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Not the best blog I have ever posted, but take a look anyways.

To Film Or Not To Film

   From Tokyo Japan, I say, "こんばんわ!"


   As you may have seen already I have been supplementing this blog with video style blogs instead. First off, I want to know what you think. Do you like video blogs more/less/the same as written blogs? Which would you rather see on a daily basis, or would you rather see both?

   Personally for me I enjoy written blogs a little more. It is fun to bring out the camera and film something every now and then, but I think I'd rather do that as a one off thing. I say that, and I feel torn as I do. I really do want to get better at video, but I just do not feel my place is in front of the camera. I am just not the TV personality Hollywood is gunning for. Although with these stunning good looks... they really should. What is wrong with this world?

   I suppose eventually I will be better at the video aspect of this all and no matter what I will continue to try and improve that skill. But first and foremost I love still photography. There is something special about hitting that shutter button and trying your hardest to capture every emotion, sight, sound, smell, and taste all in a single frame. What I have found is that I have been neglecting my photography for video. This is something I did not anticipate going into this little project of mine, and something I feel a bit ashamed about.

   Keep in mind that photography takes a lot of time and focus. Some days I can go out with the intention of capturing a whole event and end up with absolutely zero worthy photos. That is the nature of photography. The point however is that you have to pour all of your energy and attention into capturing absolutely nothing sometimes. You do it knowing you may get nothing, but trying to bring in that one worthy photo. That one worthy photo comes from absolute focus. It's "All in or nothing," as this huge sign says.

   What I have found though is that I am not focusing as much as I want to on my photography. Instead I am splitting my focus between video and still photography. Sometimes I will even have to think to myself, "Should I record this area? Do I already have enough clips for a full video?" when I should be thinking, "Is this the right light? Will this photo accurately represent this place?" and so on.

   So as I said before, I am torn. I really do like doing video blogs, but it is not where my heart is. It really is in photography and being able to sit down and write these blogs.

   That is not to say that I will never do video blogs again. In fact I wish to do more of them in the future. But I think they will be more planned out with time set aside specifically for video capture and nothing else. I am having a very hard time splitting my attention at the moment for both things.

   Anyways I just wanted to know what my readers think. What do you like best?

New Nikon D810

   While it is no longer breaking news, I still wanted to talk a little bit about the up and coming Nikon D810 camera. This camera is not necessarily a brand new reworked camera. If you have used the Nikon D800 and/or the Nikon D800e, this is likely to be close to the same thing only now it will be like having the two older models in one package. So let's discuss a few of the specs. This is not a review, just my thoughts on the spec sheet.

   

   Keep in mind that this is not a complete new camera body from Nikon. It's more like trading your 2013 model Honda Civic in for a 2014. There are differences, but overall it is still a Honda Civic. The Nikon D800 is a full frame sensor camera with an outrageous megapixel count of 36.3MP. There will be no change to that in the Nikon D810 but there will be a change to a new processor. The new D810 will have the EXPEED 4 processor much like it's bigger brother the professional Nikon D4s which will be a faster processor. Not only that but you will apparently get better noise performance and the Nikon d810 will have an improved ISO range from 64-12800 making it a lot better in low light shooting. On top of that you will get things like a new metering system, better AF, and 5fps continuous shooting. One other thing is there will now be RAW size S which will basically be a smaller compressed RAW file.

   On the video side of things the Nikon D810 will be sporting 60fps in 1080! This means you can now record in full HD and create some nice slow motion shots. For all you videographers out there, this camera has a lot of small tweaks you may be interested in and I will provide a link to see the comparisons below, one of which is zebras which is handy. 

   Other small but significant updates are a bigger better resolution back screen, the same battery but more battery life(Not sure how that works.) and many other little things.

   All those small improvements are nice but the news for me is that the nikon D810, like the Nikon D800e, will have no OLPF. This means that you will no longer have to choose between the body with and the body without the OLPF which was kind of weird from the start seeing as how removing something that effects image quality actually sets you back another $1,000... So you were basically paying more for less. For those of you who do video you know that the only real option is no OLPF to eliminate the moire issues.

   Seeing as how, once I am back in the states, I will be in the market for a new camera, the question now is, "Will you consider this camera?" The answer is, "No." The camera is going to be great. I have seen, held, and tested the Nikon D800e before and it is a beautiful camera. This Nikon D810 can only improve on something that was already great. But realistically, even if I could afford it (which I can't at $3,299), I just simply wouldn't need it for what I do. Everything about this camera screams "studio camera" to me and that just simply isn't what I like. I have worked for a studio before and I just can't get into it. There is a market for this camera, and there will be those who need what it offers, but for me I just simply don't. However, if you do need a high megapixel count, no OLPF, a nice ISO range, and 60fps HD video, then this is probably the camera for you. As for me, I really like the Nikon D600/610. 

Nikon D800 and D810 comparison sheet.

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