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General
scene shot for some of the example images below. Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8
lens and Tamron Pro 300 2x teleconvertor used. Other sample shots were
with the 80-200mm straight without the teleconvertor.
Example
crops are from the small red outline as seen in the lower right side
of the image.
The sample
shots at 100% magnification, have no sharpening or editing applied except
to convert from 16 bit NEF-RAW to 8 bit medium resolution JPEG.
The results
show that f8 is superior to shooting wide-open or fully stopped down
with f22 being ever so slightly better than f2.8.
The D100
CCD is certainly capable of resolving the differences in lens apertures
used. |
f2.8 Aperture |
f8 Aperture |
f22 Aperture |
| |
| White Balance Settings |
Auto White Balance |
Direct Sunlight White Balance |
Cloudy White Balance |
Cloudy -3 White Balance (A Moose Peterson favorite) |
Shade White Balance |
Incandescent White Balance |
Flourescent White Balance |
It was
interesting to conduct this little test to see if Moose Peterson's favorite
White Balance setting is as good as he claims it to be. Keep in mind
that what works for Moose for his intrepretive intent may not work for
you. The incandescent and flourescent were thrown in for fun.
The Shade
WB seemed like the best to me in viewing the image at low magnification
such as seen here but at larger viewing sizes, the Shade WB just seemed
too warm and I set the WB to cloudy for a nicer look with just a touch
of warmth added.
I think
Moose is onto something here with Cloudy -3 for a general outdoor use
White Balance setting. |
| |
| In-camera
Sharpening Settings |
Auto Sharpening |
Low Sharpening |
Normal Sharpening |
High Sharpening |
No Sharpening |
Photoshop USM (300% - 1 - 1) |
| Sharpening
is a matter of taste and what I prefer for sharpening in an image will
be different from another D100 user. As you can see from the above samples,
my own sharpening preference is even greater than what the D100 applies
in-camera. Despite this, I would still suggest that sharpening be left
at None and that it be done in post-capture editing. |
| |
File
Format
NEF-RAW,
TIFF or JPEG, which one is for you? I wondered just how much difference
I would be able to see between these three file format types and most
curious if NEF-RAW is all that it has been lauded to be. |
JPEG-Basic |
NEF-RAW |
Although
not the best sample image to use, the above do show that there is a
difference between NEW-RAW and JPEG-Basic (keeping in mind that the
NEF had to be converted to 8 bit Medium resolution JPEG). Differences
between the other JPEG compression types are also visible but pretty
subtle vis a vis JPEG-Basic. The black sheep format is TIFF.
TIFF hogs
up a huge 17 plus megabytes of storage on the compact flash card, takes
43 seconds to write to the card and appears no better than JPEG-Fine
mode, which maxes out at around 3 MB and only needs 5 seconds to write
to the card. For me, I will either shoot in NEF or JPEG-Fine mode with
nary a glance at the other quality settings because of their lack of
need for my usage.
ISO
Settings and Noise Levels |
ISO 200 |
ISO 400 |
ISO 800 |
ISO 1600 |
ISO 3200 |
ISO 6400 |
It does
not appear there is much to choose from ISO 200 and ISO 400 shots.
Plus, these sample images made me rethink my initial thoughts about
ISO 800 shots with the D100. After viewing through these images, I
have to modify my initial conclusion about ISO 800 not being usable.
ISO 800 is certainly usable and I believe what turned me off it were
the underexposed flash shots I took at the party in Whistler. Just
goes to show that one event should not dictate a set opinion about
a piece of equipment's performance.
Here
are more samples of ISO and noise test shots, with the Noise Reduction
feature on and off. This feature is definitely worth while to have
on all the time for when shutter speeds go slower than 1/2 second.
It does a remarkable job of taking out random noise sprinkled throughout
dark areas of a scene.
|
General overview shot of subject - Chinese dragon in crystal |
ISO 200 - note the little red pixel noise top centre |
ISO 200 Noise Reduction On |
ISO 400 |
ISO 400 Noise Reduction On |
ISO 800 |
ISO 800 Noise Reduction On |
ISO 1600 |
ISO 1600 Noise Reduction On |
ISO 3200 |
ISO 3200 Noise Reduction On |
ISO 6400 |
ISO 6400 Noise Reduction on |
|
Random
noise sample at right from an ISO 200 image. Little red, yellow, blue
and purple pixels can be seen all over the dark areas of the full size
image.
The above
shots were taken at f22 to induce slow shutter speeds and at ISO 3200
and ISO 6400, a polarizer was added to ensure the shutter speeds would
be slow enough for the Noise Reduction feature to kick in.
White Balance
was Incandescent due to the diffused indoor light in my kitchen, where
the sample shots took place.
I apologize
if the dragon head shots do not provide an adequate sample for your
individual monitors. At 100% magnification, which these samples are
at, I can clearly see the differences on my monitor. |
