• Nikkormat EL with Vivitar 55 – 135mm
• Nikkormat EL with Nikkor 135mm

The Nikkor 43 – 86mm was in production from 1963 to 1976. It has been discontinued since. The range you may have noticed is quite unconventional & hence the interest in owning & using it.

People have reported mixed feedback on this Nikkor 43 – 86mm f/3.5 over the years. In the simple spot tests I did, I was watching more for the issues that made this lens so questionable for use.

I shot 5 rolls of Kodak 400BWCN consumer grade film & developed them for 5 bucks at the local CVS stores (they scanned them for me too). These images are not touched up or digitally manipulated in any way.

For the complete set – Click Here for the PhotoDuniya Flickr page.

• the focus was soft – quite soft for street photography but will work great for impressionistic pictures
• the camera metered perfectly under all conditions of natural light
• the camera & the Nikkor 43 – 86mm lens combination was quite heavy – close to 1.5 kg
• did not observe any distortion (as many photographers have commented earlier)
• did not observe any flares under normal shooting conditions (though I did not take any picture right into the sun!)

Overall, I do not think I will be using this lens as frequently for street photography as the 18 – 35mm f/2.8. But it will work nice for me especially in creating natural impressions. I would rather use the fantastic 135mm on the Nikkormat EL for grand portraits & street photography.

I shot over 3 rolls of Kodak 400 BW CN film with this camera & lens combination. All shots were indoor in ambient, almost even lighting, except for a few situations where the light was sharp & abrupt.

You can see all the test shots on the Flickr Set Here.

• Vivitar 55 – 135mm f/3.5 is half stop slower than the Nikkor 135 f/2.8 I tested last week
• The lens is fairly sharp – all the test shots are hand held at very low shutter speed of 60 or below which is not recommended for this lens & camera
• The lens has a tack sharp focus. I would attribute any haziness to hand shakes
• The lens + camera weighs over 600 lbs making it hard to hand hold over extended periods of time

The Vivitar 55 – 135 mm f/3.5 will work as a good portrait lens & will be very suitable for street candid pictures. The Nikkormat EL has a center weighted metering & does not have exposure compensation. As such, I would use this with films for street candids & portrait shots rather than using it with slide films.

A brief on the Nikkormat EL Manual Camera:

Since the debut of the original electronic Nikkormat EL more than 25 years ago, there were many events, happenings and changes of course in the direction and philosophy of camera design.

Come to think of it, back in those days one would imagine how a leading trend-setting manufacturer like Nikon has to play it safe to explain and lead the consumers to embrace the advantages of automation in photography while not losing identity.

The first Program AE was the FG in 1982 and the first Shutter Priority AE was the FA in 1983 and this EL was the first Nikon which provided Aperture Priority AE – in 1972.

You can view them on the Flickr Gallery here.

I have posted many of them here, some on Journal Image. The entire bank of the river next to the burning ghats, was lined with devotee stumps. People offer their prayers & their offerings to Kali here. The priest lives next door. So when its not the time for “puja”, he runs a small school for the street children.

This picture was taken on Nikon D200 with camera mounted fill flash on full power. Since it was noon time, & the subject was primarily white, I had to fill the subject at full power to overcome any under exposure.

I also used a graduated 3.0 ND filter to shadow the sky. The picture is only cropped for easy viewing over the internet.

Once they get comfortable around you, your camera or flash lights will not amaze and distract them any more. For a street photographer trying to get candid shots of children, you have to be patient till they don’t notice you anymore!

This is a candid picture of Suraj, a teenager from Kolkata, who loves to play & dive in the water of the Ganges.

Suraj & his group of friends spend the morning at Ghats of North Calcutta. And they have their own kid’s games too.

Like for example, they would dive and swim to the steam boats ferrying across shores. They would compete from one buoy to another. Thats all these children need to make them smile!

Suraj had a characteristic smile. A perfect “ear-to-ear” smile, and his eyes closes every time he laughs. He posed for me after a dive & could not resist laughing every time the flash went off.

This candid street portrait of a child from Kolkata is taken with handheld Nikon D200 & a wide angle lens.

The picture is taken on hand held Nikon D200 with fill flash and a wide angle lens.

A perfect showman who just found a great way to earn money just by dropping his clothes. And the confused tourists, not knowing what this is all about, is more than willing to shell out a couple of bucks for a picture to carry back home as a souvenir.

The picture is taken on hand held Nikon D200 with a wide angle lens.

The D700 was built on the success of the Nikon D3 professional D-SLR camera, the D700 offers pro-level performance and an extensive array of features and innovations.

A few of the newer improvements, mentioned in the press release, on the Nikon D700 includes:

• large pixel size of 8.45 µm allows for an extremely low signal-to-noise ratio
  wide dynamic exposure range
• 12-channel readout enables accelerated information transfer
• shoots 8fps at full image resolution
• ISO range from 200-6400 but can be expanded to range from ISO 100 (Lo-1) to 25,600 (Hi-2)
• Nikon’s first self-cleaning system designed for the FX-format sensor with 4 distinct vibration frequencies
• Nikon’s Scene Recognition System
• enhance their pictures during or after capture with the Picture Control System and Active D-Lighting
• 2 live view modes

The Nikon D700 is sold at for USD 2,999.

The rumors about Nikon D700 suddenly picked up a couple of weeks back with pictures & news running all over the internet. The stories mainly came in from Chinese websites. But UK was the first to make a sensible announcement with a date & a specs list. Although the prices have been taken down to avoid confusion, the news of Nikon D700 news is now holding back potential Nikon D300 buyers.

Here is a snapshot of the UK shop announcing the arrival of Nikon D700 for sale.

You can check the prices on Digital Depot website by the first week of July. The specs released by Nikon to another UK retailer mentions that the Nikon D700 is a hybrid of the Nikon D300 & the costlier Nikon D3. It also mentions that the new Nikon D700 is a 12.1 mega pixels full frame camera.

Here are the other features released to some of the reputed UK retailers:

• 36×23,9mm CMOS sensor FX format 12,1mp effective
• RGB Color filter array, build in low pass filter
• EXPEED processor, 14-bit
• NEF, NEF+jpeg, TIFF, Jpeg file formats
• Auto crop when using DX lenses. All other lenses usable.
• 51 point AF, 15 cross type sensors
• Live view mode
• 3D Colormatrix II metering modes
• ISO 100 – 25600
• CF card slot FAT32
• Accu and grip same as MB-D10 (from D300)

Nikon is yet to come out with a press release, but shops in UK believes that it will happen sometime on July 1 2008. And most of them have already started to stake in orders for the new Nikon D700. You can also order your Nikon D700 here at the danish dealer Photografica.

For a price list released by Photografica earlier & now removed, see post on Journal Image.

While Ken Rockwell seems to have published another picture of Nikon D700 on his website too, there has been no confirmation from Nikon or any of the large Nikon USA dealers on a possible date of release.

Meanwhile, the specifications of the rumored Nikon D700 is also shared on the internet.

Here is what came in from Ken Rockwell.

The specs, listed here are quite impressive. Although there is no mention of the price here, it is said that the prices would be comparable to the Canon top-of-the-line Mark 3 cameras.