DigitalPro Shooter Volume 1, Issue 4, February 8th, 2002

Welcome to DPS 1-4. In this issue we'll let you know about an update for PhotoRescue and work to debunk all the myths around the Nikon 80-400VR lens, as well as give you a couple useful tips about getting the most from DigitalPro and the latest on What's New at nikondigital.org.

New build of Photorescue improves Raw file support

A new build of Photorescue has improved support for recovering Nikon and Canon Raw files, as well as some bug fixes. As always you can download an evaluation version of Photorescue to try it out right away. If you've already purchased Photorescue and want the update, just send an email to support@datarescue.be with your original order number.

Nikon 80-400VR: Triumph or Tragedy?

No other recent Nikon lens has been described in so many conflicting ways. It has been characterized as fast and as slow, as sharp and as soft. As an early owner of the 80-400 my own experiences have echoed both extremes at one time or another. On some occasions I've been truly in awe of the range and quality of this zoom. After all, on a D1/X/H it produces a range of 120mm to 600mm, with a respectable f5.6 at the long end. On other occasions I've cursed the lens as soft, slow, or unusable. I've gone back and forth between carrying it and my 80-200 AF-S in my bag. Recently I decided to try to get to the bottom of all this and figure out what is is that is so perplexing about the lens and reach some conclusions on whether to use it or sell it! At nearly $2000, the lens represents a real investment to any shooter and its high price tag and resulting high expectations are part of what have led to concerns on the part of some reviewers.

Obvious plusses and minuses

From the outset the lens has all the earmarks of an obvious winner. It has a massive range, is smaller than the 80-200 AF-S, is f5.6 or faster, and touts VR capability. It seems in line to replace both the 400mm f5.6 and the 80-200 for many uses. What's not to like? For starters, lens speed. It's no f2.8 and therefore won't provide the "pop" of the 80-200 when used in portrait or wildlife settings. Obviously it also won't perform as well in low light. But what about the VR you ask? Certainly the VR can reduce the effect of hand-holding in many situations, but if you hand-hold correctly, your biggest problem at slow shutter speeds may be subject motion. And no IS or VR system can solve that problem for you--at least not yet. I've found the VR very useful when shooting from a canoe or other boat, which is a must for certain wildlife subjects who are otherwise inaccessible. But I haven't found it nearly as compelling for day to day use.

Sharp or Soft?

Perhaps the biggest controversy over the 80-400VR is about whether it is sharp or soft. My initial instinct with any pro caliber lens designed by Nikon is to assume it is sharp. After all, they've been making lenses for longer than most of us have been alive and are very good at it. But then I read some reviews that called the 80-400 'soft'. So what's the deal? I was puzzled for quite awhile, as it did seem that I got more than my share of soft images from the 80-400. But clearly if shot correctly the lens can generate tack sharp images. I've shot plenty of those, also. Well, the short story is that it's all about focus. The 80-400 has two major differences from the 80-200 AF-S in the focus department. First, it is slower optically, with a smaller aperture. This gives the camera's AF unit less to work with. As a result the lens hunts more and is slower to acquire focus and quicker to lose focus. The later is truly crucial. You might think that since it is slower to acquire focus it would keep that focus longer. But in my experience it doesn't. If you aren't watching it like a hawk it can easily start to refocus while you are shooting. This is worth repeating: as often as not, at least in my experience, the reason for a soft image is the camera and lens shifting the focus while you're taking the shot. The result is an unsharp or 'soft' shot. It may be correct to cuss out your lens at that point, but it's not the sharpness that is the problem. The problem is that there is not enough contrast in your image to hold the focus steady on the subject. You can correct for this by ensuring that your AF sensor is on a high contrast area or of course by using manual focus. While not quite as easy to manual focus as the M/A mode on the AF-S lenses, the 80-400VR does provide a convenient M<->A selector on the lens which comes in handy at times like this. The second major difference between the 80-200 and 80-400 as far as focusing is the lack of a motor in the 80-400. The 80-200 AF-S (or any AF-S lens) is so quick when focusing that it locks on almost as soon as we zero in on the subject. The 80-400 doesn't do that. It harkens back to the respectable but not lightning fast AF speed of other non-motorized lenses like the 70-300. This would be okay except that we expect it to act like an 80-200, given the price of the lense.

Bottom Line

If you're willing to baby the AF issue enough to survive without your 80-200, the smaller size and greater range of the 80-400 is pretty compelling for travel or other space limited situations. It's my #2 lens when I have to pack a light bag (behind my 24-85). But if I have the room & weight allowance, and the time to add and remove Teleconverters, I'd rather be shooting the 80-200 AF-S with (or without) the TC-20E. In particular, for fast changing field sports I find the 80-200 much less frustrating. For flight shots, the 80-400 can be a gem if you pre-focus a little and can anticipate. I spent a morning on an Island with Tufted Puffins hurtling themselves off cliffs and only an 80-400. I was able to capture quite a few good flight shots but I would have been happier if I'd been able to bring along the larger lens and TC. So, for your own use, I suggest you skip over all the comments on Nikon optics--they're probably as good as you need--and cut to the chase on whether the convenience and possibly the VR outweigh the slightly slower and definitely trickier AF. In my case I find the extra inch in my Pro Trekker and the extra range without needing a TC useful enough to take the 80-400VR with me on most trips as the lens on my "over the shoulder" camera while my long lens is on the tripod. --David

DigitalPro Quick Tips

Multiple Selection

Many users aren't familiar with the way Windows does multi-select, and don't realize they can batch rotate, batch caption, batch submit, batch prioritize, or batch edit images quickly and easily from the Light Table. You can multiple select images from the Light Table in one of three ways: First, Shift-Click selects a range of images from the first selected to the one you Shift-Click. Second, Control-Click selects or de-selects individual images. Third, you can choose Edit->Moose Mode to put you in a mode where clicking on an image toggles the selection state. This is most useful when picking a set of images to submit or print. The cursor changes to a set of Moose tracks to let you know you are in Moose Mode. No fair guessing who came up with the idea for this feature! Remember, you can do your batch rotation this way, so to quickly re-orient a set of images from the camera, just multi-select them using one of these methods and then hit "Control-R" or the Rotate button to rotate them to Vertical.

Right mouse button Menu

Say what you will about Windows, but having a right button on the mouse has been part of the Windows culture forever and can be a real timesaver. If you right-click over an image on the Light Table in DigitalPro you'll see all the same options you have from the Image menu. But they're right there where you are--no need to move the mouse up to the toolbar. They'll operate on the current image or selected set of images, just like the commands from the toolbar menu.

What's New at nikondigital.org

If you're like most of our readers, since your friends and neighbors know you're a professional photographer, you get asked all the time to photograph Birthday Parties, Soccer games, and community events. You're probably happy enough to lend a hand, but you may hate all the hassle that goes along with it. In his new article, Casual Digital for Pros, David has some tips on how to make the whole process as painless as possible so that you'll have happy friends with great photos and not have to spend your vacation time hunched over in front of the computer. Check them out and start saving your free time!

What about the DPS issue on XP?

Okay so we've been promising an issue on XP. Frankly, Microsoft and the camera manufacturers are still working on how they are going to address the issues that have arisen between the camera companies, their various image formats and Microsoft's built-in imaging capabilities in Windows XP. To give you a preview of what is happening, the camera companies have taken some short cuts and made some extensions to some of the published imaging formats that they themselves helped invent in the first place. The result is more than a bit of confusion. Short term, the safest path is to ALWAYS keep an unaltered original of your image before any software has modified it. Camera vendors continue to hide various bits of information in their images and not documenting them, so archive first and process later! DigitalPro, for example, does that for you automatically whenever you use it to batch process images. 

If you have a hot tip or news item for DigitalPro Shooter, write us at dps@proshooters.com. If your tip or news item is picked as the Shooters' Tip of the Week, we'll send you a really cool DigitalPro hat! Or just write us to let us know what you think of the newsletter.

To keep up with the latest articles and reviews, join Moose and I at http://www.nikondigital.org. For the latest versions of DigitalPro, visit http://www.proshooters.com/dp.

Good shooting and Happy Holidays!

--David Cardinal, editor DigitalPro Shooter
Pro Shooters LLC

--Moose Peterson
Wildlife Research Photography

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