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Six new Coolpix cameras announced today! Hot Dog! Part 3-in-1

Before we get to the P7100, let’s rub a peeper over the S6200, S8200, and S100.

The S100 is a touch-screen compact packing a 16MP CMOS sensor, lens specs that look similar to the AW100 (28-140 equiv, f/3.9-4.8), optical image stabilization, and MPO format 3d images. That touch-control screen is a 3.5″ 820,000 dot OLED. Shiny.

The S6200 is a compact sporting a 10x optical zoom (25-250 equivalent, f/3.2-5.8) in a 1″ x 2.3″ x 3.7″ frame. The LCD screen is 2.7″ diagonal and holds 230,000 dots.

The S8200 is a compact SuperZoom -and by Super I mean 14x Optical Zoom (because digital zooming is still kinda baloney) – which makes for a 25-350mm f/3.3-5.9  equivalent lens.  Shooting modes like HDR, Easy Panorama, and 1080p HD video all make an appearance.  Pictures after the break.

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Six new Coolpix cameras announced today! Hot Dog! Part 2

And now we’ll take a look at their newest Coolpix with an integrated projector. Those of you with dull lives and long memories may remember the first Nikon with projector and the video Derek and I generated for it .

Ah, the sweetness of things past.

The S1200pj has a lot more going for it than the initial offering. For one it’ll take video input from an assortment of Apple iProducts – the iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®, iPod nano®, and iPod® photo. Pretty much any flat surface can become a 5′ diagonal display for your comicbook reader or any video not streaming via Flash.

Pictures after the break.

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Nikon Announces New 40mm DX Micro Lens

Nikon today announced a new addition to it’s DX crop-frame lens line up, the AF-S DX Micro-NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G. As a DX lens, this is designed for the crop factor bodies, and will only work on an FX full-frame body if you’re willing to accept a more than halving of your available megapixels. But, if you shoot DX, this is an effective 60mm f2.8 macro, filling a gap on the short macro end that has been a niggle in the DX line-up for a while. It’s got a maximum magnification ratio of 1:1, although I don’t know if that’s native or after the crop factor. If it’s native, that makes the effective reproduction 1.5:1, which is pretty swank for a lens that’ll cost under $300. The AF-S indicates the inclusion of an internal silent focus motor, and gurantees it’ll work even with the smaller bodies like the D3100 and D5100, which otherwise lack an AF drive motor.

You can of course preorder one from us by hitting the external link.



VR II vs VR II: Too Many Twos

Photo By Nikon USA

This is a topic of some real concern among a lot of our customers, and it’s not adequately explained by Nikon anywhere, so, we’re taking it upon ourselves to help make sense of this Nikon VR II nonsense that’s confusing so many people.

Here’s what’s happening: Nikon has recently started making revisions to some of its most popular lenses, and so far exclusively to popular lenses featuring its VR technology. Thus, something like the AF-S 70-200mm f2.8 IF-ED VR gets an update and becomes the AF-S 70-200mm f2.8 ED VR II. The II at the end is added to indicate this is the second version of the 70-200mm VR lens. Makes sense.

The fly in the ointment is before Nikon started updating these lenses, it quietly and less publicly revised its actual VR system used in all VR lenses. The new system offers a theoretical 4 stop advantage, while the original VR system could only promise 3. What did they name this new, improved technology? Why, VR II, of course.

So, what you end up with is this odd scenario where all current mark II lenses use the new and improved VR II technology, but there are a good number of lenses that use VR II technology for their first revision. Since the mark IIs are so well-reviewed, there’s a lot of excitement when a lens becomes a “VR II.” And a lot of ensuing confusion when it’s just the second-generation tech, and not a second-generation VR lens.

Still confusing? Fair enough. Let’s take a look at a sample Nikon product page here and break it down. In the graphic below, I’ve highlight the key things to note. The name of the lens series is highlighted green. The current revision of that lens series is highlighted reddish-pink. Any mention of the second generation VR technology giving you 4 stops instead of the old 3 stops is noted in blue.

Now, if you look, what you’ll notice is this:

  • If the “II” appears in the Product Name, it indicates it’s the second version of a lens that happens to have VR tech.
  • If the “II” appears in the Description, it indicates that it uses the 4 stop second generation VR technology.

Since we’re all about helping out, I went through the current selection of 24 VR-enabled lenses Nikon offers and figured out which ones use which technology, and I present the results to you below.

 

VR - Nikon VR (Vibration Reduction) Image StabilizationVibration Reduction, engineered specifically for each VR NIKKOR lens, enables handheld shooting at up to 3 shutter speeds slower than would otherwise be possible, assuring dramatically sharper still images and video capture.

VR II - Nikon VR II (Vibration Reduction) Image Stabilization Vibration Reduction, engineered specifically for each VR NIKKOR lens, enables handheld shooting at up to 4 shutter speeds slower than would otherwise be possible, assuring dramatically sharper still images and video capture.

Notice that both revisions of the 300mm VR use VR II tech, despite only the newer being named VR II. That’s why this distinction is important to understand, right there. to review:

“VR II” in a Product Name means the second version of a VR-enabled lens

“VR II” in any Description or Spec means second-generation VR technology offering 4 stops advantage instead of 3.

We hope that helps.



Nikon and Roberts present a Special P7000 Photo Walk Bonanza


 

Nick and myself are pleased to be working with Nikon to offer you all a chance to come to a very exciting photo walk special. Nikon is going to come out and bring up to 25 of their top-of-the-line pro Coolpix P7000 compact cameras for people to borrow and use for a couple hours. There’ll be a short presentation at the beginning from their tech rep, a cool guy named Jason, to get you familiar with what the cameras are capable of, and then you’ll be free to grab one and roam around shooting whatever you care to for a couple hours. And then, oh yes, and then we’re going to have a photo contest for people who attended to submit to, and the winner will get a $100 gift card to their favorite camera store (no, us, sillies). All attendees will also get a special coupon from Nikon for $25 off a P7000, in case they decide they’d like to add one to their own collection.

This’ll make the second photo walk Nikon has made it out for, and the last one was a blast. I expect this one will also be great. Plus, come on, chance to win a gift card and play with someone else’s toys. You know you want to.

The details are:

Wednesday June 29th, 2011

6pm – ?

Holliday Park (6363 Spring Mill Road, Indianapolis, IN 46260)

As always, no cost to attend. We might have to reserve slots, though, because of the limit on cameras, so, RSVP to us in the comments, on the FB, on Twitter (@robertscamera) or email me at dmartin@robertsimaging.com. Let us know you want in.

And, be sure to thank Nikon for generously making this event possible.



Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f1.8G Now In Stock

If you’ve been saving up your moneys and patiently waiting for Nikon’s new, pocket-book friendly nifty fifty, the AF-S Nikkor 50mm f1.8G… well, you’re in luck. It’s in stock now. And, I think that’s all that needs to be said. What? Post a bit short? OK, fine. But I tried to end it with civility, remember that.

Ahem.

Saved my pennies and I saved my dimes

For I knew there would be a time

When I would buy a brand new fifty-prime.

Thank you everybody, and good-night!



Nikon Comes Clean With New 50mm f1.8G

So, Nikon’s finally gone real with its new AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G lens. But that’s not the impressive bit, no sir. What impresses me is they managed to eke out four paragraphs of press release about this refresh to a very established lens type. Notably, in this case, the biggest thing to see is the “AF-S” sitting out front of the name that indicates that this lens has it’s own internal silent-wave focus motor, which’ll let it work with their entry level bodies like the new D5100, and the D3100. Really, though, you should be switching to AF-S even for bodies that can use the old system, because AF-S is much quieter and faster anyway. Also, the lack of a “DX” in the name indicates this’ll work on all Nikon bodies, both crop and full-frame.

There’s a press release and MTF chart after the jump. And, in keeping with the general affordability of nifty fifties, the MSRP on this is $219.95. Which is cheap. Like the budgie.

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Nikon D7000 Gets Second Firmware Update

Judging by the sales figures here, there’re quite a few more of you out there with D7000s than there were the last time we announced a firmware for it. So, the now larger number of you are in luck, there’s a shiny new update for you fixing a whole slew of niggles. Via Nikon:

  • Noise reduction processing is now performed with shutter speeds slower than 1 s (previously 8 s) when On is selected for Long Exp. NRin order to reduce the bright spots that occur with shooting of still images at slow shutter speeds.
  • An issue that prevented the opening of movies recorded with the D7000 in certain movie editing software applications has been resolved.
  • When the camera was connected to a television via the A/V cable and a movie was played back, playback was normal the first time but when the movie was played two or more times, the sound was played back at extremely low volume and seemed to play intermittently.  This issue has been resolved.
  • When white balance for RAW images created using the camera’s image overlay function was fine tuned with Capture NX 2 or ViewNX 2, the images acquired a magenta cast.  This issue has been resolved.
  • An issue that caused 0.00” to be displayed for heading information when the GP-1 GPS unit was connected to the camera has been resolved so that —.– is now displayed.
  • When Viewfinder virtual horizon was the role assigned to the Fn button or the preview button and the applicable button was pressed, errors in the virtual horizon indicator were displayed.  This issue has been resolved.
  • The following errors in Help displays have been resolved.
    • “Maximum sensitivity” help was displayed for shooting menu>ISO sensitivity settings>On or Off help.
    • German help displayed “Select focus priority for AF-S mode.” for Custom Settings>a1: AF-C priority selection help

Sound groovy to you? Good, hit the external link to nab it for yourself.

 



Nikon Upgrades D5000, Logically Calls It D5100

So, just because the D3000 got updated waaaaaaay back in August, we’re not going to say the D5100 has been due for a little while now. No sir. We’re above that here at Roberts. But, the high-end entry level D5000 has now officially seen an update, called, yes, the D5100.

So, what’s on offer here? Well, the megapixels are from 12.3 to 16.2, for starters. which puts another Nikon camera playing around up there at that resolution, a move they’ve been slow to make. And to go with it, the native ISO range is now 100-6,400, a 2-stop increase (one up, one down). Push ISO will carry you all the way out to 25,600, a number so big I have to double-check it every time I use it. All of which is probably due to the Expeed 2 processor, instead of the older Expeed of the D5000.

The video mode is now up to full 1080 HD finally, and it’ll be a bit better (I feel) for being pumped through a proper, side-swinging tilt-swivel LCD (instead of the D5000′s oft-criticized bottom hinged one.) The resolution on the LCD is up to 921,000 dots, which should pretty much guarantee that your pictures never look as good on your monitor as they did on the camera. Oh, and they added contrast-detect AF in live view mode. Nifty.

Otherwise, 11 points of autofocus, 4 frames per second, a 3-shot HDR mode, and a foray into Olympus’ world with a new “Effects” position on the mode dial, for such fun options as selective color, color sketch, miniature, and night vision. I hear these work in both still and video, for all your artistic vision needs. For you shooters without a bag full of AF-S lenses, the body still doesn’t have an internal focus motor, so your older glass will work, but focusing will be the old-fashioned way (with your hand).

It’ll be available body only ($799), or as a kit with 18-55mm ($899). Press release and images after the jump.

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