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Nikon D100 - part 2 of 1 2

by Mike McNamee Published 01/10/2002

Overall the specification is very similar to the Fuji S2 Pro which shares the same price tag (around £1495). The differences are that only the S2 has Firewire and a synch socket. The D100 has 3 selectable colour spaces, the S2 only sRGB. The ISO ranges are different 200-6400 D100 and 100-1600 S2 Pro. The D100 takes Compact Flash, the S2 Pro takes Smart media. Both take micro drives.

At first sight the Fuji seems to have higher resolution at 4256x2848 pixels versus 3008x2000. Whether this difference is realisable in practice is a difficult call; it would take a lot more work to pin it down. Incidentally, those tempted by the announcement of the Kodak DCS14n with its 14 mpixel chip should be alert to the recognised fact that the CMOS chip is not quite as good as the CCD sported by the D100 and the Super CCD of the S2 Pro. It is going to be interesting to see how this battle pans out in the fullness of time (although architectural specialists will presumably go for the full frame of the DCS14n)

Always remember that fitness for purpose is the primary criteria for these cameras, your clients want to see faces and dresses not pixels and test targets.

COLOUR PERFORMANCE

It is a little frustrating to have to give you half a tale but time only allowed a few additional experiments. We looked at the colour precision in light flesh tones at 1/3 stop increments. We have been pondering for some time about the way digital cameras render skin tones and if the resulting image is more accurate than a filmbased workflow. Our view is that digital is more accurate and we are beginning to acquire data to support this view. However we are finding that exposure is critical, probably more so than transparency film. While this may be viewed as bad news, remember that you have the ability to check your digital exposure histogram as soon as you have shot. It is a subject that will bear more research and we are inclined to pursue it. Our data so far shows that the average colour errors increase rapidily on the over-exposure side, not quite as quickly on the under-exposure side. You can recover the situation is Photoshop but you do pay a price.

FIELD TESTING

We have had the D100 out for a field test at a real wedding. The photographer was new to the D100 and so took their other digital camera and film along as well. What is interesting is that they have not bothered to develop the film! The D100 worked flawlessly in the heat of battle and the newbies found it very easy to get to grips with. Some of their images are shown as the backdrops to this feature.

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1st Published 01/10/2002
last update 09/12/2022 14:56:58

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