, the decision to upgrade is much easier.  Finally, if you use the D300 or D300s, ergonomics will come into play-- some will prefer the smaller size of the D7000, while others may prefer the more bulky D300.  If you fall into the latter category, I suggest you wait until next year to upgrade-- there's bound to be a D400 eventually.

Where to Purchase?
Since I waited two months for my own camera, I'm probably not the best person to answer this question.  Amazon is currently not taking orders, and B&H shows the D7000 as unavailable.  I would try a local camera store or maybe give a big retailer like Best Buy a shot.  Or, just wait until after the holidays when production catches up to demand.

Update: Amazon now has the kit version in stock for $1,499.95.  This comes with the f/3.5-5.6 DX VR Nikkor Lens, which is pretty good lens as far as kit lenses go.  If you're hoping to get this camera before the holidays and haven't ordered it yet, this may be your best option.

Finally, I'll leave you with a photo.  This is the first shot that I took with the D7000:


Nikon D7000 with 35mm lens, 1/800sec at f6.3, ISO200.  I'm looking north on State Street in this photo. 

Update: I'm slowly posting additional photos on flickr, and will continue to do so indefinitely.  Just follow the D7000 tag if you'd like to see more.