The Online Photographer

This is the main reason why I propose to go for a d800 to use as a travel lens - cropping instead of zoom lenses (and without the 'flattening' effect for distant objects) - just don't print too large.

Interesting backdrop. I can't help thinking of the airline ads: "I'm Nikki. Fly me."?

and what is your ebay user id again?

I would so love a good digital camera that looked exactly like this: no playback screen, only a viewfinder.
If additional playback is needed it should beam live view straight to your phone or other available device.
Or you just wait until you finished shooting (you're not supposed to be looking at your camera for Pete's sake).
Simpler, more beautiful.

Bear -- the flattening of distant objects is due to camera position, NOT to lens focal length; cropping and picking an appropriate focal length will give the same perspective from any given camera position.

Mike -- your ebay product shots look to be better than mine, and mine seem to be "good enough". Cropping is a form of enlargement, and the more you enlarge the sharper your original needs to be -- but shooting product shots with strobe should NOT pose any difficulties with getting to the upper-middle reaches of sharpness, so no problem.

For a real size shocker photograph your D800 with a 28mm next to your Nikkormat with a 1970s 28mm. You can't really carry all that around all of the time, can you? Thus, the real cost of digital is not just your main camera but the other, smaller camera (e.g. Fuji XPro1) for when you are still shooting serious photos but just can;'t deal with the size and weight of the DSLRs...

I hope you have more gear to sell!

--Darin

I have often thought this would be the result of mega pixel cameras. A photographer with a wide lens, capturing everything in one exposure and creating ten or twenty separate photographs from it. So I don't understand why you don't just photograph everything for sale in one big picture and crop? Or at least take the chore out of it and create a still life on one side of the frame and put the Nikkormat on the other ;-)

In general, to steepen perspective move closer to the subject and then zoom out to get everything else in your composition. To flatten perspective do the opposite.

Peter, some of us are very glad we have the playback screen. A tool to be used at times when we want to check whether we got the peak action in a sporting event so we can move to the next event - news coverage for papers and a half dozen games to photograph in a limited time frame.
Or, in my particular case, bare and glare ice in winter or water reflections in summer. Nice to know when one has just what is wanted when we can't really look directly into the viewfinder due to searingly bright sunlight.

Other than that I keep hoping Canon will bring out the EOS 3 in digital. As of yet, no Eye Control AF.

Canon is behind these days with Nikon upstaging both its last two introductions. Maybe their developers and engineers are busy putting the 50MP sensor into a new body? You know, the super-duper 50MP sensor they showed a year or so ago but have not put into a camera for us. Was supposed to be way better than anything else. Well, with Nikon and the D800 it is time for Canon to produce or keep sucking hind teat.

Why would you sell a Nikkormat? It may be one of the best built cameras ever (except for the lightmeter). I still use mine weekly.

BTW - how much (if the meter works)

I know you don't want to "pollute" your site (and feed), but it seems a shame to give eBay their cut when you probably have interested buyers among your readers. But then again, perhaps their merchant services really are worth something, especially to find buyers for any esoteric items.

Be careful using eBay auctions. I've been selling there in a small way for years with no problems. A couple of months ago I sold all my remaining Canon gear in eight auctions. I had trouble with half of them. In fact I still have one lens to resell. The buyer never responded to a single email he was sent.

I've been told that the fixed price sales are better with fewer issues. Might try that next time.

Nikon photographing a Nickon...
obviously your protege son was not interested in being
a model. Now as to his motor vehicle...

The Nikkormat FTN I used for 35 years had such a funky meter, that half the time, the camera didn't even have a battery in it.
I learned to gauge light with the film package insert (which introduced the phrase "cloudy bright" into my vocabulary), adjust exposure according to conditions, and bracket like crazy.
When discussing cameras with other photogs, they would have one of two comments about the Nikkormat-
"Poor man's Nikon", or "That camera is a workhorse, you could pound nails with it"

With respect to Pavel's comment on hastily-made product shots, I must say what's "good" and "bad" is highly subjective. I recently got into my head of taking photos of my current cameras (long story), and after a bit of experimentation and thought, came to the conclusion that a slightly overhead view with a wide-angle compact in macro mode gave the most pleasing results. Yes, the perspective is highly unnatural, but as with car and keyboard photos it adds a certain charm to the scene that's missing from more normal shots, and using a compact gives you DOF to spare.

Now, I won't deny that most of those product shots were likely made as such for reasons of inexperience rather than conscious artistic intent, but I feel it's more a case of "doing right for the wrong reasons" than something in need of correction per se. Though, as I said before, it's all subjective anyways so feel free to disagree :)

So I take it from Darin's comment above the D800 and any pro-grade lens combo is an Armstrong camera. You carry it and your arm gets strong. No harm in such exercise.

From a fellow Nikkormat FT3 shooter (black paint, semi-wonky meter, self-timer removed, and showing some miles) three bits of advice to the wise soon-to-be owner of the above camera.

1.) The inner edges of the film rewind knob adjacent to the pop-up rewind lever are often sharp enough to slice a finger open.

2.) Yes, that ISO setting tab under the lens mount is a fingernail breaker when you want it to move and yet it moves easily on its own in your camera bag.

3.) When in bear country you may be tempted to swing this Nikkormat about but do carry bear spray for protection.

Does this mean I can throw away my Tilt-and-Shift lens 8-)

BTW we said "close enough for government work" in Hollywood.

"Lighting is one umbrella at camera left."

What? Is this a guest post from David Hobby?

"Is this a guest post from David Hobby?"

Not hardly. I can guarantee you that David has forgotten more about artificial lighting than I ever knew.

Mike

Sell it.

I've had an FT2 in my bag for 20 years and I have never liked it. It is too heavy, too loud, has too much shutter vibration, and its edges are too pointy. And it has that stupid OM-like shutter dial. The lovely smaller more rounded FE's and FM's are just so much better for real-world use. I'd sell my Nikkormat, too, but the meter's off and the back door has a cosmetic dent and 1/1000s is slow, so I'd be lucky to get $25 for it.

Uh, the first picture of a real camera I have come to find on this side.

"The old Nikon will still be going long after the D800 is in a recycling bin."

I don't know that I'd agree with that. A friend bought my first digital camera -- a Canon D60 -- off of me when I upgraded around 2005. It's still alive and kicking, even after spending a night submerged in a creek when he rolled his car trying to avoid a deer. Just because we're in an age that encourages buying new bodies every few years doesn't mean the old ones need to be sent to the recycling bin.