August 2012

After weeks of shooting in Alaska with a 3 pound Nikon D4, 8 pound telephoto lens, and 6 pounds of carbon fiber tripod, I was more than ready to review the new Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100. At 8-1/2 ounces, the Sony barely even registers on a travel scale. It is a little larger than my current favorite point and shoot, the Canon PowerShot S100, but certainly still qualifies as pocket-sized. I’ve never been a big fan of Sony’s point and shoots, although I do like some of their mirrorless models, but after the New York Times called the Sony RX100 the “world’s best point and shoot” I had to give it a look…

After several years of reliable geotagging with my Red Hen GPS unit, I was eager to test out Nikon’s GPS accessory, the Nikon GP-1. I was really hoping that, being from Nikon, it would more seamlessly integrate with my DSLRs and my shooting experience than third party solutions. Unfortunately, while the Nikon GP-1 is certainly a competent and effective product, it needs some serious work before it outshines less expensive options already on the market.

Before using the LensCal, I found tweaking the AF on my camera & lens combos (by setting the camera to adjust its AF +/- for each lens in its fine tuning menu) such a hassle that I usually just sent suspect lenses back to Nikon for calibration. That’s expensive and time consuming, so I decided to give the LensCal a try. We used it on both of my recent Texas trips and Alaska trips, with great results. Several participants found at least one lens combo that needed tweaking, and the ones that didn’t gained some extra confidence that their AF was focusing properly. I was excited enough to write an article for Datacolor on the topic, where you can learn how to do it yourself!.