For the past four weeks I’ve been on the road, traveling in parts of the world where there has either not been any Internet connection at all, or only a dialup connection which was so slow and flaky that I could barely check for email, let alone post to this blog.  Yes, to all you digitally connected and addicted people, there really are many such locations around this planet.

Now I’m home for a short while, and in the backlog of emails I’ve discovered several (five, to be precise) almost identical messages.  Let me quote part of one:

I’m going to purchase a Nikon D800E.  What lens should I buy?  I want to purchase the best all-around lens.

Wow!  I would stongly suggest that if you have to ask that question about a lens, you should definitely first think twice about the camera purchase.  The D800/800E bodies are, in my opinion, specialized cameras for specialized applications.  They are not general purpose bodies.  Why do you need so many megapixels?  Tell me the truth, do you really make large prints?  How large and how often?  Do you always use a tripod?  Do you own a tripod?  Are you shooting RAW?  Or do you primarily post images to the Web, where a “large” image is around 800 pixels in the long dimension?  Before you purchase the camera body, you need to define exactly why that particular body, of all cameras, is the best choice for you.  What are your criteria?  Specifically, how will a D800 make you a better photographer?

Asking me what lens to buy is a pointless question.  How am I supposed to know what subjects you want to photograph, what your budget is, what lenses you already own (or if you indeed do already own any lenses)?  And I have no idea what an “all-around lens” is, let along which one is the best.  The best lens for wildlife is certainly not the best lens for architecture, while the best lens for architecture is probably not the best lens for portraiture, and the best lens for portraiture is most likely not the best lens for macro work.  Actually only one lens fits the “best all-around” bill, the mythical Nikon 15-600mm f/2.8 eight stop VR, macro focusing, levitating, voice activated, postitive AF…you know, the one with a $5 list price.  Oh, wait a moment, I just heard it was being replaced with an improved 12-800mm version which will be free.  Yeah, right.

I’ve gotten quite a few emails over the last several months asking about the cameras I currently use, the Nikon D4 and D800E.  One specific question was why I switched from my previous D3s and D3x bodies.

Let me start with the D4.  I do believe this is ergonomically the best camera I’ve ever handled.  It fits my hands, and, for me, all the control buttons and dials fall in the right places.  I definitely like all the little tweaks Nikon did, compared to the D3 series of bodies, such as how the AF patterns are selected, or how auto-ISO is turned on and off, plus I’m happy to get the increase in megapixels.  But to be honest, part of my decision to get the D4 was an encounter I had late last year in the sub-Antarctic with an ill-tempered male southern fur seal.  Just let me say that salt water and electronic cameras do not go well together.  The bad news from Nikon repair:  the camera was beyond resuscitation.  OK, but then what to do?  I knew the D4 was going to be available shortly, as the internet was rife with rumors.  So…purchase a replacement D3s, or wait a few months and buy a D4 and get newer technology?  The price differential was not too great (hey, after the first several thousand dollars, what’s another $500 or so?) and yes, I purchase my cameras retail just like everyone else does.  My conclusion was to go for the latest and greatest.

But why get a D4 at all?  The answer lies in the subjects I photograph and where I photograph them.  I do enough wildlife work that I want a fast motor drive, and I often work in far off locations, including under some extreme weather conditions, that I need a rugged pro camera (and, given what happened, perhaps a fur seal repulsion unit also).

As to the D800E, it offered four features that I wanted:  a self-cleaning sensor (perhaps it was just me, but my D3x sensor always seemed to be a dust magnet), better high ISO performance, more dynamic range, and, yes, more megapixels yielding a larger file size.  For me, that last point becomes important for advertising photo use, and for sales of large prints.  I also liked the smaller size and less weight of the camera, compared to the D3x; consequently I was not interested in the add-on battery grip.  And, given the price of the D800E, I could sell my good condition D3x, purchase the D800E, and still have a few dollars left over.

You might note that video capability played no role in my choices.  I don’t do video.  I’m just not interested in shooting it.

In short, my camera choices can be summed up as “D4 action camera,” and “D800E landscape camera.”  Please note that this was a business decision for me, since I make my living with my cameras.  I’m certainly not suggesting that you ought to make these purchases.

Am I happy with the newer cameras?  Absolutely.  Any problems with either of them?  None whatsoever.  Anything I would like to change?  Sure, I wish they both took the same model battery so I didn’t have to carry two chargers.  Any advice for readers of this blog?  Be careful of southern fur seals, especially one really mean male who apparently doesn’t like photographers.

While going through some old slides — yes, slides…you remember those little film snippets? — I came across this 1982 Kodachrome 25 image of American elms, taken on a winter twilight.  For all you youngsters out there this was an ISO 25 film, and was recognized as one of the sharpest, finest grained films around.  This piece of film, or one of the duplicate frames I shot on location, was professionally scanned when I first stared using Photoshop in early 1994.

American elms at winter twilight, K25.

But today when I inspect the scanned image at 100%…well, it is a sharp film but look at the grain.

Kodachrome 25, 100% crop.

Times have certainly changed.  With my current cameras I routinely use ISOs five or six stops higher, and see less noise than the grain showing in this K25 image.  Of course, back when I started, high-speed Ektachrome was all of ISO 160, with special push processing available to get to 400.  I have to say it, I don’t miss using film.

One of the features of the newer cameras that I really like is the option to set up a personal menu list of the functions I might want to change during a shoot.  The “My Menu” feature offers the equivalent of bookmarks in a browser, yielding a quick shortcut rather than a longer search.

So what items do I have in “my” menu?  I have the same choices selected in both my Nikon D4 and my D800E, in the same order:

• Virtual horizon
• Exposure delay mode
• Monitor brightness
• AF activation
• Multiple exposure mode
• Long exposure NR
• AF fine tune
• Lock mirror up for cleaning

The Virtual horizon choice is for the LCD on the back of the camera.  I have the function button on both cameras set to display the virtual horizon in the viewfinder.

Exposure delay mode locks the mirror up, and allows me to choose a 3 second delay before the shutter trips.

I use monitor brightness to increase the LCD brightness when I’m working in direct sunlight, making it easier to view the LCD.  I much prefer this over using the default “auto brightness” setting.

AF-activation.  While I normally use the back AF-ON button, there are a few times I want to have AF activation on the shutter button.

Multiple exposure mode and Long exposure NR are self-explanatory.

AF fine tune and Lock mirror up for cleaning are rarely used, but it’s more convenient for me to have them listed here.

I haven’t used the image crop mode feature on my D4, and don’t see myself ever doing so.  The D800E is another story.  For landscape work I want the full sensor available, but for wildlife work cropping in-camera (especially the 1.2 crop more) yields plenty of pixels, while reducing file size slightly (which clears the buffer a bit faster).  I could have added image area to my menu choices, but there is an easier way.  I have custom function F6 set so that the AF-L/AE-L  button, when used with the command dial, cycles through the image crop modes.  I can change image area without looking away from the viewfinder.  In fact, this custom setting allows me to choose which crop modes to include and since I don’t care about the 5:4 crop I have it excluded.  Just in passing I also have custom function A5 (AF point illumination) set to “off,” which masks the viewfinder when a crop mode is used.  If A5 is “on,” crop lines are added to the finder image, which gets a bit confusing as I have custom function A6 set to show the viewfinder grid display.  I do wish the camera allowed me to use both the mask overlay and the AF point illumination.

And one “don’t need a menu at all”  feature deserves a special compliment:  being able to activate Auto ISO by holding down the ISO button and turning the command dial.  Bravo!

During photo workshops and tours I often hear this comment from a client:  “My camera doesn’t have that feature.”  When I take their camera and work through the menu choices, nine times out of ten the statement turns out to be not true.  If you want to get the most from your camera, I strongly suggest that you sit down and carefully go through each and every menu offering, including all sub-menus, and tailor the camera to your exact preferences.  If a menu item is not clear, look it up in the camera manual.  You do carry that with you, right?  I have manuals for my current Nikons with me at all times, as I have PDF copies (free to download from Nikon’s web site) on both my smartphone and my Kindle.  Since I’ve used Nikons my entire professional career (and that’s more than 40 years now!), I can usually solve problems without looking for answers, but as the cameras have become more sophisticated the manuals are now an absolute necessity.  Of course, sometimes camera manuals are not so easy to understand.  Then it’s Google to the rescue.  Type in your camera problem, and most likely you’ll find a solution.