Not loving affair with Nikon D800

I have been using range finder cameras as my main camera for over 20 years. I would say I am in a relationship with Leica. They are often assertive and frustrating, but when I treat the camera well and carefully feed good light the camera gives me stunning beautiful images. You know I mean…this is truly a relationship.

On the other hand, Nikon D800 is job partner.  It is reliable and covenient, but I don’t expect the “surprise” which I found in images from Leica. So I often take Leica. I use D800 for mostly for event photography or when I am lazy.

Having said that, I have decided to taking D800 to Lake O’Hara trip in this fall. The reason is the shutter of my Leica M9 has become unreliable after 160,000 actuations.  This is known issue of Leica M9. Lake O’Hara is considered to be backcountry so if something happens to a camera, I cannot get a spare camera easily.

So I took my D800 for a hiking to lake Agnes as a trial. Also I got a Cotton carrier camera system so I tested the Cotton carrier system well. Here is my new look.

Cotton Carrier is quite confortable.  It is nice on my neck. I put 3 more lenses in a shoulder bag, but it was not heavy unexpectedly.  Now I gave a “go sign” to myself to take Nikon system to Lake O’Hara.  Another good thing about the Cotton system is a Arcaswiss tripod plate is coming with the kit. So I can put the camera on my panorama head as well. This is handy for landscape photographers.

Modifying Nikon PC 24mm lens

As I mentioned in my last post, I bought an Nikon PC 24mm lens. This lens allows movements of shift and tilt; however, Nikon PC lenses have a problem especially for landscape photographers. When I shift a lens vertically, the lens can tilt only horizontally.

Landscape photographers use tilt and shift lens to avoid conversing lines which is seen when a camera is pointed up. Also landscape photographers like hyperfocal distance, images on focus from foreground to infinity. Tilt allows increasing the depth of field without closing down aperture. So it is more practical to set the movement of tilt and shift on the same axis.

So I had to modify the lens. Here is steps

1) Unscrew four screws on top of squire block of the lens. Micro screw did not work because screws were quite tight. I bought a screwdriver with large grip.

2) Lift the top CAREFULLY since the top and lens body are connected with electronic cables.

3) Rotate the top 90 degrees clockwise and screw the four screws back.

4) Movements of the shift and tilt are the same axis.

I you want to try, please do it at your own risk.