Shooting with my DS-565 (E3S)

[NikonWeb]

It's been a long time since I used it, so today I took my DS-565 (aka. E3S) out for a spin. Compared it to a few other cameras (more details later) and had a lot of fun. I just love to work with these big bulky things!

Unfortunately, I'm constantly disappointed with the image quality. Extremely frustrating. Would be interesting to try one of these models without the Reduction Optical System.

Stan, others: Do you think it's even possible to remove the reduction optics and make the camera work without it? I'm really curious if the sensor is as bad as it looks. I have a feeling that all the extra glass isn't exactly helping.

I'll post some sample shots (compared to a few other cameras) later.

Jarle

[NIKON KIU]

....you're trying to get Stan to open up the ds505 aren't U??
BTW what happened to the winter project Stan? Winters almost over.
Kiu

[NikonWeb]

....you're trying to get Stan to open up the ds505 aren't U??

That's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that?

Seriously, I suspect the optical reducer to be such an integral part of the construction that it's probably extremely difficult, or even impossible, to successfully remove it.

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Winter project? I got lots of those! Too many, actually.

I spent most of my of time this winter putting an old WWII US Army Jeep back together well enough to be our go-to-the-river-fishing vehicle. The river is a half-mile away, thru the woods, and too far to walk - mainly too far to walk *back* carrying a 30+ pound catfish, which is what we fish for.

We had been using my pickup truck, but I grew tired of loading and unloading the gear all the time. What I wanted was something un-roadworthy, but runable, that I could load up and keep loaded up in the barn, ready to go. I found this rusty old Jeep on eBay, not far away, and it looked perfect for the job. I picked it up mid-November.

I've spent a lot of time making it run properly, and cutting lots of rusty metal off and welding in new. Oh, and then painting it afterwards. I managed to get it finished two weekends ago, and now we're into the spring planting season, so I'm working in the garden now.

So, that's what happened to the 'Great E2 Disassembly Project'. It never even got started. :p

To the question at hand, yes, I think the ROS comes out fairly easily. That'll leave you with a sensor nowhere near the focal plane of the master lens, though. It'd be like shooting infinity with the lens set at minimum, I think. Not much good.

I doubt that the sensor will be up for a transplant. It'll be mounted onto a PWB that's sized to fit right where it is, and noplace else. Even with major surgery, how will one get it aligned in 3D precisely enough to match the plane of focus? That's a tough one.

Even if we pulled that particular rabbit out of the hat, what'll we have? A FLM of 8x or so. Hardly useful, which explains the ROS concept in the first place! :p

We'll still have a lousy 1.5MP video camcorder CCD to boot, and I'll bet real money that the fool thing works no better straight-on with a master lens than it does with the ROS in the way.

Sounds like a lot of work for no gain, to me.......

What you need is a Contax or Mamiya 645 rig with a Kodak Pro Back Plus hung on it. That'll give you the large, weighty camera *and* a major increase in shot quality to boot! :p

Stan

[NikonWeb]

Sounds like a lot of work for no gain, to me......

No doubt about that. It's plain silly to use these old things at all, but it's a lot of fun

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Well, I don't think it's all that silly to use these things these days. Like all other things photographic, they are tools that do fit certain uses very well.

I use my E2 (DS-505) in a simple studio to take images of printed T-shirts and whatnot for our website. The thing shoots one frame at a time, but that's all I need it to do. Plus, it makes use of older Non-AI lenses, which is grand. I have an old 85/1.8 and 105/2.5 that are perfect for the task. It shoots in a 4:3 aspect ratio at SXGA res, and I need a 4:3 aspect VGA shot. So, I don't have to crop and then I do a simple downsample and the shots look great on the PC screen of a prospective customer.

I use my DS-565 (E3s) at ISO 3200 in 3fps mode with a AF 180/2.8 to shoot bowlers (mainly, my wife) on the approach. This is really 'quasi-video camera mode', but the resulting sequence, shown on a notebook PC screen, lets them see how their timing from start to ball release is. That's the most important part of the sport. So, I keep the 565 in it's own bag with the bowling equipment, so I don't have to think about grabbing a camera before heading out - one is always on hand should we need it.

Now, I could use a host of other tools for those two jobs, of course. As it is, the things exist in my 'closet o gear', and still work very well within their limitations. It's the old argument of using the right tool for the job. A 4x5" view camera takes amazing images of things like landscapes, but would suck for shooting a bowler releasing a ball.

The key here, is to understand the limits, and then not expect anything more out of the poor old things. It'd be grand if we could transplant the guts from a D1 into an E2 with a less agressive 2x ROS that'd get us our full FOV with the APS format imager, but it's something just a bit beyond our capabilities. Heck, it's a bit out of Nikon's as well, or the D1 would have been......an E4! :p

Stan

[Brian Sweeney]

I've been using the E3 for most of my "Camera Shots". It works with the SB-29. That and the Micro-Nikkor 60/2.8 makes a good combo for the shots of camera gear. The D1's will not work with the "regular" Nikon TTL flashes; the E series does. And I do like the SB29.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/ ... hp?t=20065

[NikonWeb]

Took some indoor portrait shots today and was reminded (once again) that the camera is actually pretty good for low light conditions. At 800 ISO, correctly exposed images are very, very nice. Very little noise, great sharpness.

The E3S is less than impressive under bright (daylight) conditions with great contrast, but an excellent performer for many other purposes. And it's a great camera to work with. It feels like an extremely cool Nikon F4/medium format Frankencamera! And I mean that in a positive way.

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Frankencamera! Ha! I *love* that term! It *so* fits! :p

I know what you mean. I like the feel of the thing in my hands as well. I keep wondering if a 645 with Pro Back Plus might not feel as good? Bad thinking there. Bad for my wallet, that is! 645 systems aren't cheap, although the Pro Back Plus units are down there pretty good these days.

I'm having fun using my old Kodak 560 as well. Now that I have figured out that ACR gives me better output than Photo Desk did, I really like that camera - as long as the light is good, that is. ISO 80 does not go very far....

later!

Stan

[Ross_Alford]

Among the other things I've done with the E3 in the 24 hours I've had it is take pictures of a set of resolution charts I always use to see how well cameras and lenses are doing.

I can report that the ROS is not degrading performance; it's more or less exactly what you'd expect from a camera with a Bayer filter, a full-on anti-aliasing filter, and 1000 pixels in the vertical direction: about 700 lines/picture height. That is more or less exactly in line with every other digital camera I've tried that has a lens good enough to take full advantage of the sensor: maximum resolution is a bit over 2/3 times the number of pixels. The only exception is the DCS420, which with no AA filter, gives about 900 lines/picture height.

The ROS may cost a bit of contrast, though, or it could be the in-camera processing. Images do seem a bit flat. As previously noted in this thread, too, the camera does not seem to deal particularly well with high-contrast outdoor lighting. How I wish it had a raw format option.

[NIKON KIU]

Whewww!!
I am glad the battery held its charge
Kiu

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Raw format? Does not the E3 output the same kind of oddball Tiff file that the E2 does. The one that requires a Photoshop file format module to open? You know, the one that acts an awful lot like a Kodak Raw Tiff file.....

I looked on the Fuji site (there's nothing on the Nikon site that I know of regarding this plug-in) for info on the plug-in and it only covers the 505 and 515 variants.

Hmmm. How odd. Now, I have both cameras, and you'd think I'd know the answer to this one, but I don't.

I always shoot my Nikon E2 in Tiff/Raw mode and use PS to process the shots. The E2 is what I use as a product shot camera for website images. I shoot in Tiff, post process and then downsample to 640x480 and it produces very nice web images.

I always shoot the DS-565 in Jpeg mode and have never tried anything else. The 565 is what I use to shoot my wife's bowling 'approach' whenever she gets her timing out of whack. It has just enough buffer to do this job, acting like a slow video camera, while working well in the low light of a bowling center. The Jpegs are small and quick to load onto a notebook so she can see where she's going wrong.

So, that's it. I always shoot the E2 in Tiff mode and the 565 in Jpeg. I've never tried the 565 in Tiff mode before. I suppose I can try the 565 in Tiff mode when I get home and see how it differs from the E2, and then we'll all know.

It's odd, though. I figured that they would both act the same in this regard. Perhaps they decided to change the way the Tiff files were handled at the same time they decided to change the way the memory card system worked. You know, improvements all around.

In any event, the Tiff mode on the E2 has much better image quality than the Jpeg mode does for what it's worth.

Stan

[NikonWeb]

Raw format? Does not the E3 output the same kind of oddball Tiff file that the E2 does. The one that requires a Photoshop file format module to open?

Correct. I just tested it. You'll get a 2511 KB TIFF file that can be opened in Nikon View, Nikon Capture and a few other programs.

Jarle

[Ross_Alford]

I tried the Fuji plugin, found it via Stan's earlier post on this forum, and it works for E3 TIF files; at least it seems to load them correctly, but it only loads them as 8-bit images, and there is no opportunity to correct exposure--it was this I was wishing for. I haven't tried the nikon view option, but I seem to recall from using it with CP5000 NEF files some time ago, that there is little or no opportunity to change exposure with that, either, though maybe it will load images as 16-bit files, in which case some exposure compensation could be done using controls in Photoshop.

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Oh, I see what you're after - 16 bit files. No, the old P/I only does 8-bit, not 12-bit in a 16-bit file, unfortunately. That imager is an ancient video camera device, and I'm afraid they hadn't thought about having a few extra bits to allow post-processing for expousre correction when that device was developed. It not being a Kodak device, that is. Kodak had thought of this, but they were the only ones at that point in time, I think...

I bracket my shots with the E2 and work around this limitation in that manner. I thought you were after as much resolution as you could get from 1.5 MP, and so the Tiff output does help in that respect.

When I was reading the eariler posts, it dawned on me that I had never tried my 565 in anything other than Jpeg mode, and thought maybe it didn't work like the older E2 I have does.

On the bright side, the original D1 units are getting pretty cheap these days, and they *do* have a 12-bit Raw format *and* more resolution to boot!

Stan