Adam … I am loving the camera even more now. I’ll be so bold to say that right now there is no better camera on the market than the Nikon D700 if you look at quality vs cost.

Neil vN

Hi there Jaime …

I can’t remember if I wore grey … but I look like this. ;)

Neil vN

I was wandering around Time Square that same night. I wonder if I saw you? I always notice photographers when I’m out and about. Were you wearing grey, perchance?

I was too lazy to bring my big camera, so my brothers got shots of the Star Wars peeps with my point and shoot.

My flashy, noisy picture of the same event is here:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/2726455863_08150b5d4d.jpg?v=0
(Yes, that’s my husband… )

I’ve been using your histogram method on subjects that do not have white in them. I was interpreting your notes literally when you mentioned “brightest relevant tone,” so I always targeted the brightest dominant color in the subject, but the resulting photographs always had colors that were slightly off.

Now that I think about it, your histogram method was based on the concept of aligning white correctly in the zone system (that spectrum you printed in your tutorial papers you gave me). I guess that when I meter off something other than white, I end up shifting the white in that spectrum, so that makes the entire image look off.

More practice for me!

Stephen,

In this case there isn’t a predominant tone that is white, so using the histogram as I’ve explained elsewhere, wouldn’t really work. But there are other methods in achieving accurate exposure.

In this case, simply zeroing the needle in manual exposure mode did the trick. With the mix of brighter tones and darker tones, and the use of matric metering, the camera metered correctly. (I would’ve had the same exposure if I had used an automatic meterin mode.)

Neil vN.

I typically have trouble trying to figure where I should meter when it comes to subjects that do not have white. Thanks.

I do not see much graininess in the 100% photo you took. That is impressive low-light sensitivity of the camera. I guess the Canon 5D is dethroned? And of course, your composition is excellent as usual.

I am also curious how the SB-900 works. I was interested in replacing my SB-600 with it, so I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on it.

Richard …

For me, the SB-900 improves so much on the SB-800 that it was an automatic upgrade.

I’ll post a review in the next week or two.

Neil vN.

How do you like the SB900?

Now I wonder what Canon is cooking up?