Jon Alper's probably insufficiently humble opinion

It’s not shipping yet. Firmware isn’t final yet. There’s even a lot of confusion about what the damned thing even is. All that said, as an ecstatically happy Nikon D700 owner, here’s why I will, barring disaster, be buying a D800.

Why do I love my D700? It’s a “Pro” body. Why do I care about a “Pro” body?

It’s the handling.  What does this really mean? It means you’re never three menus deep trying to get off a shot. It means you have a readily accessible button for damned near anything you’d want to change on the fly. It has a magnesium chassis and rubber covered grip surfaces making it feel better and be easier to hand-hold without camera shake. Real ‘pro’ bodies (f5, D1, D2, D3, D4) have built in vertical grips for access to command dials, a second shutter release and more as well as a Jay Leno chin’s worth of space for larger (or more) batteries.  The D700 is a ‘gripless’ body with the option of a really good screw on vertical grip. Historically, add on vertical grips have been fiddly, plastic and not well integrated with the rest of the camera. Not so the MB-D10 for the D700. I can have essentially all of the portrait orientaion handling of a D3/D4 pro body if I want to, or unscrew the grip and have a leaner, lighter and less imposing body  to carry around and attract less attention. Yes, many bodies offer these add-on grips but the MB-D10 (D300(s)/D700) and, presumably, MB-D12 (D800) bolts on and blends in like it’s part of the body. The grip can also take AA batteries!

It’s the viewfinder. What does that really mean? It means you have a huge, bright marvelous optical finder to look through. That finder takes diopter correction lenses that *stay on* (I correct my viewfinder to let me shoot without glasses and I can’t do that without pegging the diopter adjustment and adding a corrective lens.)

All of these benefits are almost impossible to fully appreciate until you hold and spend quality time experimenting with a camera. With the exact same image quality (and that’s rarely the case), a “pro” body will be easier to use, more reliable, more flexible and become an organic extension of your eyes and hands. They also hold resale value better (though bodies depreciate faster than lenses by far). You read the specs, you see the weight, you think “big deal, so what”. That the feel, the handling is so important yet so hard to describe is one of the many reasons you want to maintain a relationship with a really good local camera shop. A chance to really handle, try out, perhaps even rent this gear is what you get when you have a good shop you can visit. It should go without saying that this means buying stuff from this camera shop. Not just going in and test driving and going home to order online. Build a relationship. That means learn who works there who knows things, you’d be surprised how different an employee at a real camera shop is than some kid in a blue polo shirt at a big box store. Real photographers work at pro camera shops. They can and often enjoy teaching you things. If you show them respect, actually buy things there, you will find you may get a call when something you have been waiting to see comes in. You will find they can be honest with you about where they can, and can’t discount and how much. Show them you value you them, need them. Buy things from them. Don’t be afraid to ask “Hey, is it still helpful if I buy these ten (often higher margin) accessories from you but grab the body at BH because they have it in stock?” Be honestly willing to support them and you can be sure they’ll still be in business when you need them. Plus, they often run rental shops, sell used gear, can help you sell your used gear and in the case of my personal favorite local shop, have studio facilities you can rent out for your bigger projects.  I can’t stress this enough, build a relationship. Saving twenty bucks by trying theit demos and buying online is short sighted self defeating in the long term and, frankly, downright dishonorable. Hell, saving a hundred bucks can be stupid if it’s going to mean they won’t be there when you crack a filter and need help getting it off. (My personal favorite ‘real humans work there’ camera shop is E.P Levine, or as I am known to call them “Eeeps!” if you live in the Boston area, are serious about your photography and don’t shop there, you’re missing out in a very, very big way. Yes, I know the owners, yes I’m biased. I also happen to be right. Just go….oh,…and they sell online and have a constantly updating used inventory too.)

It has features most people don’t even know matter because they don’t shoot on a tripod, (or a good enough tripod). Shutter release delay to avoid shake from mirror slap. A lever-operated shutter blind to keep light leaking in from the finder and mucking with metering when your face isn’t mushed up against the finder doing the masking.

It has a screw cam that can drive older non-AFS lenses.

It has a pop-up flash. Do I *use* that flash as a flash? Almost never. Do I use it as an Infra-red trigger for an off-camera flash? Often. Very often. Is it nice to have it there for a bit of fill when I don’t have a flash? Damned skippy!

It’s also FX. Why do I care about FX? There are more and better lenses available for FX that go, in my case, back to 1980’s vintage lenses.  FX feels ‘natural’ to me. When I see the world, I can, having learned photography an all manual on 35mm film Pentax Spotmatic my mother was kind enough to lend me, see how a shot will frame at a given focal length. I don’t need to remember my 50mm will frame like a 75mm. I don’t need to think “oh, and my ability to isolate subject from background with depth of field is different too”.

It’s really, really good in low light. How good? It eats film’s lunch. You can get effectively noiseless images at ISO 1600 and damned nice ones even at 3200. At 6400? The shot you’d never have bothered taking 5 years ago can be had and cleaned up in post to acceptable quality.

The autofocus is fast. The metering is stellar. Nikon’s CLS /iTTL flash system is shockingly good. It is, for all intents and purposes, a D3 for half the money with more flexibility.

All these things are what I love, love, love about my D700. I hated my D1. I hated my D2h because they just couldn’t touch film in terms of quality despite being beautifully made, I love my D700. It is, for me, the camera that stopped me pining for the money and time to shoot more 35mm film. That’s not to say, at all, that film doesn’t continue to have value but I just can’t justify the cost and slower feedback loop I get shooting film. I improve faster as a photographer with digital because I see the results of my mistakes sooner and can learn and adapt with immediate re-enforcement I just can’t get waiting even a day for processing film. Also, if you consider digital post artistically valid (and I do) you can have all you’d have had with 35mm film and more. (Note that I stipulate 35mm film and not medium or lager formats. Larger film formats are a different best altogether.)

Why do I want a D800?

100% viewfinder coverage.

It has two card slots. Sadly, one of them is an SD card but I get backup in the camera if I want it.

I get a dedicated Bracketing Button

Better auto-focus when I attach a teleconverter and lose a stop and a half of light (depth of field doesn’t change) 1.7x more reach making my 70-200 into a 119-340.

But, and here’s where the “barring disaster” kicks in, I also get a roughly 15mpx DX body at the same time!

If I want that “DX reach”, I can crop in like mad and still have 15 mega pixels worth of resolution. Why do I say barring disaster? Higher pixel density, all other things being equal, comes with the penalty of inferior noise performance and especially at high iso.

The question is, are all other things equal? Well, early indications looking at the sample images are that things aren’t equal. The sample files I have seen online so far suggest the D800 will be no noisier than a D700. Advances in sensor technology and in camera processing seem to have worked magic. Will it be as good in low light as a D3s? I’m guessing no. Do most people need a camera that can shoot in the dark like the D3s can? No. Does my eye *expect* to be able to shoot in the dark using the ‘mental map’ I cling to based on experience with film? No. The hi-iso performance of a D700/D3 is really, really good. Better than film. (Some argument might be made about the potential dynamic range of film vs digital in the hands of an extremely skilled photographer. The same can be of the aesthetic charms of grain vs this hideousness of noise. There are also important considerations about archival media. All these points are valid. I’m not, and I am pretty sure most of you aren’t a good enough photographer to make them most of them matter in a meaningful way. I do know this, shooting more with a DSLR and really thinking about what you learn has made made me a better photographer for all the reasons above.)

The D800 looks to be just dandy in low light and, when it’s not, I if I don’t need to crop, I can scale. When I scale down to D700-class 12 megapixels, I get noise reduction for free as the noise is averaged out in the down-sampling. Will all my uncharacteristic optimism about the hi-iso peformance prove valid? I won’t know until the camera is shipping but sure looks like, barring disaster, the D800 will match a D700 in noise performance which, for me, is plenty good enough!

With both my trusty D700 and a new D800, I have my tele body and my wide body. A day with fewer lens swaps, a backup, long continued good use from my D700 and a new class of opportunities that come when, since I can’t afford, or carry, a 500mm lens I can use a TC more freely and get the option to crop to DX (or tighter) and FINALLY get a good shot of that hawk that lives in my neighbor’s tree.

Side note: I hold the heretical belief that DX is a dead-end format for lenses. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to buy them or even that there won’t be more new ones introduced. There will be DX bodies for the foreseeable future as ‘hobbyist’ products but, if you’re going to invest in a DSLR and the ‘system’ that goes with it because you are, or aspire to be a pro, you’re basically nuts to buy DX glass. An un-popular view I’m sure but I’ve bought and then sold exactly one DX lens. (I don’t even remember what it was exactly. I bought it when I had a D2h because there were no wide-enough-angle FX lenses I could afford.)

Mirrorless has been coming for a long time and it is, now, finally coming into its own. If you want cheaper, smaller, lighter kit, you’ll end up wanting a mirrorless system. After enjoying a mirrorless system, you may decide you want to upgrade to the larger sensor size and optical TTL viewfinder you get when you choose a DSLR and an inexpensive DX body might be a good way to start but, if you do, you’d be unwise invest heavily in DX glass.

You’ll outgrow your DX body eventually. The high resolution of the D800 was inevitable. The desire for ‘a body with DX reach’ is or, if the D800 falls short, will be irrelevant. You’ll want your investment, the largest and most long-term part of your investment in photo gear to be in FX glass. I own nine, ten if you count the teleconverter, FX lenses. The resale value holds up well. The used market is good. (I have lenses I’ve used since I got my first Nikon, an N8008 film body) . The cost of glass, as a function of my total investment in photo gear, is the lion’s share. Sure, want some lighter, slower DX lenses to let you explore focal lengths you might not otherwise invest in? Geat! Want something lighter or cheaper? Fine! But to make a significant and growing investment is a ‘set’ of DX lenses is, for lack of a kinder word, loopy.

Oh? Video, yeah, the D800 shoots video and early buzz it will kill in that market vs Canon’s current offerings. I don’t care. You might.

Some links:

Rob Galbraith on the D800

Cliff Mautner on the D800 (with some stunning example shots) two links: The Nikon D800!!!! and A Few More Features To Point Out.

The Nikon Imaging D800 Page

Also see Thom Hogan’s bythom.com.  He doesn’t make his ‘news articles’ easy to link directly to but there’s lots of good stuff to be read on topics discussed above.

Chris Foreseman’s D800 article at Ars Technica. I won’t telegraph the title too obviously here but it’s an insightful piece. Some of the comments thread are bozo-liscious which is always fun.

Expect more on this later. Also, D800 vs D80oE? I don’t know yet which but don’t whine the E costs more money. Nikon aren’t removing a part and charging more, they are changing a part and charging more. There’s good reason to believe will be a the lower volume product and, as such, there are inherent costs involved. Don’t whine! It’s not the same as charging you too much for a remote shutter release. Whine about that, that’s a fair complaint.

[See bottom for updates since first publication.]

Based on Apple’s presentation and press coverage so far, there are three words to sum up my first impressions of the new Final Cut Pro X.: Awesome, Unknown and Unfortunate.

The Awesome

I’m not an editor. There are a lot of people who think they’re editors. They’re not. I know real editors and, I can tell you, I’m not one of them. Final Cut Pro has always been a utility to me to solve technical problems with video and bash bits of it together. A real editor is an artist. A deep collaborator in the storytelling process and somebody whose brilliance spans the gamut from cutting diamonds to polishing turds. I’ve worked with these editors, these people with real talent, on and off for decades from the old days of A/B roll linear editing with U-matic videotape decks through the early days of Avid and the fun of AVR compressed video that would make your iPhone movies look like Blu-ray by comparison and into the modern age of Final Cut Pro. What Apple has done with the NLE in Final Cut Pro X is, truly, revolutionary. Arguably it has the potential to be as much a transformation of video editing as the invention of the NLE. The new UI and the flexibility it offers will surely be jarring to existing users but it truly does stand to change the game completely.  It’s no small thing that FCP got a ground up re-write that means it can finally use all the RAM you can feed it, bludgeon all the cores you can offer it and, based on Apple’s claims, background process audio and video so well as to make the dreaded render dialog a thing of the past. ColorSync support, resolution independence, and non-destructive pre-filtering of audio and video are truly marvelous but the revolution is in really in two places: Metadata and the timeline.

Metadata: Setting aside the mechanical tedium of ingestion, correction and export, editing is about choices. It’s about knowing the often ten, twenty or even fifty or more times the total duration of your source footage and being able to choose, re-order and sweeten it all in to the perfect distillation of what matters. To do this as a true editor/artist, you must deeply know your source materials and . if you are working with a Director and Producer, be able to present them with choices to make to allow them to delude themselves into thinking they still have control over the final product while you help them convey their vision sometimes in spite of themselves. Apple’s new approach to media management finally makes the idea of logging as you go a realistic and, arguably better approach than the methodical review, log, tag and bin before you start cutting that a good editor must do now. Now, moments in a clip can be keyworded and are, essentially accessible by almost magical means as smart clips. Now the bins can live and breath as your project evolves without making a nightmarish mess. Content Aware metadata will make better movies.

The same essential change, the ability to be fluid in the process of evolving your project also applies the timeline. Gone is the need to have a methodical plan for sub-sequences and byzantine markers. Over are the days of being afraid to rethink something late in the cut for fear of breaking sync or losing something perfect in your undo buffer. Magnetic tracks, the almost magical flexibility afforded to creating and refining L and J cuts will make better movies. In particular, they will make better documentaries.

These changes will revolutionize video editing. People used to old ways of working will suffer from the shock of change. Those punk kids will think they’re editors just because they can cut together a show.  True talent. adaptable, thoughtful, true talent will delight, evolve and shock us with what these new approaches mean for video storytelling.

A lot of the ‘buzz’ I won’t link to seems to be folks objecting to the more approachable look of the UI and, to me anyway, seems to be people saying essentially “It doesn’t look intimidating anymore, it’s not a Pro tool and I won’t feel cool because I know how to use it.”  You can imagine I think that might miss the point. While there are surely a few things too-pretty-by-half about the eye candy in the UI, the fact is, Apple has brilliantly rethought the Non-Linear Editor UI in ways that will change video. The changes, and not just the buzzword compliant ones, will turn out to be revolutionary.

To understand why the changes in the UI are so profound, you need to see it demonstrated. Lucky us,  YouTube User machineurs has posted two segments of  camcorder capture of Apple  previewing Final Cut Pro X at NAB: Part One and Part Two

Beyond the truly revolutionary UI and what it can mean for a fluid creative process, the price, $299 is, truly, awesome.

Unknown:  There are unknowns and some of them are a little unsettling. In truth, beyond one item below, most of what struck me as ‘unfortunate’ are things I am admittedly cynically speculating about from the list of unknowns.

The core  of those unknowns rests in what hasn’t yet been said about the Final Cut Studio and, more importantly, the functionality it offers.

(One article in Macworld suggests that there is hope for some or all of these apps so my angst about the unknowns may turn out to be much ado about nothing.)

Understanding the concern perhaps depends on a refresher of what’s available now. The current FInal Cut Pro product is Final Cut Studio 7 and it includes Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, SoundTrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 and DVD Studio Pro 4.

Color, perhaps, has been made a moot concern by the incredible in-the-timeline color correction features in FCP X. Color is, by all accounts, a remarkably good color grading tool but it did demand a somewhat kludgy workflow. Most people almost certainly did their grading even in the now ‘old’ FCP. It’s just unknown how much of Color is now in Final Cut Pro itself or whether it will continue as a separate application. The way FCP was announced, it would seem it has no future on its own.

Soundtrack Pro also seems to have much of its ease of use for level control and time correction elegantly  stuffed into the timeline UI but, pending more information of about FCP X, it seems likely much of the other value in Soundtrack Pro, coring, will be lost and, if so, that will be a shame. STP’s loop-based scoring is something I have a tough time imagining being made part of the Final Cut  Pro X UI. It just wouldn’t seem to fit in well. Again, the “it’s $299, no upgrades, no confusion” message at the presentation implies SoundTrack Pro is ex software and just nailed to the perch.

Motion is another unknown. How much of what Motion did is now folded into Final Cut X? Will there still be a Motion application? Is Apple giving Adobe the pro-sumer Motion Graphics business in After Effects as an “I’m sorry” for finally telling everyone Flash is just too broken? So far, we just don’t know. AfterEffects is, even with Motion as a product often a necessary and valuable tool anyway. AfterEffects is just a more complete tool. Is Motion going away tragic? Perhaps not.

The real scary unknowns are Compressor and DVD Studio Pro.

Compressor in FCP Studio 7 just sucks.I really do wish I could be kinder. I have encoded thousands of clips and and hundreds of hours using all major versions of Cleaner, several of Squeeze Episode in addition to the using the encoding features of countless other tools. Compressor just sucks. It’s less approachable than Xcode, has lingering bugs and UI ambiguities and it is simply unable to reliably exploit the hardware it runs on. In many ways it remains, to this day inferior, to what Cleaner was about ten years ago before it languished for lack of love at AutoDesk, (Note that I link to neither.).

The problem is, Compressor  sucks a lot less than nothing. For Compressor to simply go away will leave a gaping hole in the tools Apple provides.  Is there a a batch processing functionality now added to FCP?  A means of managing encode queues across multiple machines now part of the Final Cut Pro UI?  Will it become necessary for more users to buy and learn Squeeze or Episode if they plan to do anything more serious than upload to YouTube and not care? It’s unkown at this point what has or will become of Compressor. I don’t have a warm fuzzy about it. I hear the words “third party opportunity” said in a NoCal accent in my head. I hear a pregnant pause after the word “So…” as I imagine myself asking about it. It worries me.

DVD Studio Pro. [Disclosure: I have made a substantial portion of my living authoring commercial DVDs some of which you have likely heard of and may have seen in stores or on Amazon if not actually watched.  I have helped teach DVD Studio Pro at Macworld Expo and I was even quoted in Apple glossy marketing materials. So I do feely disclose that I have a vested interest in DVD.]  Apple acts like it wants DVD dead. It feels like Apple has hired Boris and Natasha to go after DVD and drag it off to the secret gulag out back behind Whatsamatta U. The problem is, unlike Bullwinkle, DVD will continue to successfully pull rabbits out of its hat and remain useful and therefore, for film makers, necessary for at least a few more years. If DVD Studio Pro is dead, it’s virtually certain the functionality it offered hasn’t been folded in Final Cut Pro X. Adobe Encore may be the only practical/affordable option. Not a bad one, surely, but another UI and cost.

So far the Unknowns all look like they land, at least in part,  in the unfortunate camp.

What does appear to be squarely  in the land of the unfortunate is that it appears FCP X will only be available in the Mac App Store. That’s just bad. The Final Cut Studio 7 package actually includes some useful paper documentation and the earlier versions, full (and damned good ) paper manuals. The packaged product also includes good tutorials and the media to support them, a DVD full of Sound track Loops  and a full set of .pdf manuals. Sold via the Mac App Store there wont be seven DVD’s worth of application(s) and content to download.

Beyond that though is that no competently managed NLE in a professional production environment is even allowed on the public internet. I’m sure I will get feedback telling me I’m off base on this but I stand by it. If you run a post production operation and you are letting your editors surf the web, download applications and updates to their NLEs you are mis-managing your assets. Period. Buy them an iMac or a laptop for that. Selling Final Cut Pro X only via the app store is Apple not recognizing what ‘Pro’ really means. Will FCP X remain available via other channels? Only if the Pros demand it. Start demanding. Now.

———–UPDATE 4.15.11 ———–

This is a great piece on FCP X introduction and more support for some of my unknowns perhaps moving from unfortunate to awesome. I didn’t even touch the QuickTime question Larry asks but the fact that the blue Q wasn’t even mentioned by Apple is, to me telling: http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/1452

As a side note, I read the comments on Larry’s post and continue to be amused by the techno-machismo evident in the fear of the comment writers that the tool might make things too easy.

It is a completely valid concern that a tool would be ‘dumbed down’ to make integration into pro workflows a problem or professional level functionality either removed or so deeply hidden as to be useless.  It’s utterly laughable to be worried that a tool you learned with difficulty will now be easier for others to master.

Many, many, many people have written about Apple excluding Flash from iOS and Adobe’s spin that Flash is ‘part of the web’ iOS users are being deprived of. The following note from my friend Kevin and a spate of Flash-induced browser crashes has me me itching to chime in:

I like to listen to internet radio streams when I work; stuff from grooveradio.com
has long been a favorite productivity boost for me, like caffeine for the ears.
More recently, thanks to Eric Konieczko, I’ve come to appreciate the more varietal
offerings from ibizasonica.com, but its flash-plugin player excessively and
consistently loads down my CPU: 50-70%! Not so productive, right? The choice of
browser is not a factor; Flash is a pig!

In contrast, I can use VLC on the source stream (http://stream2.wft.es:1025/) and
run at a cool 6% CPU, which could be even lower if videolan’s VLC package for Mac
included the cvlc binary (dispenses with the GUI). If you have any experience
compiling VLC and could share any helpful tips, please do; I’d appreciate it very
much.

If you have any ideas for Kevin, I’d be interested too and would welcome comments.

But it gets to the core point. Flash has enormous unique value. It’s very good for this kind of thing. (As an aside QuickTime used to be too but that’s a story for another day) and for this kind of thing.

What it’s not good for is how Adobe’s marketing has encouraged it to be used:

• As a way for a good visual designer to do sexy site navigation without learning to write code. If you want sexy and your coding talents aren’t able to execute your vision in HTML/CSS/Javascript, hire somebody who can. I know lots of talented people. Need help? Let me know.
• As a way to inflict, and note that I said inflict and not offer, an introductory splash page for your web site. Splash pages are for people who can’t organize their thoughts well enough to design and execute an inviting and easy to understand home page. Splash pages are a way to try (and fail) to force your users to pause and absorb your message as you hold them hostage before you give them what they came for. If you give them what they came for, you can make money off them.  Be nice.  If you find you can’t explain your site or offering well enough without imposing a linear experience as an introduction, that’s fine. It’s very hard. Get help. I can find you great people.
• As the only way you offer video and audio. There are multiple standards some supported on a particular computing platform (Windows Media and mp4 on  Windows and  MacOS/iOS  respectively). If you want a reliable experience, offer platform native formats.
• As a way to inflict (see above regards offer vs inflict) your advertising message in front of content.

Flash is not part of the web. Flash is a media type. The web is the interconnectedness of documents, html documents. If you can’t recognize that essential truth and then, from there, add styling, elegant and engaging navigation and, as needed, images, audio and video on top of that to benefit your users, you’re not making websites you’re limiting yourself and and your success.

Adobe, if you can’t sell Flash for the things it’s actually very, very good for, don’t keep trying to dupe people into misusing it in order to sell more. You, Adobe, make wonderful tools in Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects et al, get rich making those wonderful tools and stop trying to hammer home a doomed agenda.