I received my Nikon D1 digital camera in early March, 2000 and I have to say I am really excited about this amazing machine. Prior to the D1, I purchased a Nikon Coolpix 950 to get my feet wet in this high tech digital photography. I shot a lot of "point and shoot" type of images for web sites and photo prints. While I was impressed with what a digital camera could do, this camera was useless for most wildlife photography. I heard about the Nikon D1 and it sounded good, but I was really afraid it wouldn't be up to the task. I read every bit of scarce information about it. It still sounded good. Despite that, I really bit the bullet and got one. And am I glad I did. By May, 2001, I had shot about 10,000 "frames" with it. Its function and abilities are on par with the Nikon F5 and in some ways better. The one exception is flash photography, see below. The camera is shown here with the AFS 300 2.8D lens with TC-20E 2x teleconverter mounted on a Wimberly tripod head. Because of the size of the digital imaging area in relation to 35mm, you must multiply the 35mm lens focal length by 1.5. Therefore the pictured combination yields a 900mm f5.6--35mm equivalent lens(300x2=600x1.5=900). This, of course, is an advantage for most wildlife photography.
There are a number of things I like about using this camera. Probably the most important is that I have no qualms about burning "film." This camera will shoot a burst of 21 frames of a bird in flight at 4.5 frames per second. When using real film it was in my nature to be a conservative, I couldn't help it. Now that the images are essentially free I have become a liberal. When I get back from a shoot I hook up the camera to the TV and get immediate feedback of what I was doing and I delete the obvious bad shots from the compact flash card. I save the critical editing for the computer. Camera settings are saved by the D1 for each shot so I can see if that -.7 exposure compensation was correct.
I have discovered that I need to use exposure compensation more often than with the F5--maybe the instant feedback has taught me to fine tune my perceptions of the scene. I have noticed that I need to dial in -1 stop in bright summer sun. I have set custom function 13 which allows changing exposure compensation with the command dials. This is much faster than the regular method in which you need to take your finger off the shutter button and depress the exposure compensation button while rotating the main command dial. It may not sound like a big deal but when you have locked focus on an eagle flying toward you, taking your finger off the shutter button to adjust exposure compensation will probably mean a lost opportunity. Another thing I am doing to speed exposure compensation is using half stop adjustments instead of third stops--custom function 2. Fewer clicks also means, in the heat of action, it is easier to keep track of how far from 0 compensation I am since I can spend less time glancing at the scale in the viewfinder.
I also have discovered that I need to pay attention to the white balance setting. The auto setting works pretty well for sunny conditions but in cloudy or shade conditions the image will have a strange color cast if you don't set the white balance to "cloudy" or "shade". This is not a big deal but you have to remember to do it. If you do forget, the color balance can be very easily changed in Photoshop. Correcting color balance seems to be much easier with the digital original compared to an image scanned from film. In fact adjusting digital originals in Photoshop seems easier for everything.
One of the extremely useful features of the D1 that is not often mentioned is the fast, 1/500 second, flash sync speed available with the SB-28DX Speedlight. For the first time, while in my kayak or scouting on foot, I can hand hold a long telephoto lens and use fill flash. In medium to low light conditions I can even use D1 with SB-28DX as primary light. Previously the fastest 1/250 flash sync speed did not allow me to reliably hand hold and use fill flash with a long lens due to camera shake. One thing I have noticed is that the quality fill flash is inconsistent compared to the F5. Apparently a digital camera cannot use the same type of flash system as a film camera. The way flash works on the D1 is inferior to the high end Nikon film cameras. What ever is going on, for fill flash, I now use -1 1/3 compensation set on the flash. When using the flash for primary light, I set -2/3 to -1 exposure compensation on the camera for average lighting situations and hope for the best. Flash for macro work seems to need + compensation. When the type of shooting permits, I review the image and histogram on the LCD and make adjustments as needed--awkward but you can't do this at all on a film camera.
I use SanDisk 128mb Compact Flash Cards with the D1. I shoot everything in the fine mode and use the ASA 200 setting for best image quality. I get about 110 images on one 128mg card. As noted above, I often will preview the images on a TV and delete many from the card and go out and shoot some more. ( I now only rarely preview on the TV) Photoshop is used for critical editing of images--imperfections are easy to see on a good computer monitor. I use a SanDisk USB Compact Flash Card Reader to download the images to the computer--a very fast operation. I really love doing photography this way. As of December 2000, I am so convinced that digital is the best way to go for my style of photography that I have sold all my film cameras and I intend to never shoot film again.
In September 2001, I purchased a Nikon D1H and sold my D1. The D1 was a real workhorse. In total, I shot about 11,000 frames with it. When I sold it the D1 still looked and worked like new. So the reason for the switch was to take advantage of the improvements the D1H promised and for the most part the D1H has lived up to them.
These are some of the D1H evolutionary upgrades that I really find useful.
Setting custom functions via a menu. I change custom functions when the situation calls for it. This is far easier with a menu on the LCD screen than carrying the manual or other list with you.
Instant preview. This is another one of those improvements that made the camera more useful. After a shot you can easily preview the shot and delete it if you don't like it. The zoom in feature to check for sharpness is neat but I have found it is just easier to check this in Photoshop. I do like and use the highlight feature. This immediately shows blown out areas of the image by flashing them, possibly indicating overexposure.
Improved flash accuracy. I haven't done extensive flash with the D1H yet but my first impression is that does a much better job of flash photography, though still not up the the gold standard of the F5.
Less noise. With the D1H, I find I can get good results shooting at ISO 400 when needed or even 800 in special situations. The higher ISO banding issues of the D1 are gone.
Better color accuracy. The color is improved and the magenta problem is gone. I now use the Adobe RGB (1998) color setting. This provides a wider color gamut than sRGB and is better for images that will be printed.
Above are the features that sold me on the upgrade to the D1H. There are some other improvements like the increased frame rate and buffer size. These were just fine for me with the D1. After I got the D1H, I did go out and shoot 42 frames in 8 seconds of a flock of flying geese just for the thrill of it. It was awesome, but I rarely shoot more than a stream of dozen frames at a time. Also, that 8 seconds of excitement cost me about 20 minutes of Photoshop time for sorting and editing. There are some other things, like the change of buttons to make it easier to change to the now useable higher ISO setting, that make the camera more livable. All in all, I like this camera.
Some people ask why I chose the D1H over D1X. For me, the main reasons were ISO and frame rate. The D1H will get a cleaner image (less noise) at a given ISO. With wildlife photography I will take all the "film" speed I can get. The frame rate on the D1X is a little to slow for wildlife action shooting in my opinion. A secondary reason is the image size--it is the same the D1 images I have. This just makes it easier on the computer working with both D1 and D1H image files.
I will update this page as I discover new things about the D1H system. All of the photos on this web site were shot with D1 and D1H including the loon on the home page. As of February 2003, I have shot about 3500 frames with the D1H and I have been very satisfied with this camera body.
If you want more info on Nikon digital cameras visit their web site.
Questions or Comments Contact: mike@eWildlifePhotography.com