So, in anticipation of a long trip to South America at the end of 2010, I decided to pick up a D3 to familiarize myself with its high ISO performance. My thoughts at that time was that a D3 for main body and D300 for that extra DX reach would be ideal for a long expedition. And just before I was going to ask my usual dealer for one, the D3s was released, and just as well.

Long story short, I now have a D3s. And in summary: while I’m not new to photography, nor digital photography, this camera does induce a bit of an extra learning curve.

First test as I shoot my first 1000 pictures: ISO performance. I don’t intend for this to be a review, hence I don’t plan to include sample pictures. The early feedback from the internet forums is that this camera performs about 1-1.3EV better in ISO compared to the previous high-ISO champion, the D3. As I do mostly landscape with this camera, I intend to test it only for that purpose.

I did 3 tests today, first was a landscape shot with camera focused at infinity in bright daylight, a second scene with an close-up object (confession: a pretty wartime Leica IIIc) with proper illumination, and third was a city scene from the top of a tower.

Results:

What I can say is that this camera’s ISO performance is amazing.

- ISO200-ISO1600: I will not hesitate to shoot with the D3s up to ISO 1600. I could not see any noise or loss of details on the NEF file all the way up to that level in Adobe Lightroom. For once, auto-ISO is an option in the field. (Of course, one should always shoot at base ISO if you can, with a tripod, but still, 1600 is something I will not shy away from. It is THAT good!)

- above ISO 1600 – ISO 6400: From ISO higher than 1600 onwards, I see some noise appearing in the shadow areas, but the well illuminated areas are fine. This goes on all the way up to ISO6400 easily. The noise is very much film-like chroma noise, which is bearable. Not noise-free, but not too much of a concern as details in the scene are all still there.

- up to ISO 12800:  The details held up all the way up to ISO 12800. I love this camera! At 12800 the noise is still very much chroma like with some tinge of colour noise creeping in.

- above ISO12800 – ISO102400 (HI 3): the detail performance starts to drop at ISO +1 to +3 EV, basically ISO 25k up to 102k. Basically the image gets smudgy and bands appear at the highest ISO. But if the difference is between taking a picture and no picture, I’d take the 102k ISO shot anytime over lost opportunity.

Next up: Movie mode at 720p. This is something I’ve used, but the camera seems to be adjusting most of the functions automatically. I will need to test it out to find out how it works.

For bags, I have a 35L backpack for clothes and chargers and items that does not require removal during transit. Even though temperature in Japan at this time of the year plunges below zero, becuase of the constant moving I will be doing, I packed only a fleece with Windstopper (Gore) material, and for waterproofing, a Mont-Bell packable Gore-Tex outer shell.  A Gitzo G1341T tripod with RRS BH25 is attached on the outside for the late evening photo shooting in dim light, and this tripod/ball-head combination is light enough to be brought along for the trip.

On my belt I have a Leatherman tool for emergency, and my Ricoh GR Digital point and shoot on the other side. They do get in the way especially when sitting down, but hey, better than nothing.

Nokia E71 'Blogging Machine' and ThinkTank Speed Demon camera carrier with lens case attached...

I have also a belt pouch, a Think Tank Speed Demon with 2 lens case attachment on the belt. Most of the time it is not around my waist, but I carry it with the shoulder strap. In this combination, I have the following items:
- Garmin eTrex Vista GPS: Black and white, 7 years old, but still kicking. Drains batteries though, so I keep it off except for waypoint entry.
- Nikon D300 with RRS L-bracket attached to it permanently
- Nikkor 12-24mm f4 AFS DX Lens
- Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8 AFS Lens
- Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 AFS Lens
- Nikkor 105mm f4 AI Micro Lens
- Spare batteries for GPS & Cameras
- Cokin P filter holder with 77mm adapter
- Singh-Ray 77mm Gold-n-Blue Polarizer
- Singh-Ray 3-stop Reverse ND Filter
- Singh-Ray 2-stop HS Graduated ND Filter
- B+W Slim Circular Polarizer
- Many CF and SD cards, enough to fill 25Gb of storage

The 4 lenses alone was enough to make the waist pouch at least 5-6 kg. Which is a little too much for a trip like this. The only reason I brought that many with me is that I just exchanged my 80-200mm with the 28-70mm (with a little topping up of course) so I wanted to test it out. The Think Tank pouches were just perfect, when it rained I just take out the rain cover and put it over the pack. Only issue is that on the Speed Demon pack, the rain cover doesn’t cover too well when you are using the shoulder strap and not the belt buckle. It works, with some effort.

So bear with me for a moment. I will put up the pictures on the postings and will announce on Twitter or Jaiku once I get them ready. Post processing sucks. But there are some nice pictures there!!!

This will also mark the start of me putting watermarks with copyright logo on the pictures, even though they are all small. Read about how pictures are reused without permission and just wanted to be sure I’m protected as much as possible.

Planning to label the posts with the following:
- *Incomplete* means I have not started on it yet
- *Partial* means that I have loaded pictures from some but not all my cameras yet. Soon to have more pictures coming up.

So justification: I have been holding back on this lens but finally thought its time for my first AFS and DX lens (previous lenses are mostly AIS and AFD at most) because it seems to work at 18mm and above on my full frame film SLRs as well. The initial test yesterday confirms that at 24mm the lens is sharp. Can’t say too much about contrast as the weather was quite hazy here, but its nice to be able to go wide on my D2H now.

Wellington (Ricoh GR Digital)

I am in Wellington for a week long business trip, and a deadline for Sunday 17 August has been moved to later in the week, so suddenly I have almost the whole weekend with no plans. As Wellington is a small city, I will quickly run out of things to see. Who could argue that New Zealand has some of the best sceneries around, and who cares that most of it are farms and sheeps. Good enough excuse for a drive if you ask me. So on Friday night its time to have a look at Google Maps and write out the itinerary on a piece of paper. I’ve found that the most effective way to do it would be to write all the names of the important towns in graphical form and the name fo the highway. The closest writing material I found was a little post-it note, so it’ll do. Helps that the Post-It will stick to the dashboard when I’m driving. So it is possible to drive and know where to go at the same time.

Fine weather into New Zealand (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Wellington Skyline (Ricoh GR Digital)

Construction Site (Ricoh GR Digital)

The original plan calls for a drive up to Taranaki and a loop around Mount Taranaki and New Plymouth. Mount Taranaki was visible on the flight to Wellington from Auckland, and it looks like another perfectly conical volcano like Mount Fuji in Japan, so it could be a nice place to go to. But after a check with a Kiwi, I realised it might take a lot longer than a day to do that trip. Probably up to 6 hours up to New Plymouth, and another 6 to get back. That means a whole day of straight driving. An alternative route that makes more sense would be a counter clockwise loop to Martinborough and up to Woodville, and cutting across Manawatu Gorge over to North Palmeston and back down to Wellington along the coast. Looks like a comfortable day long drive with plenty of opportunity for stops. So this shall be the route for today.

Wellington waterfront (Ricoh GR Digital)

Wellington Harbour (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

As usual, I bring quite a lot of gear with me when I’m on business trip. This trip I have my GPS with me (finally) although the battery seems to be rather flat since I have not recharged it since, who knows when. I have my Nikon D2H with 40mm and 105mm prime lenses and Ricoh GR with me as well. Just in case the rental car has it, I brought my iPod Touch, dreaming of a nice spanking new car with iPod connector built in. The difficulty here will be to type this blog while on the trip. Will be difficult to manage the Nokia E61 and drive at the same time, and I dont expect too long a stopover for rests. Ah well, then I will have to type in the skeleton on the phone, and expand it later on the PC.

Probably pigeons at the Harbour (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

The plan this time is to do a loop of the North Island through the Hutts, Martinborough, and up to North Palmeston and improvising along the way according to the scenery. It looks like, compared to the original crazier plan to loop Mt Taranaki, this one may be possible to do in a day without being knackered.

Private Property (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Only real issue is it seems to be raining quite a bit this winter in New Zealand. There were some spells of bright sunshine when its supposed to be raining. But on the Sunday of the trip, it was supposed to be cloudy with a little peep of sunshine. At least for Wellington. Looks like up North the weather is not that promising according to the Metrological Department here. Plus the road here does seem to be narrower, so it would be difficult to drive fast and cover plenty of ground.

825hrs Wellington City Centre, Ghuznee Street: Budget Car Rental opens at 8am, but I had to first go for a little pie and coffee for breakfast before making the long drive, and Ghuznee St is not that far away from my hotel, a good 15 mins walk away, so decided to rent the car first thing in the morning. Not such a bad day, not blue skies early in the morning, rather cloudy, but doesn’t look like the kind of skies that will bring showers. At least not in Wellington. Satellite photos shows plenty of rain clouds up north around North Palmeston. Picked up an automatic tiptronic equipped Ford Focus from the shop, and with my post-it note driving instructions and Garmin eTrex GPS ready, its time to move out towards Lower Hutt.

Rental Ford Focus (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

Brian's map (Ricoh GR Digital)

Only issue with all these fancy cars (if I could call a Ford Focus fancy) is most of them have metal coated windscreen that blocks heat from the sun. Why do I hate them? They bloody blocks GPS signals. Next trip I will need to bring a pen knife along so I can cut a little hole for the signals to penetrate the windscreen. Usually the side windows are comparatively better. So the best position in this car was to put the GPS on the side ledge, and lucky there’s one on the Focus that would fit a hand held GPS very well. Luckily on time on the trip I winded the window down to take a photograph, the GPS did not disappear outside onto the bitumen at high speeds.

Reservoir at Te Marua lookout (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

914hrs Te Marua Lookout: The initial drive was relatively simple and straight forward. Came across Kaitoke Regional Park with the first scenic lookout of the trip. A scenic lookout seems to be anywhere with a parking spot and a little path that leads to a sweeping vista overlooking some landscape. Most of the time it is nothing very special to a landscape photographer. This one overlooks 2 reservoirs, apparently and most probably used for storing drinking water for the people downstream. Nothing special about the scenery in a nice sunny morning. With the D2H out equipped with 105mm f2.5 AIS lens, I started to look around and found that the reservoir circumference along with the lawn around the pond makes very good abstract photos, and with interesting curves. So I scout for interesting layouts and shot a couple of pictures to justify me having stopped here, all because it was labelled “scenic lookout”. There is a signboard with some explanation of this area, but instead of reading it, I just took a photo of it with the Ricoh GR Digitial and decided to read it later, which I almost never do.

Mountain Road before Featherston (Ricoh GR Digital)

Old Truck on Mountain Highway (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

After a short break, it is time to move on towards Featherston. One thing I really miss are all those crazy vending machines in Japan that seems to be everywhere. I bet you if this was Japan, this stop would have at least 2-3 vending machines selling bottled tea. But this is not Japan, so there is no vending machine, and I will have to get my stuff in the next town.

1037hrs Martinborough: Featherston is a small small town, so came down the hill, passed the place without even realising it and soon I’m in Martinborough. According to the map and all the brochures I managed to nick while at the hotel this morning, this is where the wines come from, at least in the North Island. When entering Martinborough, true, first few stuff you see are wineries. Too bad they’re all closed, I guess its winter time so they don’t open. Can’t tell, whatever it is, I decided not to pack any wine bottles back. Nice as it is, I think the wine I buy in Shanghai is not that bad to at the same price and it saves me the trouble of lugging around 2 bottles back to Shanghai.

Countryside outside of Martinborough (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Vineyard outside of Martinborough (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON

Lone Sheep outside Martinborough (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

Maybe its time to do a little more leg stretch. Stopped in the downtown for a little walk around. And bought a takeaway pie, some carbonated water (by mistake) and a cup of takeaway coffee black. The next stop would be the coast after Lake Ferry, which I’m guessing is not so much a tourist spot so there will be no shops there selling anything. Since it could be about noon when I get there, I will probably have lunch there staring at the sea. Coming from city centre, a right turn should put me on the route towards the south coast.

Lake Ferry Fire Station (Ricoh GR Digital)

Rental Car at Lake Ferry (Ricoh GR Digital)

1136hrs Lake Ferry beachfront: The whole way to Lake Ferry coastline is full-on sunshine. The road is relatively empty, I’m by no means the only car on the road, but I could stop on the road side, take a few photos of vineyards and sheeps and get back to the car without seeing another car pass me. Sometimes they do, so I need to find a nice big area to place the car on the side without causing a jam. Wouldn’t be a nice thing to do. Its a good 20mins drive from Martinborough to Lake Ferry. Its a small town without a shop in sight. Lucky I bought my lunch earlier. Nothing special at the lake, but the beach is quite interesting.

Fine weather at Lake Ferry beachfront (Ricoh GR Digital)

4 Wheeling at Lake Ferry (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

View of Hillside from Lake Ferry beachfront (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Drift wood (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Its full of pebbles like the ones you get in streams. Not that easy to walk as the pebbles and undelying sand is quite soft. I am a little worried about having to ditch the car. There is a car park at the beach front itself right on the pebbles, and people fishing from the beach itself. Wave breaks pretty violently here, and you could see that the outlet from Lake Ferry is causing some form of back wash and that is where the wave is the greatest. Unfortunately the water looks muddy so it doesn’t look too appetizing. As if I was going to swim. Anyway, grass, pebbles, logs and nice blue skies… makes for a very very nice photo oppotunity, and I took quite a number with the Ricoh and Nikon D2H before resting for my lunch. That would be a chicken pie bought during my last stop.

Little Church (Ricoh GR Digital)

1254hrs Martinborough again. On the way back to Highway 2, and had to pass through Martinborough again, and looking for Princess street. Which is not that difficult to find. So it would be more farms again on the way to the little gorge after Woodville before hitting North Palmeston. The only issue here is I got to see my first drop of rain here, so I guess I must be passing through the rain clouds I saw on the satellite map. Nothing much to shoot. However, the low winter sun is casting nice deep green colour to the grass in the direction of the sun. I didn’t get to stop the car to take pictures, Its starting to get late and I have only completed a third of the total drive.

Farmland around Martinborough (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Signboard in Martinborough (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

1336hrs: Masterton. Have been driving for almost an hour non stop. Part of it was sunny, and partly raining with full sunlight. Decided to stop here for some batteries and smoothies as the GPS is running out of battery and not sure if it will last all the way back to Wellington. Ridiculous battery prices, 2 AA for 7.99NZD! Should have charged my batteries for the GPS before getting here. I had no choice but to buy 2. Sulking all the way out of Masterton about it. Smoothie cost about half, so it was 10NZD for a smoothie and 2 AA batteries. Pretty steep. But petrol stations know that you need it so they will tie you up and beat you if you need those. I could have stopped by some discounter and picked them up, but I guess I’d rather spend the time driving to the next destination.

There are not too much scenery to look at anymore as the skies are starting to get darker. Rain is pouring down constantly by the time I start to drive out of Masterton. Surprisingly this is quite a big town.

Rainy day driving (Ricoh GR Digital)

1406hrs Mt Bruce Wildlife Centre (-40.721063,175.639619). Started to rain pretty heavily while I stopped at the tourist centre for a little break. Just had enough time to walk to the toilet and back and then it was just resting in the car twiddling my Nokia E61 to update this blog. Nothing special to report from here, but its driving again to Eketahuna in the rain.

Wind Turbines outside North Palmeston (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

1526hrs Outside Woodville (-40.335423,175.84219): Just passed through Woodville and on the way to North Palmeston which is just across the moutains through the Manawatu Gorge. There are plenty of wind turbines on both side of the road through the gorge, the first nice sight to see. I dont think they look ugly at all, but imposing. Too bad I had to drive but not time to take photos of it during the drive. There was a road (Saddle Road) that apparently goes up to the hill near the wind turbines, but I was stupid enough not to take the scenic route. So its through the gorge, with a slow driver a few cars in front of me, and the rain pissing down like crazy. I love gorges, and especially driving through them, but the issue with this is I cannot pull up on the side and take some pictures of the rapids below, but I Can seem them. When no one is looking I’ll take out my Ricoh and steal a shot or two while zipping thru the bending highway. Too bad none of the shots turned out well. Next time I am here, I will take Saddle Road.

Patches of grass at Lake Ferry Beachfront (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

Just as I drove out of the gorge, managed to find a nice place to turn out of the highway around here (-40.303029,175.742712) and took some pictures of the wind turbines on the top of the hill. This is supposed to be the windiest area in New Zealand. Quite obvious because of the wind turbines you would think. So the 105mm lens on a D2H just does it nicely. I will stay here for 15 mins at least to wait for the nice sunglight to break from the rain clouds to get nice light play over the mountains with the windturbines in the background.

Otaki Beach, New Zealand

Sunset over Otaki Beach (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

1659: Otaki Beach for sunset (-40.738925,175.1147). It is quite difficult to get a nice shot of sunset on the beach with the rain clouds. Challenging but sometimes the sunlight peeks through all those dark clouds and makes an interesting photographing subject. Anyway, waiting here at the beach waiting for the sun to set, and looks like today may not be the right day for sunsets. The weather is starting to drop below 10C and I’m still with my single layered shirt only. Left the jacket in the car. There are some interesting beachfront vegetation to photograph, but will wait here for a while to see if there is anything interesting to shoot, when the sun is on the horizon.

Lone Flower at the Beach (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Its starting to get dark after the sun disappears over the horizon. For me I think the trip is finished, nothing to see in terms of scenery at night, and I’m about 1 hr away from Wellington and it is still raining occasionally. Back on highway 1 bound for Wellington, with some local radio station blaring from the tinny speakers in the Ford Focus.

1824: Arrived back in Wellington. After filling up the rental car with a full tank of petrol, I had some idea to drive up Mount Victoria to get a nice view of Wellington, but since it is still raining, figured out to leave that for next trip. Pumped 73.20 worth of petrol, which if you think about it, is quite crazy as the rent itself was a little less than that. The odometer reads 466.4km for today’s drive. Decided instead to return the car by parkign it outside the shop and leaving the car keys in a little hole in the wall.

If that was not tiring enough, driving the whole day, I went into the hotel gym and did a 3km jog! What a crazy day. But got to see enough rain, sheeps, cows, and farm. What a way to spend Sunday…

Untitled, since I can't remember where it was taken! (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Garmin Mapsource plots of the route I took (in yellow cookie crumbs)

Same plots but transferred to Google Earth

*end of post*