Nikon Camera, Lens and Teleconverter Extravaganza

Yesterday, fellow-Nikonian, Rick Hulbert and I pooled our cameras, our lenses and our teleconverters, and over the course of five and a half hours -- yes, five and a half hours -- we configured a staggering number of combinations.


Oh, yeah. Did I mention we'd already spent eight hours at the Vancouver Photo Workshops Nude Seminar? Rick and I were helped by two other professional photographers and one stunning model. The shoot was done in the Vancouver Photo Workshop's studio with a concrete floor. Major kudos to Marc Koegel for his participation.  


http://www.vancouverphotoworkshops.com/  


Our set-up consisted of mounting the camera bodies and lenses on a Gitzo 5 series carbon-fiber tripod fitted with a Wimberley Version II gimbal head. The tripod was weighted with sandbags, its position marked, and it was positioned exactly sixty feet (we measured) from the model's position, which was also marked.  


Every camera, a D3, a D3s, and D3x was set to neutral, and we triggered each shot with the mirror up and cable release with a one-second delay. We took two shots in raw with every combination. Every shot was done at 200 ISO, at f/11, and the sync speed of the camera. We used a single 16 GB card for every camera. We used four teleconverters, the Nikon 1.4, 1.7 and the last two versions of the 2.0.  


The lenses tested were Version I and II of the 70-200mm VR f/2.8 (all TC's tested at 200mm), the 200mm f/2, the 300mm f/2.8 VR, the 200-400mm f/4 VR (TC's tested at 200, 300 and 400), the 400mm f/2.8 VR, the 500mm f/4 VR and the 600mm f/4 VR. Above is an iPhone image of the line-up.  


Because of the staggering number of images involved in this test (and the potential bandwidth usage involved in people perusing the images), I am going to create a Gallery with full-size, uncropped images on my home site, www.vanishingtattoo.com. I'll post the Link to the Gallery when we have the images up. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, check out our lovely model, Marissa from the photo shoot earlier in the weekend.


iPhone and Nikons and... you get the picture!


-- Vince Hemingson