Nikon D2x and Sony VAIO VGN-A317M

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Arkady

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Rob
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We were (finally) issued the D2x bodies two months ago and the recent deployment to Iraq to cover the Referendum vote was the first run-ashore for the new kit. In addition, our new portable editing kit has been upgraded to Sony Vaio VGN-A317M laptops, more of which later.
We fully expected that with a 100% jump in MPi values, that a corresponding jump in Memory card size would suffice; not so. The 80-ish NEF files capacity on a 512 CF card was not realised on the 1Gb Sandisk Extreme III cards issued with the cameras - only 50 or so NEFs could be captured and many less than that with the NEF+JPG option selected.
We have now put in for 4Gb cards. I carry a Smartdisk 40Gb Image tank, but am lothe to use it unless really necessary as the Nikon Transfer interface doesn't recognise files stored on this piece of hardware. The facility to write File Info direct to the RAW file itself instead of as a sidecar file (as with PS CS2) is very useful and saves loads of time in editing.

Image quality is very good with the new camera (as expected), though I still want to get into a studio under controlled lighting conditions to see what I can really get out of it. In the field, it performs very well, the longer battery life is an especially welcome improvement - I never used more than one battery per camera per job, whereas with the D1x I would cheerfully use 4 batteries per body in the course of a two-day shoot. The battery life indicator never went below 3/4 full, even though I would shoot approximately 300 NEF images per body per day. This means that the solar battery charger may now be consigned to the spares box instead of being carried on routine 3-day jobs.
As we're still using older-generation lenses (my 80-200 f2.8 is particularly stone-age in appearance these days!) it's difficult to guage any improvement in AF performance, but with the 17-35 2.8 and the 28-70 2.8 it's as good as it needs to be.
The flash interface with the SB-800 is very good with the balanced fill-in facility working much better than the D1x/SB800 combination. I find that I'm using much closer to metered values now, whereas before I would underflash by 2 1/3 as a matter of course.

The Sony VAIO has been a grave disappointment though. So many glitches and hangs resulted from conflicts with the proprietry Vaio software, that in the end I had a friend re-format the hard-drive and put a basic Win XP-Pro build on it instead. I now have what is in effect a Dell in a shiny case.
The other team photographer who has just deployed to Kashmir in support of the relief effort there has not done the drastic 'slash and burn' and is still having major traumas, with the Blue Screen of Death appearing at will almost every time he tries to do anything in Photoshop.

I look forward now to the (hopefully soon) issue of the new, smaller NERA satellite comms system. The current M4 system in use is very robust and reliable, but fits into another laptop-sized bag. The new kit is the size of two mobile phones with the same connection speed. Nice. With weapons, body armour, helmets and other military kit as well as all the photographic kit, it's getting a bit tiresome, especially as I keep going to Iraq - it's bl00dy hot there you know!
 
:confused- Hmmmmmmmm,


I'm not sure you should be posting about such things on here :nono:


Not without a picture or two anyway so we can have a good gawp at the goddies :D

I'm shocked at the sony dodah not playing ball, I was considering one as my next toy upgrade. might stick to my trusty dell instead.

Now go get pics of the toys........:nunu:
 
I think you will find this with alot of laptops and many desktops from branded manufacturers - they cram so much useless gimmick programs onto their products that the things become a nuisance, especially during startup. I did exactly the same with my Sony Viao laptop, put a proper installation on the machine using standard install CDs, and now it flys, also has alot more free disk space.
Even my Dell laptop has quite a few useless utility programs on it as standard, although not to the same degree as the Sony :)
 
digitalfailure said:
:confused- Hmmmmmmmm,
I'm not sure you should be posting about such things on here :nono:
QUOTE]

Ummm... OK
Here are some quick and nasty images of my basic kit - D2x taken on my other D2x:

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_RK10642_E.jpg


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One thing to bear in mind: the two Joint Media Operations Teams represent the forward edge of military photography (and video, but who cares about them?). When we make reccommendations to manufacturers, they do act on them as the potential sales losses would be catastrophic.
The British Army uses Nikons. Because of that (we lead the Defence School of Photography at RAF Cosford in the W Midlands, in terms of purchasing power), so do the RAF and Royal Navy. Because of that, the US military all use Nikon, as do the rest of NATO, the Australians, Kiwis etc. Almost all UK and US Police and Law Enforcement agencies use Nikon.
UK Armed Forces lead the way in terms of photographic imaging in the defence arena and because of that, other Nations take notice of what we do. Despite our relatively small numbers, we wield enormous influence, as we have to cover all avenues of photography, from simple PR (groups, parades and portraits) to macro and photo-micrography (defects and SOCO), War photography and Surveillance work. And we have to be able to teach it as well.


Note the green cloth tape holding the battery cover onto the SB-800's auxiliary battery unit - we found that they fall off at the slightest knock and feedback to Nikon will result in a re-design (we've been told).

The LowePro Dryzone DZ 200 backpack is pretty good also with the caveat that the single fastex clip (center-top of the bag with yellow tape on it) is insufficient to hold the outer flap closed: the strap comes loose. We've asked for two clips and thicker webbing to prevent it loosening with heavy loads.
The other team photographer has just sent his back with a broken waterproof zip. We found that when gunged up with the sort of fine, floury dust encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq, the silicone lubricant dries up and jams the zip. We've asked that they make them stronger also.
And in case you think we're being picky, bear in mind we're only talking about jobs lasting 3-6 weeks. If it can't last that long, what's the point?
We may also specify a concealed pocket to contain a 9mm pistol and four clips of ammo for jobs where we don't wear uniform - that's yet to be decided and probably won't happen.

The Freecom 20Gb Mini HD attached to the laptop will be replaced in due course with a LaCie 250GB HD for added storage capacity - this one just holds my MP3 files so I can listen to 70's punk music while I work.
Click to expand...
 
Very nice setup, interesting to hear about what you do and the stuff you use :thumb:

I actually thought you worked for Reuters or something similar before reading this :shock:
 
I transmit direct to PA, Reuters, UPPI, and Getty Images (and it's affiliate, AFP) when I work. They used to give a full credit, but I noticed that on the last job (Iraq Referendum) the byline just says Getty or AFP. Not best pleased about that and it resulted in a snotto-gram to Hugh Pinney at Getty.
 
How do you decide who get's the contract, open tender? Canon must be desperate to get on the good side of you guys.
 
Great write up and insite into your work and how you use the equipment. Thanks for that!

I am curious on your workflow Arkady, not detailed but what software you use to get the photos from the camera all the way through to PA, Reuters or Getty etc. I am guessing with the amount of pictures you take and the the time restrictions you work under that you have now got it honed down to a fine art?

Any info you could supply would be very interesting.
 
Thats a better effort, it's nice to see the bits and bobs being talked about :icon_cool

just out of interest, how many army snappers are on the team and how do you get into that?

RAF cosford isn't that far from me.......how do i sneak in for a few lessons? :naughty:
 
Very interesting reading. Thanks for sharing.

I would have imagined military photographers taking intelligence pictures of something boring instead of covering news stories.
 
There are 38 Army photographers currently serving in various posts, not all of them in image-gathering roles.
Myself and one other form the stills element of the Defence Media Operations Centre (DMOC) based at RAF Uxbridge. This comprises two deployable teams and a headquarters staff. Each team has one stills phot and a Video cameraman or ENG.

Our job is essentially the same as a civilian news photographer - go in get the images and get them out to the wire services ASAP.
We currently use the NERA M4 satellite communications system, which connects at about 64kbps - same as old dial-up on your PC.

I import images via Nikon View from a Sandisk USB 2.0 card reader and assign basic File Info (what, where, when, who, why, by whom, Copyright Info and contact details) at the same time to the RAW (NEF) files. Doing the same after import using Photoshop would leave the file info as a sidecar file: using Nikon View embeds it in the file itself and it carries over when the image is subsequently processed.
Once all the files are imported, I use Photoshop CS2 for all subsequent processing. Open the file in Adobe Bridge and do a quick edit in RAW mode: the best thing about CS2 is the extra options in RAW. I can leave white balance and all sorts of other stuff on camera default settings and fine tune them in CS2 later. I can also apply batch processing to all images once I'm happy with the adjustments.
Open the image and do levels and sharpening. In-camera sharpening is left off, I do all sharpening post-production in the lightness channel only.
Then I save the image as a TIFF, crop and re-size for transmission, then save again as a JPEG.
This conforms with practices agreed with the Imperial War Museum where all our images are sent after three years to form part of the National Archive.
RAW - TIFF - JPEG (negative - large (fine) print - small (coarse) print, if you want to look at it another way).
The transmission images are then emailed (oh yes!) to the wire services and are sent free of charge. For the sake of fairness, I send to all the wire services simultaneously, as well as the MoD Press Office in London and to the HQ(Land) Picture Desk at Wilton, nr Salisbury. That covers all bases, military and civil.
If I'm lucky, they remember to use my name as a byline, though this time Getty Images forgot and so all stuff sent out by thier affiliate Agence France Presse went out under a AFP byline, not mine... ho hum.

While not as potentially quick as possible using the new cameras, it serves our purposes well enough. As long as I have my images on the wire services the same day, I tend to beat the local competition.

We use email now, as it's the easiest means of transmission. When we used Mac laptops, I used a program by Hermstedt that was a drag-and-drop ISDN postbox affair and was blindingly quick. They do make a PC compatible version, but because we still send via SatComms, it really makes no odds and I now just send everything as an email attachment through Outlook. One image per email, measuring 12" along the long side at 175 dpi and saved at about JPEG 9 or equivalent to a 60-second transmission using a 56k modem. That is good enough quality for newspaper use in the UK.

To become an Army Phot you must first serve at least five years in 'teeth arms' - infantry or similar. The Army's view being that it's easier to teach in infantryman photography than to teach a photographer to be an infantryman. This means that we are able to deploy with any unit (including SF and airborne units) without further training.
Once your minimum five years are done, you must then pass a selection board comprising the Army Master Photographer and three other serving Army Phots. Questions such as 'Why the f*** should I let you be a phot?' are typical. You must provide a portfolio of images to a reasonably high standard and demonstrate a passion for photography above all else. Many try to join thinking that it'll be a useful skill to leave the army with. No-ooo... sorry.
Once accepted you must pass a one-week selection test during which you are 'beasted' around Wolverhampton with a Billingham bag full of Nikons and a task sheet and an impossible series of deadlines. There are also 'social'tasks to be performed. One man failed selection for failing to attempt the Group Karaoke singing - as he was subsequently told: "if you can't make a fool of yourself in front of friends, how will you stand up in front of a buch of generals and control them?" Or as in the case of my colleague, the Prime Minister, six generals and all the EU Defence Ministers...
Once that's over, you go back to RAF Cosford for a six-month course. It's a distillation of the BA Hons degree course, City and Guilds and Higher Diploma courses with added stuff that's military specific. All in six months. You don't sleep much and weekends are unheard of.

But once all that's over and done with, it's still the best job in the army.
 
One other thing that might be of interest: talking to Jerry Lebens who writes for Black and White Photography mag and also to Phil Goldsmith at Calumet, it's rumoured that pretty soon there'll be only one major manufacturer of 'proper' digital cameras.
Most folks will buy a decent camera-phone as soon as they hit 4Mpi, all other compact digi cameras will be dead.
In 5 years, say, the market for Pro-spec cameras will have shrunk as only pro's and rich amateurs will buy them.
That means that there'll only be room for one manufacturer to survive as market-share and profits dwindle. And since all major Military and Law enforcement use Nikon, any bets on who'll be last man standing?

To put it even more in perspective, one Phot section 'not too far' from Hereford has 130 D100 bodies on the shelf just to teach with. Another 25 D1x bodies and lenses from 17-35 up to 600mm for each of them.
My own section has eight D2x bodies and 20 D1x bodies as reserve. For the two of us...

Canon users, how many do you own?
 
Arkady said:
To put it even more in perspective, one Phot section 'not too far' from Hereford has 130 D100 bodies on the shelf just to teach with. Another 25 D1x bodies and lenses from 17-35 up to 600mm for each of them.
My own section has eight D2x bodies and 20 D1x bodies as reserve. For the two of us...

Canon users, how many do you own?
Click to expand...

ROFL - have to say I feel a bit intimidated now:)

Brilliant info, I'm not going to imply that your job sounds easy cause I know it isnt, but it certainly sounds like it has its moments.
 
How many do you own Arkady as opposed to have the opportunity to use?


Interesting idea about camera phones killing off compacts. To a certain extent I can see it happening if camera phone quality improves enough with the rise in pixel count, but I think you/he are wrong about the death of the low end slr. Once you get into slr territory you're talking about hobbyists and keen amateurs as opposed to snappers and I can't see them being happy with a camera phone. As long as there's a hobbyist demand I think there will be choice, market forces will see to that.
 
Arkady said:
To put it even more in perspective, one Phot section 'not too far' from Hereford has 130 D100 bodies on the shelf just to teach with. Another 25 D1x bodies and lenses from 17-35 up to 600mm for each of them.
My own section has eight D2x bodies and 20 D1x bodies as reserve. For the two of us...
Click to expand...

What happens to all the 'obsolete' kit? Army surplus auction? :D

This is all fascinating stuff. Hope you are not giving away any official secrets here - don't want to upset us taxpayers with tales of excess spending :icon_eek:
 
Ooooh- nice kit! :thumb:

I've just been reading the in depth reviews of the D2X and as an ex Nikon user with an enormous soft spot for them, it's nice to see Nikon really upping the ante with this camera. They seem to have got this camera just right.
 
Arkady, excellent reading there, and a great insight into what sounds like a pretty exciting job :D Thanks for the writeup...

I would like to ask though, and please don't take this as an offensive question, or one that is meant to undermine your work...

But why do the army have photographers? I can understand the need for things like Parades etc, and the need for the photos for publications, it's the getting the images out to agencies etc I can't quite grasp...
I know it's just a case of me having a blond moment (or just being naturally thick :D)...but I am a little stumped....
 
Thanks again for the info and for filling in the gaps regarding your workflow :)

The main reason I asked is because I have recently stumbled across a program called "Photo Mechanic" which it claims is the software that most "journalists and professionals" use. I am currently assessing it and for the type of work that you do it would seem to have been almost designed to meet your requirements. It’s very quick, uses IPTC tags that embed in the Raw file, can simultaneously create multiple different sizes of the same file and also has built in FTP client to transmit the files at any stage. It doesn’t have a great deal of editing facilities though, just basics such as crop etc so I guess a lot depends how much PS work that you do on a regular basis.

If you fancy a look…

http://www.camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html

Again many thanks for the info, it’s a very interesting read on so many levels.
 
Great read Rob.

Don't Samsung have a 7Mpix phone out already?
Or is it a camera with a built in phone?
 
As I say, it's just rumour-control re: death of Canon... ho ho ho...

As to the obsolete kit - this will break your hearts.

At the aforementioned Phot Cell 'near' Hereford, we had about 300 FM2 bodies and associated manual-focus lenses on the shelves when I took over the account three years ago. Some were in a pretty dismal state of repair and even the good ones invariably had broken wind-one lever ratchets (can't stop even well-trained squaddies from over-winding it seems).
Some though had been replaced by brand-new ones, still in boxes. Motor-drives as well.
As we didn't need them any more, I phoned the relevant agency and asked if they shoul be 'back-loaded' (military speak for sending things back to the original supplier, in this case the central depot at Bicester). No, came the reply, a destruction order has been generated, smash them all up.

All of them.

And apart from the ten brand-new bodies that made their way into my home and that of the other photographer there, that's what we did. Lenses as well - fish-eyes up to 600mm teles and 1000mm mirrors.

We put them all in sandbags and smashed them with lump-hammers.

And what of the six DeVere 504 enlargers? In the skip. Brand-new, just a bit dusty. Give them to a local college I suggested.
No, in the skip they went.

Broke my heart, it really did.


Why does the army have photographers? Hmmm...
Gulf War 1, no civilian journalists there at the start, who's taking the TV footage you see on the news? Army Photographers.
Bosnia?
Kosovo?
Gulf War II - same thing. We pool our images to all agencies and believe me, they take it gladly.
Usually there's a space issue on military transport, you can't get all the Press out to where the action is - transport food, accommodation etc.
Easier to send two men - phot and ENG to capture the imagery and pool the stuff to everyone.
Also there's a security issue. If a journalist is embedded with a unit, he/she has to be escorted - not because of stuff they might see, but because as an embed, the Army has a duty of care over them. Personnel must be assigned to protect them from getting shot.
No-one has to look after me - I carry a 9mm pistol on most jobs and a rifle when I'm travelling from one place to another. Though I must say that in the event of an attack, my 'immediate action drill' is to take photos, not reach for a gun.
If my gun has to come out, it means that everyone else is already dead.

I keep a (very poor quality) clip of the daniel Berg beheading on my laptop, just to remind me of the people we're dealing with. I don't think I'm being too melodramatic in saying that I will not end my life butchered like a hog in an orange jump-suit.

Other jobs include PR - happy snaps for the local rags and Soldier Magazine (staffed by idiots).
Same as any other large corporate entity, the Army needs PR. If there's no footage of an event these days, it may as well have not happened.
 
All I can say to that is take care.
 
I'm like everyone else out there - once the job takes over, that's all you're thinking about.
That's why we have back-up - once my phot-head is on, I'm oblivious to all else.
 
Thanks for the reply mate. Like I say I wasn't trying to undermine the work you do, I just didn't understand why the Army required photographers, and why they were passing the shots onto the media...

I didn't know there were no civilian journalists at the start of Gulf War one etc. Plus most of the other stuff you mentioned.
I suppose it stands to reason that the army needs PR, and I think it just goes to show how distanced we are from it all, being safe and warm in our homes.

Your work is definately an interesting read :) Especially as it's something that we read about Iraq day after day in the newspaper, with no thought to where the photographs are coming from.
 
cheers for that dude. Made very definately interesting reading. A good friend of mine has done some work with Tom Stoddart and he was very badly injured in Yugoslavia a while back so I'm very aware of the dangers of your job. In some ways I envy the work that you guys do but I'm not sure I could do it.
 
The best photographers of this type I know at the moment are Jim Nachtwey (probably the best-known as well, but suffering a bit from over-exposure :) these days) and a Bosnian guy called Damir Sagolj, who works for Reuters. His tuff is utterly stunning and I had the pleasure of working with him in Iraq last December during the Fallujah and Camp Dogwood episodes.

My old Boss got shot in the head in Bosnia in '96, I think it was, trying to photograph the RSM of the unit he was with attempting to shoot a stray dog that their Warrior had just run over.
Everyone was laughing at the RSM who was crying so much at the dog's predicament that he kept missing. No-one noticed they were being shot at til it was too late. Oh how we laughed! As he said later in hospital, he didn't mind the injury so much as the fact that it was while he was trying to get such a crap photo. No Pulitzer winner that one!
 
Arkady said:
I keep a (very poor quality) clip of the daniel Berg beheading on my laptop, just to remind me of the people we're dealing with. I don't think I'm being too melodramatic in saying that I will not end my life butchered like a hog in an orange jump-suit.
Click to expand...

I don't think I could stand to watch that clip again - ever.

The other clip which always makes me want to cry is the two army guys who ran into the IRA funeral procession and ended up dead. Every time I see the poor sod drop that gun I want to pick it up for him. Bastards! :censored:
 
CT said:
I don't think I could stand to watch that clip again - ever.

The other clip which always makes me want to cry is the two army guys who ran into the IRA funeral procession and ended up dead. Every time I see the poor sod drop that gun I want to pick it up for him. Bastards! :censored:
Click to expand...

Yeah that one was terrible, unfortunately I think everyone knew at that point what their fate would be :angryfire
 
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