byJoeyBaker - Latest Comments

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Ata — Thu, 26 May 2011 03:41:14 -0000

Hi there. I've had the same issue with that AE-L button. I was out shooting wildlife in Namibia in harsh-ish sunlight recently (where I felt almost obliged to use spot and AE-L) and pure desperation got me to thinking - AF-on only focus coupled with AE-L lock on the shutter release is really all you need for such situations. Perhaps you could use the same settings? You're stuck with "focus-recompose" of course, unless you're up for the 3D-tracking...

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Sean — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 07:34:42 -0000

I haven't seen it posted in the comments, but as a D3 owner who's used the D3s for film and stills, I'm hoping bigtime for 1080/60p and 720/120p (considering Canon already does 720/60p. I've been considering Red's EPIC which does 5k 120p RAW stream, WAY WAY beyond what I'm asking for. However, when you have the correct shutter angle at 24p, you're using 1/50 which isn't really ideal at grabbing images out of the film that are tack sharp given any sort of movement.

I want an AF illuminator similar to what you see on the SB900.... a pattern projected onto my subjects. I do weddings where the light is so low the D3 has trouble finding focus... Yeah, that's really low light.

I want an internal wireless transmitter that will trigger pocketwizards and flashpoppers. The latter can actually send TTL to the flash wirelessly.

Somehow, they have to figure out how to get phase detection focus to work with the mirror up so you can track subjects in film mode.... or use some sort of stereo setup for realtime 3D focus tracking.

Mirror up switch so you aren't eating the battery holding the mirror up for filming.

Yes yes yes on 12MP if it means they can increase ISO performance. Then again, check out the Red Epic.

Again with the Red Epic, they're showing 18 stops of dynamic range. That blows away the range of the D3 by a HUGE margin. Last I remember, the D3 is around 11-12? More dynamic range, Nikon.... or, maybe just buy Red's Mysterium-X system and toss it in your body. I don't care if the D4 with these features costs $10-$20k. I'm that serious about technology!

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Joey Baker — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:01:03 -0000

Please try to keep things civil.

Moaning has nothing to do with it. I posted this nearly two years ago as my wishlist of any feature I'd like to see in the D4. Among the things I think Nikon could do is add a bigger ISO button – since I use that button all the time.

Facial recognition would also be fantastic – as an option. Your D3 has the option to do time-lapse, and bulb mode. No one forces you to use it, but it is nice to have.

In the same vein, I think that the vertical grip could be improved. It works right now but it's not as comfortable as it could be.

Thanks for the comment!

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Daveteauk — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:16:16 -0000

OPEN THE BACK??? You don't even know where the sensor is.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Daveteauk — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:12:09 -0000

Makesense is mostly right. Small ISO button? Stop moaning. Face recognition - I can recognise the face 'I' want myself thank you. Vertical grip is fine. 15MP should be perfect with a clean ISO image at 12500. In camera VR is a DUMB idea - just more moaning for moanings sake. DEFINITELY in built i-TTL transmitter. One more of my own - more robust paint: mine's worn through on the left side by having it on my shoulder, and it's only got c10k images on it! Can't wait for it (the D4) though - wanna buy a low mileage D3?

Re: A Web Design Critique of the Newsweek Redesign

UK Website Design Firm — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:20:46 -0000

Anyone does mistakes, the major idea would be to find and fix its as soon as possible, right?

Re: A Web Design Critique of the Newsweek Redesign

Naples Website Design — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:20:33 -0000

It seems that there are lots of improvement already in the design of the Newsweek site. I know those css issues can be fixed as soon as possible because I notice that it's only a minor problem.

Re: Why I Think Public Parts Ought to Include a Generational Focus

Jeff Jarvis — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:06:49 -0000

Aha, that's what you mean. Yes, I'm trying to convince everyone; that's the thesis of the book. I"m not necessarily surveying grandmas to see whether the disconnects are; I'm trying to convince them of the benefits of publicness before the privacy nutters get to her.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Makesense — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:32:20 -0000

Some interesting points in your post.
Re: OK button, the centre button on my D3 operates exactly as the OK button, it just doesn't have OK written in the middle.
Re: Small ISO button. I completely disagree with your view. Did you actually check whether the top LCD and viewfinder displayed the ISO setting? I have RRS L-Bracket fitted to my D3 and have no problem locating the ISO button.
Re: i-TTL. I half agree with your point here. Certainly NO to pop-up flash, but Nikon should be improving i-TTL towards RF and increase the range from camera to speedlight.
Re: GPS. YES, Yes & yes!
Re: Face recognition. If included 99.99% of real pro photographers would turn it OFF! Can you imagine journalists with 100's of people in front of them and the camera is going to decide which person gets focussed. Just think this through!
Re: Verticle grip. The multi-selector could be a little closer for moving the focus point, otherwise the grip is fine. What about a control to switch between L&P format and include 16:9 format similar to Leica.
Re: Previews. Why did you think you were looking at anything other than a jpg. This is a very well documented fact.
Re: Megapixels. Upto 15 max. Leave the point&shoot brigade (canon) to play with themselves on this. The higher the MP the higher lens quality required. Our team have achieved this, while the P&S brigade in principle have, but can't get their cameras to focus to prove it!
Re: ISO. Continued refinement required. The numbers represent the 'in-spec' range of the camera, low and high boost settings are clearly delimited and the maths is dead easy!
Re: Menu system. If you try the canon menu system, you'll never have a problem with Nikon menu system again.
Re: In camera VR. Clearly you've yet to master the physics of optical design. When you do, you'll understand why you wouldn't put VR in the body. C&N have this right.

Re: Facebook’s Problem Isn’t Privacy, It’s Lack of Initiative

Joey Baker — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:22:50 -0000

Great point. I've added a section to the post.

Re: Facebook’s Problem Isn’t Privacy, It’s Lack of Initiative

stereojam — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 08:05:29 -0000

great read.

you argument makes perfect sense.
I'm curious to what kind of features can facebook really offer without invading the privacy too much?

Re: Google Wave for Journalism, a #Hackshackers Event

Joey Baker — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:24:25 -0000

Thanks so much for the response – your follow up with us has been fantastic. I'd like to say again how much I appreciated the time you put in with us – and to Wave, which is a product I'm truly excited by.

I don't dispute that Wave makes an excellent backchannel for a conference – it's without a doubt a better final result than Twitter. As a matter of form though, what I found objectionable was the complete lack of acknowledgement that Twitter serves this function today, and Wave likely just isn't ready to take over. Aside from the general complexity differences between Wave and Twitter, there is no easy way to integrate them. Even with the bot you mention (which sounds nifty!) there doesn't seem to be a way to push info back out to Twitter where the conversation is currently taking place.

And that leads to the issue I outlined above – I grant that presenting Wave as a medium agnostic has advantages, but it doesn't reflect the reality of the real world. To pull it off, Wave will need a UI that is on par with Apple – and that just isn't the case (currently).
—————————————————————
Though I take the point about using Wave for event planning, it's consistently the best/only use case I hear for Wave. Which is why I suggested above, that perhaps that ought to be the marketing strategy for Wave. If it's not an all-in-one solution right now, that's okay, it will work toward that. Under promise, over deliver.
—————————————————————
I constantly have to remind myself that Wave is just a preview. I see the potential, and I want so much to use the third generation UI that I'm sure y'all at Google are working on. Thanks again to all at Google!

Re: Google Wave for Journalism, a #Hackshackers Event

pamelafox — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:35:57 -0000

Re the conference use case-

I think that Twitter will always be a great backchannel for quoting conference speakers and tweeting about what you find interesting. I've actually created a Twitter search bot to supplement my conference bot, but didn't show that. (It would pull in all the tweets for a particular hashtag for a timerange).

The waves serve as a good way for taking notes on the whole event, for collating links to resources, and then also for letting people have more conversations, take surveys, make plans for pub crawls, etc.

Re visual layout -

I didn't mean to skip that question, it was a good question. We've looked into more control of visual layout, but it will take some time to figure out how to do that with an easy-to-understand UI. (Or how to only expose something like that to power users). As you've seen, the Wave UI is complex enough on its own.

I've taken down notes of the questions/concerns (both from the wave & twitter backchannel) regarding Wave for journalism & shared them with the rest of the team. It was interesting to hear what journalists are most concerned about & interested in -- I usually only hear from the developer technology crowd. Thanks for coming, and for sharing your feedback here.

Re: Google Wave for Journalism, a #Hackshackers Event

burtherman — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:41:20 -0000

Joey,

Glad you could make it and enjoyed the event -- and hope we can talk more when you come next time. I totally agree with many of your points here.

I was a bit disappointed that their presentation became such a long product pitch and that we didn't have more chances to interact and explore real use cases relating to journalism. They could have started much more dramatically -- for example, by talking about how Wave was used in the Seattle manhunt. Instead, they went into an long explanation of features.

I did learn from their demo how to better use Wave. But if all users require so much hand holding to unlock the real value, they have a lot more work to do on to make the UI more intuitive. Just creating a public Wave and pointing people to it was odd (add the Public contact to the Wave?)

As one friend said to me, it's sort of like a concept car now -- those far fetched visions of the future that automakers put out at auto shows but might never really get made.

Burt

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Antonio VI — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:47:39 -0000

nice review.... never thought seen this side of the d3x... well im saving my money then for something that would be worht buying with the things that should be well considered... hey what do you think about the d300/s???

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

PhotoExtremist — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:49:23 -0000

Very well written post you have here. I agree with you on most things except the megapixel part and excluding the pop-up flash. And the movie mode has lots of room for improvement before it should legitimately be added to the D4.

Camera companies and consumers seem to be more interested in the physical design of the camera rather than what functionality it has to offer. I wrote a post on why I am disappointed with the D300s/D3 as well, you may want to give it a read and tell me what you think:

http://photoextremist.com/2...

I am going to rewrite it again, but only in a shorter list but with more detailed descriptions, just like you did with your article here.

Thanks, CYA!
Evan

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Timo — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:16:21 -0000

I shoot mostly sports, and i'd be seriously happy if they could add option where one can store say 3 different exposures so switching between speed blurs and stopping the action could be done with function button and main dial. And what about a completely floating focusing point which could be placed anywhere in focusing screen? Upgradeable sensor and big enough buffer so there's no need for a buffer upgrade would be really cool as well. I loved the D2X crop mode for a long glass, of course there's always the option to crop in a post, but if pixels go up around 14-16mp, then it would be nice to have an option for both 1.5x and 2x crops.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Andreas Buchmueller — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:14:02 -0000

Joey, respectfully, I believe that such relaxed view is the reason why there is no improvement in this area. The dust reduction feature of the D3 is sure not more effective than removing dust with compressed air. Although compressed air removes dust particles, these particles often leave an oily residue behind, that has to be removed manually. With the current design of the D3 this is very difficult.

Re: MobileMe Reviewed

jmueller — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:29:39 -0000

Functionality in mobile.me truly is a shame! There are so many things that are so useful and not implemented (eg. alerts on calendar items, search) - I wonder how a company that states for themselves that they "know what users want" can miss these essential functions?! Still - years after mobileme has be rolled out no sight of these functions.... *sigh*

Now the next thing that truly bugs me is the fact that you get logged out a lot of the email application. Or when you edit a contact. Click save > next thing b00m you are logged out. Major usability flaw there!
What just happened to me was that I wanted to empty my trash folder. I switch to the folder and pick "empty folder" from the dropdown menu. Nothing happens... I click it again. Next thing ... ty apple, ty! .. guess what: my thrash folder AND my inbox folder are empty! WTF?! These are things that are truuuuuuly unforgivable! This is not a user friendly behavior, apple! This is reproducible and probably (imho) due to the slow server environment and flaws / bugs in the ajax framework that mobileme runs on top of.

Re: You Can’t Make Abundancy Scarce

The Wham — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:22:57 -0000

I think one book that should be read by all of you is "For God, Country & Coca-Cola".

There is a lot to be learned of the history of the print industry, and how it was initially propped by manufacturers such as Coca-cola. Amazing read if you can find the book.

Great UI and content doesn't correlate with money all the time. It is pretty much luck and long-term industrial partnerships and perceptions that shapes the good companies from the bad. Myspace had a horrible UI for many years; before Facebook, it was the most popular site on the net.

Craigslist UI could be confused with UNIX Pine email software; its simplicity is amazing, but the complexity is non-existent.

I think the real issue here is how to initially control the revenue structure in balance with the UI. The initial control, such as ads on the side, or paying for content, or forced control, is key for media companies to get their revenue back.

The RIAA wasn't wrong in their quest to consolidate the abundance; where they failed is controlling the whole music structure. If the RIAA started enacting copying rules that book publishers had in place for many years, but simultaneously set up content-rich hubs online, then they would've won.

Even though they lost, their imprint on the media industry in terms of abundance is great. Google's video/audio imprinting technology probably wouldn't have been created if it wasn't for the lawsuits or danger of people sharing content illegally. The fall of Oink, the perils of Piratebay, and the loss of population in Soulseek, and the gain of marketers/hackers/media agents in surveying torrents shows that although slow and full of mistakes, the big wigs did gain a lot of ground in the 21st century.

Newspapers have lost because their models don't work ( as well ) with the internet. But with Google's partnerships, and their technology, the UI might come from Google in a revenue-sharing plan. If this ever happens with even 3-4 big newspaper companies, god forbid, then traditional media could bring in the reins on abundance.

Always look at today's news, with APs new guidelines on word use for their articles, to Facebook's removing links from specific sites. If all of these things come together, content will be re-controlled by the big media centers again.

From that point, who knows what will happen. One thing I do know, the free ride will come to an end in the next few years

Re: Penguins Are Way Harder to Figure Out Than Humans

Katie Adam — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:38:33 -0000

he he although this is not funny, you are right penguins look exactly the same. How on earth do you distinguish between them and Im wondering apart form male and female is there any other reason example do they have some sort of genetic reason we may want to distinguish them unless they are going to become extinct.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Ru Anderson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:43:16 -0000

SILENT SHUTTER!!!!!

(why not remove it ? oh - sorry is that sacrilegious? )

If I can have 25K + ISO - so I'm shooting in near dark and have a cute pic of my friendly neighbourhood badger lined up - the last thing I want is the tell tale nikon rifle shot of a shutter movement.

optional switch to lower megapix count would be a possible half way house. My "Art" shots can be 24 and my general shhoting can be 12/14.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Ru Anderson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:37:13 -0000

SILENT SHUTTER!!!!!

(why not remove it ? oh - sorry is that sacrilegious? )

optional switch to lower megapix count would be a possible half way house. My "Art" shots can be 24 and my general shhoting can be 12/14.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Joey Baker — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:35:40 -0000

Thankfully, they’ve addressed this in the D3s with dust reduction.

Re: Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Joey Baker — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:33:26 -0000

Can’t say I have any experience with the D700, but I’m pretty sure it’s similar to the D300 body. If that’s the case, I can’t say I share your problem, but I can see where it might arise.

As to the Canon scroll wheel – Hell no! I love Nikon’s dual wheel system – it beats Canon’s iPod imitation every time. Not that I’m a heavy Canon user, but every time I try their cameras, I find my face moving the dial when I use the viewfinder. Not to mention the extreme lack of flexibility when compared to Nikon’s 4-way controller.

Sidenote: let’s not turn this into a Nikon/Canon debate. kthnxbai :)