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Nikon D2X - user input please!
Any of you who have used or are using the Nikon D2X. I am looking into purchasing one. Wondering if there are any drawbacks or negative reports. I think I am pretty much aware of the positive side, but with everything in this day and age, there are almost always things you find out AFTER you have made a purchase! I hate it when that happens!  Any feedback greatly appreciated! I know there was a thread on this previously, but I haven't been able to find it! Thanx in advance for your input! Karlton Jun 30 05 11:01 am Link One guy's opinion - buy it NOW. I can't find any drawbacks besides size and weight. I've always preferred Nikon's smaller bodies (the f100 over the f5 for example) but Nikon's gone and given me the finger on that plan. The extra pixels are definitely doing their job, the skin tones are better than any of Nikon's digital cameras, the speed is completely absurdly excessive but fun to have, the autofocus, white balance, exposure are hugely better than any of the other Nikons. It sure does make my wrist and arm sore at the end of a day of shooting with my 28-70AFS - most medium format camera/lens combos are lighter. Ah, forgot two other drawbacks. The rule of thumb of 1/ISOspeed for hand holding is inadequate with the D2x. All those pixels packed into that APS-sized frame means gobs of resolution...and based on experience, it really requires 1/1.5*ISOspeed or better to hand hold and guarantee perfectly sharp images at 100%. With the D100 or D1x, I (and a lot of other folks) experienced that we could hand hold at much lower speeds than with film and get away with it. Not any more. Second drawback: Any CF card less than 1gb is uselessly small. 2gb is kind of the minimum now. OUCH screamed my wallet. Got a bunch of 512mb cards to sell now. Get a second battery. It runs a long time on one battery, but all that means for me is that when it DOES get low, I'll have forgotten that it should get low. Spare battery has saved my bacon twice already. Jun 30 05 11:43 am Link Thanx Ed....anyone else? Jun 30 05 12:37 pm Link Can you message me more info on the 512 cards? Jun 30 05 12:43 pm Link I use the D70 and from what i hear the D series are all very good. I can tell you the D70 is very good though, runs smooth and no drawbacks as of yet. The card problem might be solved with a image storage unit. I bought one and i use it alot. It is a 20GB unit and loads the photos in about 20 seconds from the card. Of course it does everything else also, my son loves the games on it and movies. Look into a storage unit, high quality one and you will be happy with that instead of huge cards. Out in the field you will love it, trust me on that one. Jun 30 05 12:48 pm Link I wish I had read this post earlier. I'm a D70 user too and just today bought a 2nd 1gig card. (waiting for the 4 gig cards to come down.) Can you please comment more on the storage unit you have? If this is too much off topic... please email me. Thx Jun 30 05 03:52 pm Link haha...slightly off topic...however...if someone else can get something they need from it...I am fine with that! Glad this thread is worth something to others! DUAL PURPOSE!...lol Jun 30 05 04:11 pm Link Thanks Karlton..... and by the way, I know several who own a D2X and have nothing but phrase. I've seen the pics and the quality is superb... i'd buy one if I were you... only wish I could afford one. Let us know how it turns out. Jun 30 05 04:38 pm Link Posted by photog2b: Let me put the card size into perspective. Put a 512 card in a d2x shooting RAW, you get 24 shots on a card. Put a 1gb card in, shoot compressed RAW, you get 85-90 shots (compression of each image varies...) But the uncompressed raw is only 43 shots. Jun 30 05 05:24 pm Link Sounds like you could use some form of alternative storage too Ed. Digital technology is really eating into memory capacities. And to think my first computer had a 10MB hard drive. =o) Jun 30 05 06:05 pm Link Well at least I got some input!...lol... Thanx! Jun 30 05 10:03 pm Link Great camera, lousy Nikon Capture software. If you are a RAW shooter (and personally, I don't see a reason to be - maybe someone can convince me otherwise), be sure to have a decked out G5 2.5Ghz Dual Processor with like 4GB RAM if you want to use Nikon's Capture software to tweak your files. Caputure is the slowest software I have ever used (I'm talkin' worse than Photoshop 5 on a Performa 650... remember those?). Try Bibble or something else if you like. If Nikon was really smart, they would have Adobe write their software. My recommendations for the camera - turn off in-camera noise reduction and sharpening. Do those in post-production. Other than that, yeah, killer camera. :-) Jun 30 05 10:49 pm Link Posted by Tom Weis: Capture is perhaps the worst piece of software I've ever used, and I used to be a beta tester for a lot of garbage software. Not only is it slow, but opening more than two or three files makes it blow up. It can't even background save, which is a kindergarten programmer task. Truly apallingly bad. Also, Nikon's Picture Project image management software that comes bundled with the D2x now is equally awful - almost everyone I know has uninstalled it. Nikon View, on the other hand, must have been written by someone outside of Nikon because it's fast, it works, it's easy to understand. Download it before Nikon makes it go away to try to make us use Picture Project. Jul 01 05 07:57 am Link the D2x is an awesome camera. the more i use it, the more i love it. i have two of them. the files are gorgeous and clean. i shoot jpegs. a 4GB card gets like 800 images. the camera is so responsive... the focus is lightning fast. the exposure meter is very accurate and if there is one drawback... i would say it's the auto white balance. i just manual set the WB and sometimes i even use custom WB. the cloudy sky setting (even when it's not cloudy, gives a nice warm skintone! [ b ] www.thebecker.com Jul 01 05 10:46 am Link Thanx...you guys are convincing me! I have been researching for over a month and it appeared to be what I am looking for...a little pricey however worth it... Thanx again! Jul 01 05 10:54 am Link I am in love with my D2X. I also think the AWB is pretty good....then again, I never use it, but I did test it. I'm an 'all manual' guy. Agree with the others on the capture software though. Jul 01 05 10:59 am Link I have tried to follow the recommendation on the Nikon View software and wanted to download it... the problem is that first, I can't find the serial number on my D70 and it seems to be a European model... so, Nikon doesn't allow the software download. Any suggestions? Udo Jul 01 05 11:16 am Link where's the best place to get one? I'm looking to buy. I'm in the UK though! Jul 01 05 12:05 pm Link Borrow somebody's coolpix serial number (you need one to use all the time because there are upgrades pretty frequently, still.) Or, go to one of the Nikon Europe or Asia sites. Would help if you knew from where in Europe, as they're starting to guard cross border there. Here's Nikon UK download site. http://www.europe-nikon.com/category.as … 2&catId=93 You may also try Nikon's Singapore support site, as they seem to allow downloads from anyplace other than US. If you go to nikon.com and select the country choices, you can get there. You're going to have some interesting issues with firmware upgrades...they are actually building codes for ship-to country into the firmware... Jul 01 05 12:25 pm Link Thanks ED; I am actually currently trying to find out from which country in Europe the camera is. I found the serial number, it's ingraved so small into the body, you can almost not see it at all. May have to contact the store I bought it from. Cheers Udo Jul 01 05 12:31 pm Link Problem solved... Nikon Canada let's you download the software. Jul 01 05 03:22 pm Link Forget the Nikon software. Upgrade your D70 firmware so that it effectively becomes a D70S - and then use Pixmantec's RawShooter Essentilas 2005. It is free (yes!) and you can download it from here: http://pixmantec.com Philip Jul 01 05 04:34 pm Link Posted by prb: I got to see how I upload the firmware... what does the upgrade effectively do? Jul 01 05 04:40 pm Link Posted by prb: Actually pixmantec rawshooter is not FREE - it is trial software. Jul 01 05 04:43 pm Link You can find the firmware upgrade & instructions here: (Just copy and then paste in this link) http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin/ni … _topview=1 Jul 01 05 05:48 pm Link I had the opportunity to spend some time with a D2x a while back. It's a big, heavy camera...especially when you have something like the 80-200 f/2.8 on it. However, the ergonomics are outstanding and the camera handles very well. Storage is a problem. A 1 gig card evaporates quickly. Slow cards can't keep up with the buffer dump in high speed crop mode. If you buy a D2x, plan on buying several multigig cards. The colors are great. Compared to shots from the D2x, shots from my D100 look anemic. The D2x's WB seems to tend toward the warm side in comparison to the D100 at any particular canned setting. The big viewfinder is a joy compared to the itty bitty viewfinders on the D100 and D70. It's just like shooting with my F3. The only real downside I could find in the short time I used the camera was that I wished the high speed crop area was delineated better in the viewfinder. Jul 02 05 07:46 am Link Thanx for your input...I sincerely appreciate it! Anyone else? I am about to take the "plunge"! Jul 04 05 02:08 pm Link I second Ed's comments on the D2X. It's a wonderful camera and I don't know what I did without it. I do find that Nikon Capture is slow but the files look much better out of it than out of any other RAW converter I have tried. AND Pixmantec's Rawshooter Essentials is free, the newsletter from Pixmantec reports that the download thing says trial because the host requires it to say that or you have to pay for it. It's either paid for or trial as far as they are concerned. Pixmantec reports that the Essentials version is, and will stay free. They are working on an even better version of Rawshooter that is not free and has many more features and I think it's supposed to be faster also. Ernie Jul 04 05 06:16 pm Link |
