Nikon D2HNikon introduces an 8 frame/second speed demon, with WiFi connectivity and an amazing new flash system to boot!<<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 4:ViewfinderReview First Posted: 12/18/2003 |
Viewfinder
The D2H is equipped with an optical viewfinder that works through the lens
(the LCD monitor is for image playback and accessing the menu system only,
and as with other digital SLRs cannot be used for image preview / framing).
The circular optical viewfinder features a diopter adjustment dial and a
sliding protective shutter manually moved in and out of place by a small
lever. The internal metal shutter helps avoid exposure errors due to light
entering the rear element of the viewfinder during long exposures on a tripod.
Nikon states that the optical viewfinder provides about 100 percent frame
coverage, which agrees quite well with my own measurements. (I measured viewfinder
coverage at almost exactly 100 percent.) The D2H's illuminated display inside
the viewfinder provides a bit more information than the previous D1H, with
a center-weighted metering circle, 11 sets of focus brackets, focus indicator,
metering, bracketing indication, battery level, FV lock, sync indicator,
AE lock, shutter speed, shutter speed lock, aperture, aperture lock, aperture
stop indicator, exposure mode and compensation, frame counter, flash-ready
indicator, electronic analog exposure display, voice memo status, white balance
mode and bracketing, image size and quality, and ISO sensitivity.
While the 2.5-inch LCD panel on the D2H isn't usable as a viewfinder, it
does provide a great deal of information about your pictures after you've
shot them. A variety of playback options are available, ranging from a 9-image
thumbnail display, through several full-sized image modes, to a zoomed playback
option with variable magnification. Of these, one of the most interesting
options is the histogram screen, shown at right. Histogram displays are common
on professional digicams, regarded as almost mandatory by many pros for evaluating
exposure levels. A histogram is simply a graph of how many pixels there are
in the image at each brightness level. The brightness is the horizontal axis,
running from black at the left to white at the right. The height of the graph
shows the relative number of pixels having each brightness level. This sort
of display is very handy for determining under- or overexposure. Ideally,
the histogram would stretch across the entire width of the display, using
the full range of brightness values available. An underexposed image will
have a histogram with all the data lumped on the left-hand side, with nothing
reaching all the way to the right. Likewise, an overexposed image will have
all the data lumped on the righthand side.
The
histogram display is very helpful in telling whether you've got the exposure
right, but to my mind isn't adequate by itself. With digicams, it's very
important not to blow-out the highlights in a picture (rather like slide
film in that respect), since once you hit the maximum brightness, the image
just saturates, and any highlight detail will be lost. A histogram display
does a pretty good job of telling you how the image as a whole is doing,
but what if there are just a few critical areas that you're worried about
for the highlights? If only a small percentage of the total frame is involved,
it won't account for many pixels. That means any peak at the "white"
end of the histogram graph would be pretty small, and easy to miss (or just
plain invisible). What to do? The folks at Nikon recognized this problem,
and provided another special display mode that they simply call "highlights,"
accessible via the Playback settings menu, under "Display Mode."
This mode blinks any highlights that are saturated in any of the color channels.
It does this by taking the pure white areas on the LCD and toggling them
between white and black.
In
addition to the histogram, highlights, and information screens, the D2H also
features a focus information screen, which highlights in red the AF area
used for the shot. This can be helpful for checking to see that the camera's
AF system locked onto the portion of the subject you were most interested
in.
The
previous D1H didn't offer any playback zoom, a problem that has been well-addressed
on the D2H. Pressing the Enter button while an image is displayed enters
Playback Zoom mode. To control zoom, you then hold down the Index button
while turning the Command dial. The ability to magnify an image lets you
see critical details that are indiscernible in the basic LCD image. Also
in Playback mode, the D2H's LCD monitor can display as many as four or nine
thumbnail-sized images at once, when the Index button is held down while
rotating the Sub-Command dial.
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