Buttons part II - EV button

Nikon have helpfully let us know that they intend to bring out the new all singing all dancing D4s. Just in case shop keepers were hoping to sell their last few D4's Nikon has put a stop to any of that business by telling the world that they are working on the D4s so everyone who would have bought a D4 will now sit on their hands till the new toy arrives.
Sinicism aside, it's no great shock that the D4 replacement is on its way as its less expensive siblings catch him up in tech speck. Shown to the world for the first time at the 2014 International CES in Las Vegas, it looks much like the old camera. No surprise there as this is a refinement not a replacement so to speak. All the changes will be internal with new image-processing engine, and more advanced autofocusing performance.
Keep an eye on our twitter and/or Facebook for further updates between journals. In the meantime, head on over to the Nikon press release to see what Nikon has to say.

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So a new year means a new entry level DSLR and a bucket load of compacts (more on them later). What do you get with your all new D3300 then? Well the biggest change is the predictable move over to the Expeed 4 image processing giving it an extra frame per second continuous shooting, some higher frame rate HDR video shooting modes and one stop higher ISO at 12,800. The camera is now deeper yet shorter whilst managing to weigh 25 grams less thanks to a single pieces chasis incorporating carbon fibre.
On top of this Nikon has fitted a higher magnification viewfinder and some extra Auto flash modes are also now available.
The D3300 no longer supports the EN-EL14 battery. Not a concern for new buyers but those upgrading from a previous D3XXX may find their spare batteries not working. It is either to do with this or power saving elsewhere that the camera manages an extra 160 frames per charge now pumping out 700 frames before needing a recharge.
Removal of the lowpass filter coupled with the Expeed 4 image processing will make things sharper although you would be needing quite big prints to notice the difference.
You also gain a new   button that allows you got gain access to menu's quickly either via the screen or viewfinder. A hands-on test will show what this offers over the standard menu button.
As always there is a large range of postproduction modes that the user can see on the live view screen in real time as they shoot.
This sounds like allot but in real terms it isn't a huge leap above the D3200 that it replaces but that wasn't exactly a leap above the D3100 so whereas D3200 users might be hanging on for another year some D3100 users might be thinking it's time for an upgrade.
Take a read for yourself on the Nikon blog for all the details. You can now preorder your D3300 on Amazon in Black or Red for £599 and body only for £499. If you are out for a bargain you can pick up the D3200 for only £359 with a kit lens.

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Where 50mm is the benchmark or what we would call a normal lens (all be it slightly telephoto in real terms) the 35mm roughly gives us a normal human field of view and as a result has been and will continue to be a very popular focal length.
At first I (in-my-viewfinder) was a little confused as to why Nikon were releasing another f1.8G 35mm AF-S only a year after the last one. This one looks bigger and still made of plastic so what was the big change? Well this is a full frame FX lens rather than the Nikkor 35mm AF-S DX f/1.8G Lens that came out about a year ago. Confusion doesn't stop there however as Nikkor is still making an 35mm f/2D for only £255 and a high quality super-fast 35mm f/1.4 for those who don't mind manually focusing. That’s 4 different 35mm prime lenses to fit the F mount all from Nikkor!
Back to the subject 35mm lens, that’s the AF-S f1.8G FX one. Looks wise it is much like all of Nikkor's AF-S lenses in that it's plastic and fairly unremarkable but it's what's inside that counts and this lens seems to have all the right stuff. ED glass and an aspherical element should keep distortion and fringing down to a minimum whilst the f1.8 aperture viewfinder will make this a nice prime lens to use for its bright viewfinder characteristics and very shallow DOF.
This lens will be the perfect normal lens for those who shun zooms yet find the 50mm f1.8 a touch narrow for their style of photography. However be warned, if you are a DX camera user this will come out nearer 50mm on your cropped sensor and cost you OVER 3X that of the DX version at its pre-order price of £519. This gives pause for thought for the FX camera users to as the NIKKOR AF-S 50mm f/1.8G is a steal at £149 and even the NIKKOR 50mm AF-S f/1.4G Lens is £299 with an even bigger aperture for over £200 less so you really must want the 35mm focal length in order to part with your pennies for this one.
Should you already be on the 35mm bandwagon then you will more than likely already be concidering the Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM Lens for Nikon. At a similar price and already offering very high image quality, it will be interesting to see how these two lenses stack up against each other.
Head on over to the Nikon press release to read more about this lens and you can Pre-order it here.

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Nikon were nice enough to revamp all of their L series cameras together allowing us to announce to you the all new COOLPIX L830,L330,L30 and L29. The Nikon Life (L) Coolpix range is designed to "developed with an emphasis on ease of use and functions that make these digital cameras fun to use." For us the best part of the L series is that they all use AA batteres so no matter where you are in the world you can just pick up a new battery and carry on shooting. So with that in mind lets see what they have to offer us:

L830

The L830 is equipped with a high-power zoom NIKKOR lens offering 34x optical zoom that covers a broad range of angles of view, from the wide-angle 22.5 mm to 765 mm (equivalent focal lengths in 35mm [135] format). This is fairly impressive for a camera that measures roughly 111 x 75.8 x 91.2 mm* (W x H x D) before the lens gets excited and has a nice big 3-inch 921k-dot (RGBW) tilting TFT LCD screen stuck on the back.
The L830 keeps its older brothers 16-megapixel back lit CMOS sensor but the added zoom and 5 way vibration reduction during video capture might well tempt some to upgrade.
The L830 isn't available for pre-order just yet although you can pick up the L820 for only £159 if you don't think you will need that extra zoom.

L330

Should you find the above a bit chunky for your compact needs yet still want mega zoom then the L330 may well be for you. It has a compact body, despite its effective pixel count of 20.2-million pixels and a 26x optical zoom. A large clear 3in screen shows you what you are pointing your camera at whether it being stills or hd video all made easier with VR optical image stabilisation.
As with the L830 the L330 is not available for preorder just yet but the L320 is substantially reduced. Having a lower res 16.1 megapixel sensor seems to be its only draw back and with a bundle that has a Nikon Coolpix L320 in Black + Case + 16GB Memory Card + 4xAA Battery and Charger (16.1MP, 26x Optical Zoom) 3 inch LCD for £130.99 it could be a good option for those who value their wallet weight higher than a few more pixels.

L30

If you like the idea of the L330 but don't feel you need to take photographs of ants 3 miles away then the L30 may well be for you. A 5X zoom is pretty standard with the compact cameras of today and the 20.1-million pixel CCD sensor from the L330 will still give you huge reproductions to use as wallpapers or get blown up huge on your wall.
The other stand out feature from its little brother is the glamour retouch tools that allow you to glam your mates up before sharing them all over facebook.
Available from Amazon, you can pre-order a Nikon Coolpix L30 for just £89.

L29

The L29 is very much the same as the L30 but to make this camera even cheaper they have recycled the 16.1-million pixel sensor from the L320 and dispensed with the glamour tools. It will still be a step up from a mobile phone, all be it a small on, as the 5X optical zoom remains. As yet it is not available for pre-order but expect to pay around £69.

You can read about all of these cameras on the Nikon press release.



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Not happy with announcing an entire L series release this month we also get a complete new S series of Coolpix cameras. In this case the S is for Style making sure you look good whilst capturing memories with your friends and family. All models here feature targeted AF, making it easier to focus on what matters.
Nikon have announced the new COOLPIX S6800,S6700,S5300,S3600 and S2800 and here are a few words on each of them:

S6800

First off of the list is the S6800 featuring a 16 million pixel back lit CMOS sensor and a 12X optical zoom into a stylish little chassis. Zoom can be extended to 24X with Nikons dynamic fine zoom technology. Not only this but you can capture full 1080p hd video with the aid of 4 way vibration reduction and share it all over wifi. Pretty powerful for such a tiny camera!
Now available for pre-order for £199 in white, red, pink and black some time soon.

S6700

Using a 20.1 million pixel CCD sensor and dispensing with the Wi-Fi  gives a cost saving whilst still looking good as you shoot 720p hd video at the touch of a button or photograph with a plethora of retouch and filter settings. 4 way image stabilisation will help keep things blur free even at its 10x max zoom range.
Available for pre-order in black or red for £149.

S5300

Nikon has pulled off a clever trick by shoe horning the 16.1 million pixel back lit CMOS sensor from the S6800 into the much smaller S5300 and still managing to fit wifi and a 8X zoom.
So where is the catch? Full 1080p/60i HD video isn't one and neither is the 4 axis vibration reduction so aside from a cut in the zoom length there isn't one, making this camera better internally thn the S6700 on the face of it.
You can currently pre-order yours in black or plum currently with more colours to follow.

S3600

You might spot a theme here as the S3600 has the internals of the S6700 at a lower price than the S5300. Coupled with the 8X zoom from the S5300 this will be more than enough camera for your holiday snaps and save you some money over its smarter and pricier brothers. Video is available as 720p HD.
As yet it is not available for pre-order but you can pick up the previous model Nikon COOLPIX S3500 in Red at the substantially reduced price of £60 and all you lose out on is stepping down to a 7X zoom. Sometimes it is worth taking a step back from worrying about what new camera to buy and taking a look at what shops are trying to clear from their stock.

S2800

Featuring the same internals as above, only with a shorter 5X zoom and the loss of the 4 way vibration reduction. You will still be able to capture photographs with many glamour settings and filters and shoot 720p HD video.
Again not available on pre-order but the older Coolpix S2700 can be snapped up for £56.99 with a 16.44 mp sensor and a longer 6X zoom.

All of these cameras can be found in the Nikon press release for further reading pleasure.

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For those who have been waiting to get their hands on this super-fast, wide zoom lens; you need wait no longer!
Head on over to Dp reviews for another of their fantastic comprehensive reviews then get all excited and go to Amazon to buy yours.

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New firmware updates are now available. Links for European and American versions will be linked (not sure what the difference is but they did it anyway). Update reasons are different for each camera so if yours is here, click the link and have a read of what changes you can expect.
DF
EU
US
D5200
EU
US
D3200
EU
US
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So far no news direct from Nikon but this interesting little rumour might interest some of our D600 users.
Those suffering with the dust/oil contamination issues should look to contact Nikon as it seems that somepeople in the States and France have managed to get their faulty D600 replaced with a D610 for a small fee. Head on over to Nikon rumours to read the original article.

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Updates are now available for Mac and PC. Support for some of Nikon's new compact cameras as well as a few tweaks and features have been added.
You can download your updated version from Nikon for Mac or PC.

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The EV button is that little +/- chappy that is sat quietly and mostly unloved next to your shutter. Its job is to allow you to set an exposure compensation. This is a useful tool for anyone to have. It gives you more control in program modes when the light gets a bit trickier. This is particularly the case when you are shooting a backlit subject for example. Some lenses can confuse your camera into over or under exposing so this button again comes in useful here.
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The earliest Nikon camera I could find that offers anything like this is the EM.
To provide a user with a greater degree of control even if the EM is only providing aperture priority AE, Nikon provided a built-in function where the exposure compensation button (front top right as can be seen in mariesturges' image above) could be depressed to automatically make the camera under expose by two stops. This would be useful for back lit subjects. A basic system by today's standards but no doubt a useful feature when the only way to do the same in program mode back then was to fool the camera into under exposing by changing the film ISO setting to a higher ISO.

How to use

As can be seen from the above images of the EV buttons on the Nikon F90X, F80 and D3x have not changed position much and work in a very similar way on all of these cameras. This being that you press and hold the EV button down, whilst spinning the thumb-wheel. Turning the thumb wheel to the right will make the camera over expose, the opposite way will under expose. Increments vary between cameras. Older and more basic SLR's like the F80 are in half stop increments, whereas newer and/or more professional like the D3x and F90x seen here are in thirds. When you have made the desired input you simply need to remove your finger from the EV button and the camera will under/ over expose accordingly.

Display

To help you know what you have setting you have made, your camera has a number of ways that it may show you (depending on model this may vary). Firstly you will see that whilst holding the EV button down, the top screen will change to a decimal view that changes as you rotate the dial. Many newer cameras will also display the exposure scale on the same screen.
A few examples of the decimal view are:
 0.0 – No exposure compensation
+0.5 – over exposed by half a stop
-1.0  – Under expose by one full stop
When the EV button is released, with the EV altered, a +/- symbol will remain on the screen and, if shown, the centre circle of the exposure scale with flash in all but manual mode till the exposure compensation is returned to 0.0 or the camera is reset.
The viewfinder may also indicate your input as well so you don't have to change position whilst shooting. Here you get the same decimal view (usually in the bottom right corner) as well as making use of the cameras exposure scale that you normally use as a guide when shooting manually.
To read the scale on newer systems (example here is from a D3x) you will see a line comprising of a centre circle vertical lines indicate full stops and the pips in between are the fractions of a stop stretching out either side of the circle. A bar will appear as you rotate the dial to indicate the amount of compensation in the direction of the positive or negative compensation. As with the top screen the circle in the centre will continue to flash for as long as you have exposure compensation enabled.
This is easier to show than to explain so here are a couple of examples:
|...|...|...o...|...|...|+/-  - no exposure compensation
|...|...|.,,o...|...|...|+/   - 2/3rds stop over exposed
|...|...|...o,,,|,..|...|  /-  - 1 and 1/3rd under exposed
Older cameras, with simpler displays are similar just without the dashes and in the case of the F80, where you have half stop will look something like this:
.  .  .  |  .  .  . +/- - no exposure compensation
.  .  . ,|  .  .  . +/  - 1/2 over exposed
.  .  .  |,,., .  .   /- - 1 and ½ over exposed

On both of these examples the +/- symbol will remain on in the viewfinder for as long as you have exposure compensation enabled. The only difference to the top screen here though is that only the relevant half will be displayed as can be seen in the above examples.
Older cameras still (eg. F90x) will not show the scale and will only give you a decimal display, the same as the top screen.

Finally the info screen that some of the latest DSLR's come with shows a very similar display as the top screen and viewfinder. The only difference to the viewfinder is that as the top screen the full EV symbol is displayed regardless of positive or negative compensation.

It is easy to see how an EV setting made on your last shoot can be forgotten and not noticed when you pull your camera out of the bag. The safest way to avoid doing an entire shoot with everything under exposed by a full stop is to get into the habit of doing a soft reset before every shoot (press and hold both buttons marked with a green circle) or at the very least look out for the EV symbol and flashing circle in the viewfinder.

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As the most popular item on last months Poll, we are now going to implement a project, every month, that will follow on from our monthly tutorial.

EV button

This month we want to see what you have captured whilst using exposure compensation.
Pictures must showcase when Nikon users have used their EV button to great creative effect, got them out of a tricky situation or used so craftily you would never even know.

How to submit

Submit your project entry to our "gallery > Projects > EV button" folder by clicking on the link and pressing the (+ Submit to This Folder) button in the top right.
Alternatively you can start from the deviation in your gallery, press the (+Add to a Group) button on the right Column, select Everything-Nikon and chose EV button in the drop down menu.

Take care to get the correct folder as submissions to any other folder will not count.
Your entry is part of your one submission per week so you can submit as many times a month as there are weeks in it but that will be all your submissions used up should you chose to do that.
Entries may be new or old, however they must meet our group rules and be relevant to the project description. If this isn't immediately obvious then it might be an idea to put a description on your deviation telling us the story of what you did.
Top images will be selected at the end of the month and featured in the following months journal for ultimate bragging rights and a cheeky feature to some 9000+ members!
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A quick note to thank F16CrewChief for taking the time to photograph and share his Nikon FE to help us in our tutorial series.
Should you wish to do the same with your camera and have your images featured in our tutorials then upload your images onto Deviant art and send me (in-my-viewfinder) a link so I can upload them all to "our my Nikon Camera > Camera Details" folder.
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We have implemnten photo projects as can be seen above.
Submission staff have been briefed to keep an eye open for overly pornographic images. These should be removed from our galleries and dA as a whole if found. You to can help with this by following the guidance on the FAQ.
We have opened to the floor for anyone to organize DevMeets. All you need to do is come up with a plan and send it to us directly or to me (in-my-viewfinder) and we will share it on our journals as well as on our Deviant Meet page

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