Disasters or near disasters.

[Don Hoey]

A long time since I have posted so nothing quite like getting going again with a tale of personal embarassment.

Having spent 2 days clearing up my workshop ready for a visit by Jim Mortram, I was finally forced to get out of there and take some pics for a change.
Having seen some bluebell shots posted in the gallery, and with quite a few woods in Norfolk, I thought if we took a roundabout trip out we hopefully might come across a photo opportunity. Failing that we could always end up with a day at the coast.

The nearest I have to a compact camera is D100 and 35mm lens which lots lighter than D2X and a bag full of prime lenses. As we were not assured of bluebells I thought to limit myself to the D100 and my one and only zoom the 12-24. A simple plot equipment wise, travel light. So I put the zoom on the camera, card in, check the battery indicator showing full and off we go.

35 miles from home, bluebells sighted then things went downhill. Took 5 pics then decided due to poor light I needed to increase the ISO. On the D100 you have to see the dialed in value on the top plate. Eeek ...... battery indicator now showing nearly empty. Not expecting to take more than 20-30 frames in the day the spare was left at home. RATS !!!!
Light levels were not that brilliant and the D100 has a pentamirror arrangement rather than prism in the viewfinder. One of the primary reasons behind my getting the D2X was the larger brighter viewfinder, so I was now struggling a bit particulary when using dof preview and trying to determine a focus point ( there are no dof indicator markings on the barrel of Nikon G type lenses ) ...... DOUBLE RATS !!!!

I decided to work at around 12mm for all my shots. Never tried flowers with such a wide focal length lens before so that was quite interesting and fired me up a bit, and is something I will revisit with the D2X and its nice bright viewfinder.

To try and overcome the lack of battery power I was warming it in my hand in between locations. No option to use the pop up flash or image preview now. I am not normally a chimper as I can never see the screen properly in daylight, and anyway in this case I figured each chimp would probably be a shot less and that using the pop-up flash would just kill whatever remained of the battery. The whole low battery power thing would come back to haunt me later in a way I had not expected once we got home and I went to upload the images.

Once home I tried to download the card ( a blast from the past in that its an IBM microdrive ), I realized I had corrupt images files in there when Nikon Transfer fell over when it got to the first one ( frame 5 ). Explorer would not move them either. Now I really was CRACKING UP !!!!

Once I had a charged battery I reviewed the images on the camera and realised frame 5 ( first currupt file ) was when I discovered I had almost no battery left. So I deleted frame 5&6 and tried Nikon Transfer again. This time it picked up a couple of new frames then fell over again. Arrh !!!!!!
Sat back and thought about it and figured the first and maybe second frame from any set might be good as the battery had refreshed a bit between locations, so I went through each setup and deleted all images other than the first and second from each. Now I was down to 13 frames from the day. Well that did the trick but I had lost all those taken beyond f11.

Of course if I had engaged brain in the first place I would have remembered that the last time I charged the battery was about 6 months ago so there was bound to be some drain and I should never have believed the camera indicator and charged the battery before going out.

There are quite a few bluebell shots in the gallery from other members so I'll put a couple from the day here.

Anyone else have a tale to tell ??

Don

[andy153]

Hi Don, sorry about the corrupted files - now I know why my latest purchase was a good buy - D100 with MB-D100 and 18-55 Nikkor for under £200. All my bodies have their own battery packs - it saves a lot of heartache - anyway I've sent it to Advanced Camera Services of Norfolk for an IR conversion - but a two week turn around has become a six week turn around - just hoping there is some summer left to try the thing out

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by andy153

....... D100 with MB-D100 and 18-55 Nikkor for under £200. All my bodies have their own battery packs - it saves a lot of heartache - anyway I've sent it to Advanced Camera Services of Norfolk for an IR conversion - but a two week turn around has become a six week turn around - just hoping there is some summer left to try the thing out

I had the same which I traded for the X Andy. In this case it would not have helped much due to my failure to charge the batteries in the first place.

The D100 is still a pretty good camera just not in the same functions league as the D2X. I think some people think the sensor self destructs once cameras become so obsolete. Certainly makes a good compact when paired with a 35mm f2.

I notice Advanced Camera Services are just down the road from here but not sure if I want to spend on an IR conversion though.
Will wait to see how you get on with yours. Harry is certainly getting tempting results from his Canon though.

Don

[postcardcv]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

I notice Advanced Camera Services are just down the road from here but not sure if I want to spend on an IR conversion though.
Will wait to see how you get on with yours. Harry is certainly getting tempting results from his Canon though.

I'd not realised that they were so close to here, I might have to go and have a chat to them sometime. I'd love to have a crack at IR stuff, shame the conversions aren't a bit cheaper.

[andy153]

There are cheaper out there - I looked at a firm in East Sussex who advertise on the well known *bay - D70 conversion - £150. I was interested so I spoke to them and their engineer - I asked do you reset the autofocus for IR - reply - no need you just stop down to f8 ! Spoke to ACS - yes they do reset the autofocus. They referred me to this site http://diglloyd.com/prem/prot/DIP/publish/lenses.html
which is superb for those who wish to know about IR.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by andy153

................They referred me to this site http://diglloyd.com/prem/prot/DIP/publish/lenses.html
which is superb for those who wish to know about IR.

Andy,

I guess you have to sign up and pay to view that link.
I found this freebee article which looks interesting.
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/Infrared/index.html
Maybe once you get going we should have a dedicated thread for IR. I will go through the forum as there may already be one.

Apart from Harry, Sassan has some good stuff in his gallery. Definately going to have a go at mock IR though. ...............Cheapskate

Don

PS : Just found a link to one IR thread http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=1892