Nikon D90 – I need to learn how to shoot video now
Nikon D90 (link goes to nikon.ca)
I recently picked up a Nikon D90 body, and have only just started to play with it. Although it hasn’t seen a real stress test yet, so far, 12.3 megapixels of rich colour have been most appreciated.
Compared to my previous D70s, the camera shoots impressively well in low light. Indoor shots taken at 800-1600 ISO (and even 3200 ISO) look sharp and impressively grain-free, even when enlarged. I also really like the ability to configure a custom menu that’s opened by the button under your right index finger, to give yourself rapid access to functionality that was previously buried in menus.
Ken Rockwell’s D90 Users Guide In Plain English has some great tips for tweaking the D90′s initial settings for ease of use and good results. I took his tip to change the customizable button to the Set Picture Control menu, which lets me quickly switch between Standard for people shots, and Vivid for lanscapes. Check out Ken’s guide for more tips.
The D90 has the unique ability among DSLRs of its class to shoot video of up to 1280×720 resolution (720p). When in video mode, the camera does not auto-focus, so you have to shoot Hollywood-style.
I wasn’t sure if the D90 video quality could be taken seriously until I saw this Youtube video of a Henkell Champagne commercial that was shot with the D90 (direct link). They apparently used several Nikon lenses to get the job done (Nikon 400 2.8, Nikon 80-200 2.8, Nikon 50 1.8, Nikon 17-55 2.8).
The commercial’s subject matter is not too hard on the eyes, either.
Wow – very cool, and proof to me that in the right hands, the D90′s video functionality can produce some amazing results. Now I need to learn some videography (and invest in a few lenses!).
Productivity Tip: Re-map Caps Lock to the Application Key
My Dell Studio 17 does not have an “Application Key” – the key that usually sits beside the Windows key and behaves like right-clicking the mouse on a UI element. I have no idea why Dell chose to omit one of the most useful keys on the keyboard, especially for laptop users, who pay a larger productivity tax every time they switch between keyboard and mouse.
This great registry trick at US Netizen lets you re-map keys like Caps Lock. So I used it to re-map the Caps Lock key, which I never use, to the Application Key. I’ve since found this remapping so handy that I’ve re-mapped Caps Lock to the Application Key on all my other client machines.
Caps Lock is oversized, easily accessible with your left hand’s little finger, and completely useless. On the other hand, the Application Key, even when not omitted from a keyboard design, can be awkward to reach. Just so I don’t have to figure it out again, here’s a Registry Edit file (.reg) that performs this re-mapping:
Registry Edit file to re-map Caps Lock to the Application Key (zipped .reg).
Double-click the .reg file to re-map Caps Lock and then reboot for the change to take effect.
This has worked for me on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 [edit 19 Aug 2009: including RTM]. However, the above .reg file comes with no guarantees – I tweaked a .reg I lifted from the US Netizen site – so use at own risk. I am putting it here because it’s so useful, I’m sure to be back for it again [edit 19 Aug 2009: and I have :) ].
Continue ReadingEnabling VisualStateManager support for WPF in Expression Blend
In Silverlight Samurai Skills, I emphasized that even though I’m primarily a developer, I usually use Expression Blend to perform design-oriented tasks for WPF and Silverlight projects.
Blend’s design surface is significantly more advanced than its VS2008 equivalent, and because Blend is a very visual, designer-oriented application, it saves you time by keeping you in “nudge-nudge-nudge” rather than “tweak-compile-run” mode.
The addition of VisualStateManager to Silverlight, and now VSM’s retrofitting into WPF, significantly simplifies the process of skinning a reusable control. Trust me. You want VSMs, not a gajillion Storyboards and Triggers kicking around. It also formalizes the developer-designer “contract.” See Karen’s four-part series for everything you need to know about VSMs.
If you are working on a WPF project, see also the Expression Blend and Design blog for information about how to incorporate WPF VisualStateMachine integration into Blend 2 SP1. This requires a little registry tweak.
Bonus link: Rudy Grobler lists this trick among 5 useful things he recently learned about Blend.
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