Digital info for serious shooters: specializing in Nikon & Canon

DigitalPro Shooter Volume 1, Issue 18, December 31st, 2002

Welcome to DPS1-18.  Happy Holidays! We're pleased to present 2002 in review, but first we've got our favorite 10 ways to tell if you're a professional photographer:

Are you a Pro?--Top 10 ways to tell if you're a Pro Shooter:-)

I'm often asked how to become a professional photographer. The first problem with this question is that there is no agreement on exactly what a professional photographer is. To help clarify this confusing situation, DigitalPro Shooter is thoughtfully providing a list of 10 ways you'll know you're a professional digital photographer.

You're a professional digital shooter if:

10. Your friends ask you to shoot a family Christmas portrait for them as a favor

9. When you're on a photo trip, you spend your evenings filing and submitting images and writing articles

8. You wish your camera equipment cost less so that your insurance would cost less--not more so that you can brag about it.

7. You put your digital film wallet in your pants pocket in the morning even before your car keys

6. You have enough camera bags in your closet to pack up your entire house

5. You choose airlines based on carry on baggage allowance

4. PS7 is a software program and not a school you attended as a child

3. You don't remember what year you joined NPS or CPS

2. Your family cringes every time you say, "I'll be right there, I just need to take a couple shots of this."

And finally, the number one way to tell if you're a digital pro:

1. You'll be with some of the world's top photographers at Digital Shooters Retreat in March, comparing notes, sharing and learning from the best. DSR is open to professionals & enthusiastic amateurs alike. All we ask is that you have a passion for photography.

Year in Review: 2002

Cameras

Whether 2002 was a watershed year for your digital photography depends mostly on the type of shooting you do. For most bread and butter D-SLR shooting, the workhorses leaving the year are the same three that entered it--the Nikon D1X and D1H and the Canon 1D. But if you were waiting for a camera at the $2K price point, this was a great year. The Nikon D100 and Canon D60 were introduced as true breakthrough products--allowing no compromise image quality for a big chunk less money and in a smaller, friendlier form factor. If those still didn't tempt you to become a digital convert, the Nikon Coolpix 5700 provides a highly competitive and compact ZLR alternative for those wanting to have a digital option without buying into an entire camera system. And for those dragging their heels moving from medium format to digital, Canon's new 1Ds should prove very tempting. At 11MP, its detail rivals medium format without the high cost of MF backs.

In the point and shoot arena, more is still considered better, so entry level cameras moved from 2MP to 3MP and then 4MP, and high-end point and shoots up to over 5MP. Hopefully now that everyone has proven they can scale the mega-pixel hill the emphasis will move back to image quality and ease of use for 2003. Kodak deserves plenty of credit here for sticking with their guns and working hard at the Easy Share system. Unlike other vendors they haven't distracted their users with a lot of fancy marketing terms for their image processing and have instead focused on making the image to photo experience as painless as possible.

Lenses

The cutest new little lens award definitely goes to the Nikon 24-85G AF-S. At under a pound and under $400 for an AF-S lens, this was a no-brainer purchase for many of us. The cutest new long lens is the Canon 400f/4 DO. Killer sharp and killer light, I'd be very tempted to skip buying a 400f/2.8 and stick with this smaller cousin if I was assembling a Canon system. The lens that might have been great is the continually postponed Nikon 70-200 VR AF-S. Until Nikon can actually get the lens into production rumors will continue about whether they can pull off VR and AF-S in the same lens with their existing mount.

Another year of Recalls

For some reason, rather than have beta tests, digital camera vendors seem to prefer recalls. For another year early purchasers and upgraders of digital cameras were treated to a variety of firmware fixes, recalls, and in the case of the Nikon firmware upgrade, a recall of the upgrade. Personally I can't imagine that this is long-term the most cost effective solution, but as long as time to market is king, then we'll live with this system. The alternative is having most folks wait an extra two to three months while a few folks participate in an organized test and QA cycle.

Processing & Printing

At the high-end, specialty online photo printers like Pictopia and 4-color printers like Modern Postcard are growing by leaps and bounds. Shooters want pro quality with online convenience and discount pricing. But the mid-range pro labs have been getting squeezed by the digital mini-labs at unlikely locations such as Costco and Walmart. I don't think that two years ago anyone would have predicted the large number of shooters getting their wedding, event and sports photos printed right next to the 30' high stacks of Diet Coke at the local Costco. But predictable results and rock bottom pricing have made the combination a winner for many. Clearly labs will need to continue to reinvent themselves going forward. -- Note: We'll have Pictopia and Modern Postcard at Digital Shooters Retreat to help explain how you can get the most from their online services.

Travel

The dark spot of the year for many of us has been travel. A hodge-podge of confusing new security regulations has made it difficult to take gear on the airplane with you, and now airlines will begin breaking locks on checked baggage. I know that I've driven to many more locations than I did previously.

The Economy

If it wasn't so sad, it'd be humorous watching economists argue over whether we are in a recession. The vendors we talk to are not in any doubt--and neither are most of the photographers. Business is down. Day rates continue to erode at some publications. And if it isn't down it is because of discounting or extra hours put in to earn the same amount of money as before. It is tempting to pull back when there is a recession, but the winners as the economy recovers will be those who make the investment today to sharpen their skills, as well as acquiring and retaining their customers.

Overall it hasn't been the most exciting or best year for photographers or photography, but there is plenty of room for optimism about 2003. Happy New Year!--David

DigitalPro Shooter Forums!

Make sure and visit us at: http://www.nikondigital.org/discuss/ubbthreads.php. Always free and always informative!

DigitalPro Tip of the Week:

You can easily put the location & shooting information on all the images from a particular shoot by doing a Select All (Control-A) on the shoot, then choosing the Batch Captioning Command (Control-B) and entering the desired information.