I just got back from a couple of days in Yosemite. And if I recall each step I took with my D700 to capture an image, I have no idea how I was able to expose a negative twenty, thirty years ago and get a decent print from it!

I was walking by the river and saw a fallen log stretched over a pool and decided to capture the image.

I pulled my 50mm f1.8 AIS lens out of my bag and mounted on the D700. I pulled up the menu switched to Bank A for my custom landscape settings stored in memory.

Then I went to non-CPU menu and dialed in lens #3 which had the specs for my 50mm stored in memory.

I composed and focused the shot and then pulled up the menu again to access "My Menu" where the first item is Virtual Horizon. And even though I was in the vertical/Portrait mode I used the artificial horizon to get my camera level.

I refocused and switched the "Shooting Method Dial" to Mirror Lockup, (I almost always use a tripod), and tripped the shutter with my MC-36.

As the image came up on the LCD I touched the Zoom button, (no more D200 touch the OK button and then hold down the thumbnail button while you twirl the rear command dial), and checked my focus.

I then closed the eyepiece shutter, touched the info button so the details on the top LCD was displayed on the rear LCD and adjusted my exposure compensation!

My goodness! Did I really use completely manual cameras in decades past? How brave, what strength of character to persevere through such hardship!

If anyone ever asks again if they should buy a D700 I'm going to knock them over the head with my wooden 4x5! (oops, I can't say that anymore........I'll shake my finger at them!)

Mark Sloane
Danville, CA

Hi Mark,

Great story!
Thanks for sharing.
Good Luck and Enjoy your Nikons!

Best Regards,
Marty

Aaaaah, but one thing the "good ol' days" had going for them was that the manual stuff made you slow down and contemplate your surroundings and your approach to the photo. And you had to walk uphill both to and from the site where you were doing your shoot. It always snowed on the way back, too.
These new-fangled digital cameras have turned it into "just put the camera to your eye, shoot, and move on" - it's made the photo taking process too darn fast. Why there was one time when I ...

At least, that's the message I've gotten a couple of my older uncles when we've been sorting through old family pictures to identify ancestors.

It sounds like the old set of things to do have been replaced with a new set. I'll assume, from the tone of your post, that you got some good shots.
From the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse, the going up was worth the coming down

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Mark (LOL) while I never had a 4x5 I did have an F3HP complete with Motor drive, all MF lenses and a darkroom. I moved from that to D200 and then D700. I can't even comprehend how many waterfalls worth of water I sent down the drain washing my prints. but yes we had so many places in the process to slow down and to screw up. Set the wrong exposure, we would most likely have missed it until we got further on the roll? Didn't quite get the film on the reel just right, well that just blew a few hours and the cost of a film roll. Those of us who went down this path are most likely better photographers today because of it or at least hope we are.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

And it was a surprise when after a fantsatic shoot, the camera started to count up to 40, 41, 42..... ?

KenL

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Yosemite really is an amazing place. For those who haven't seen it with their own eyes, even though Ansel Adams did a superb job of capturing its beauty, I don't think it's possible to fully capture its beauty unless it's with your naked eyes. I can't wait to return in late May!

Last time I had my D300, and the only problem I had was not having enough memory cards to capture all the great compositions that surround you from every direction. What I can now do with my D700 would take years with my old 4x5, which I really need to blow the dust off of. My back is much better off in the digital world. And IMHO, the D700 could go head-to-head with a 4x5 negative any day of the week (unless you are looking to make building-size prints).