I was catching up with a fellow who was in my team last year and we got onto the topic of photography, as we always do. He is much more avid than I am and has begun shooting weddings with his D90. He knows that it is underpowered and so has ordered a D800 and has a line on a friend’s D700 as backup. Serious envy here …
But for shits and giggles, I happened to have my D7000 with me so I shot an image of him in my office. To get a decent shutter speed, I set ISO5000 because I was shooting at f/10. In retrospect, I did not need that small an aperture because I was not at 300mm, but I used it anyway.
The results were pretty amazing. Here is a near 100% crop of his left eye. I think you will agree that an APS-C camera with a consumer lens (70-300VR) on it shooting at 5000 ISO is doing fairly well with a shot like this:
D7000 5000iso f/10 1/125 112mm (168mm equivalent)
I won’t post the actual images for privacy reasons. But clicl through to see the eye in full size. It really is superb for that ISO. I presented it in B&W because I am not yet fully comfortable in handling skin tones in Lightroom. CS6 beta came out and I like that much better for skin.
I left the office late today, and shot this image of the Scotiabank Place, where the Stanley Cup will be housed later this year (he says with great confidence.)
D7000 100iso f/10 1/50 300mm (450mm equivalent)
Not a bad shot at all. But this was shot through my office window and look at how dirty it is when shot from the same location.
Pretty amazing, no?
When I got home, I noticed that the tulips are rapidly reaching for the sky. I have more than I expected, but then I never expect any to survive the winter and these are actually going on 5 years of steady blooming. I’m very pleased.
D7000 8000iso (!) f/7.1 1/8 (!) 80mm (120mm equivalent)
That is a pretty nice shot for 1/8 second and 8000 ISO. It was processed in Lightroom 4 beta 1. Here is the same image processed in CS6 Beta.
I have noticed that I tend to process darker and more contrasty in Lightroom. I am much more comfortable in Photoshop and just might go back to it when CS6 ships. ACR7 is amazing as well. The one difference that I would miss from LR4 is the grid you automatically get when adjusting distortions. LR has it, ACR does not. Rather crude for such an expensive software package. I think that would make a superb patch feature.
Now here is a major difference. Many people will prefer the first image, which is done in LR4. But I prefer the second image, done in CS6. More open and softer and warmer tones. I just find it easier to get the open tones I favor.
D7000 8000iso f/7.1 1/30 Lightroom 4 beta 1
Photoshop CS6 with Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) 7
YMMV of course.
So far I am a huge fan of CS6 and ACR7. I think these are winners, although I hope Adobe drop the upgrade price a bit. 200 bucks is a bit stiff for this one with no majoe features in it. Lots of nice smaller features though, so I will be sorely tempted.
