A while ago my phone rang, It was Carlo Solazzo from the 444 club in Birmingham, The Presets are coming. I packed my bag, headed for the Rainbow and got some cracking photos. Oh, and the date of the call was the 2nd of July 2008 and one of Birmingham’s best unsigned bands, Deluka, were supporting.
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“The Presets revel in the darker, more cosmic realm of dance music while still having fun and involuntarily getting people in the mood to move. There’s also punk and new wave elements, but just dont call them “indietronica”. – Rolling Stone
“Their set wonderfully straddles the line between a traditional rock show and DJ set… the entire venue dashed and jumped around like, well, ravers in a friendly mosh pit.” URB “This is the dance record of the Summer” 4/5 THE SUN
Kimberley Isaac Moyes was but a young man, small of stature but big of heart, down on his luck, doing the odd performance in a downtown gay bar and eating anchovies from tin cans discarded in the alley behind a local Italian restaurant, putting all his dollar bills in a pillow, with the dream to one day have enough money to buy a Moog synthesiser.
Julian Hamilton was the new bus boy in said food joint, robust and ambitious, taking out the trash and sweating like a malaria ravaged wrestler when he one day chanced upon poor Kim out the back, sucking on those oily little fish like hed never tasted such a delicacy.
These encounters out the back of Luigis Linguini And Pasta Allsorts became regular, and led to the occasional lunch date, when Julian would not only smuggle Kim a fresh can of anchovies, but would even share his own chef-cooked meal. The boys found friendship over faggotini, had leisurely lunches scheming up ways for Kim to stay one step ahead of the Child Protection Services who longed to send the delinquent off to an orphanage in Mongolia, they dreamed of the myriad ways Julian could swindle his evil boss Luigi, and held heated debates about their shared passion, music.
It was in these early days that Kim and Julian realized their meeting had been fateful, and that one day they would make good on their shared desire to make moody, crisp electronic future pop.
If youve ever wondered what they might play when youre standing there staring at the fork in the road between heaven and hell, this could be it.
Last Friday, the 444 promoters at the Rainbow landed what turned out to be a stunning show, faultless and flawless. But then again, it was Joss Stone playing to under 300 people. A rare and special event.
The trio of small venue “warm-up” show were announced last friday, It’s thought Joss booked the shows to preview songs from her upcoming fourth album ‘Colour Me Free’, which Stone hopes to release in April. (see photos for set list)
“Joss, who performed bare foot, of course, was a hit with the crowd and enjoyed every minute of her performance.”
The trio of small venue “warm-up” show were announced last Friday, It’s thought Joss booked the shows to preview songs from her upcoming fourth album ‘Colour Me Free’, which Stone hopes to release in April. (see photos for set list) Joss Stone has sold more than 7.5 million albums worldwide; been nominated for four Grammy Awards; appeared onstage with James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Patti Labelle, Mavis Staples, Donna Summer, and Smokey Robinson; sat for an interview with Oprah Winfrey; starred in two major ad campaigns for the Gap; and performed for more than 200,000 people at the 2005 Live 8 Concert in London — all before reaching the ripe old age of 19. Now 21, she is getting “Back to Basics”
“It was quite a surprise last minute gig which prompted a barrage of calls from excited fans asking whether the rumours were true”, says Christina Savvas from The Birmingham mail. Her review also goes on to note that “Expectations were high; after all we were among a select audience for the 21-year-old who these days is more used to performing in front of thousands.” “Fans had a treat because the singer and her fabulous nine-man band and backing singers performed a 75 minute set including hit singles You Had Me and Super Duper Love and new material such as Free Me – her voice was spot on.”
“The audience loved her, and what’s not to love – Joss is blessed with stunning looks, a fun persona and a strong, distinctive, sexy voice, which is second to none.” The review in the paper gave her a 4/5, I would love to know why the full 5/5 was not awarded. I would also like to point out that this was not only a great show for Joss, but a another fantastic show hosted out of Digbeth. Venues such as the Rainbow are really starting to stand loud and proud. Its something that everyone in Birmingham should be proud about. So 5/5 for Carlo Solazzo and all the gang for making all this happen.
Today I was preparing for shooting the animation scenes that would represent a big step towards the long-overdue completion of my first full-length bike film, EuroDip.
It was a while back that I wanted to have a crack at animation, and below is the result of my first attempt at storyboarding one of the sequences (which was never made in the ends, as it happens). So with car and bike pictures, and South Park characters printed out and cut to size, and using a couple of pencils, a packet of sweets for the car boot and an apple to imitate the sunset, me and Dave went for it.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3052695[/vimeo]
Unbelievably bad-looking? Yes. Useful to have done? Definitely.
Moving on a few months then, I had more of an idea of what the animation scenes would entail.
They involve two model cars (vans in fact) that move along a large old map of Europe by way of stop-frame animation, and thus represent the journeys that were made on the trip. It’s a nice way to break up the different sections of the film, and add a little bit of production value in there too.
Thanks to Birmingham University geography department for trusting me with an old a probably valuable piece of cartography.
The hire car we had on the trip was a black Ford Galaxy which wasn’t too hard to source as a model on Ebay, but the Howies van, a white Toyota Hi-Ace was not so easy to find. So had to settle for the next best thing, a VW Sharan, and paint white over the back windows. This was not quite as simple as it sounds, but luckily I had the services of aerosol art extraordinaire and ambassador of all things Black Country, Stuart Styles to my semi-disposal.
Just masking the model was effort enough, then making sure the paint did not go on so thick as to run was a fair job.
Once it was drying, I went to get custom mini-prints of the howies logo to stick on the van. This was hassle again, but thanks to a friend of Stuart and his trusty CAD / cutting machine, it was sorted and looking good.
With everything ready it was time to head home, ready for a long shoot tomorrow…
We had to transport an impressive amount of kit to Miles and Stuart’s office for this shoot.
One video camera,
2 digital SLRs,
one large map,
2 tripods,
one desktop computer,
remote flash and a white umbrella.
Coffee (Dave)
It took an hour or so to set up, then over the next 9 hours we took a total of 780 photos, most of which were taken whilst I was in very uncomforable positions, as I had to move both cars minute distances for each shot, then roll out the way so as not to get in the way of the flash, roll back in again, and so on.
The easiest shots were the ones where the camera was locked off on the tripod and the model vans moved into, or out of shot.
Harder shots included tracking shots where the camera was moving along with the models so they appeared still, with the ground moving underneath. It was important here to make sure the wheels of the models moved for every shot, otherwise it would have looked cack and unrealistic.
But the hardest shots (like the title sequence) involved a combination of tracking shots and movements away from the models to show a larger area of the map. This was particularly hard because in addition to making sure the models were moving the right distance each time (my job), Dave had to move away with the camera for each shot whilst keeping the models in the same place on screen.
One sequence was imitating us travelling at night, so we had to try and get a different kind of light on the map. I used my Pag camera light with the dichroic filter to give the light a blue-ish look.
Over the following weeks, Dave pulled off some pixel-magic with After Effects. We layed a clip of blank super-8 footage (thanks to www.videocopilot.net) over the top of the sequences to give them a bit of an old feel.
Dave also digitally super-imposed headlights and brakelights onto the models for the night time shot. I’ve no idea of how he did it exactly – i found it best not to ask but rather just let him get on with it!
The night time sequence:
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3055555[/vimeo]
And the intro / title sequence:
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3055570[/vimeo]
So glad to have this film complete – work is now beginning one editing the second bike film which was a road trip through Southern California and Nevada. I aim to have it done and finished in 3 to 4 months!
Like many brides and grooms, your wedding could be the first time you’ll be hiring a creative professional. You might think the ins and outs of working with a wedding photographer are as simple as writing a check. What could be so difficult, right? But just ask any talented pro, and you’ll get a grateful explanation of why it’s so important to truly understand their creative process.
How you manage your relationship with a wedding photojournalist can have just as profound an impact on the photographs as the day unfolding before the camera. Luckily, you and your photographer both want the same outcome: amazing photos that capture the feeling of the wedding day.
“One of the best things about being a wedding photojournalist is that….one can capture life as it happens without restraint,” WPJA award-winner David Crane says. “At a great wedding everyone wants me there, wants me to capture those fleeting moments, and will appreciate them for years to come.” Learn how to be one of those couples. Our award-winning wedding photojournalists offer their best advice on getting the most out of your photographer.
FOCUS ON THE CREATIVITY, NOT THE BUSINESS
Wedding photographer Dave Cheung recommends focusing less on the business process and more on the creative one when you’re working with a wedding photojournalist. Of course, you’ll both sign a contract, and ultimately there will be details relating to the types of packages purchased, the number and format of proofs, schedule, costs, and possibly album design, but that should all be secondary when it comes to selecting and working with your creative professional.
Cheung advises that when it comes to hiring a wedding photojournalist, one should not get bogged down with comparing the details of various packages. “It doesn’t matter how many pictures you’re going to get if you don’t first understand how he or she is going to capture your wedding day,“ he states. After all, what difference does it make if you’re getting 100 proofs or 500, if you don’t love the photographs?
Once you’ve made your decision, remember to take care of all those pesky business details before the wedding day arrives. Your photographer needs to be truly present, prepared to capture your moments, and not preoccupied with tracking the types of photographs he’s taking or worrying about collecting payment.
FEED YOUR WEDDING PHOTOJOURNALIST WELL
Even the hardest working photographers need to eat. You know that woozy-can’t-think-straight-lightheaded feeling you get when you haven’t eaten, and you’re on your feet all day? One of the last people you want feeling this way at your wedding is the person with the responsibility of capturing your most special moments for posterity.
Of course, you’re busy with all of the planning, but remember that your photographer will be with you all day, capturing every graceful move, and unless you think ahead to arrange a hot meal, he or she, or an assistant, may have to physically leave the premises in order to eat. It’s just another tiny detail among hundreds, but this one is worth remembering.
WPJA award winner Matt McGraw feels so strongly about this point that he designed his contract to clearly state he needs time to eat. “I’m with you all day long,” says McGraw. “You might as well give me some food…some good food. Not a croissant sandwich and some chips.”
DON’T DIRECT
This is the biggest pet peeve of wedding photojournalists far and wide: brides, grooms, parents, reception coordinators, bridesmaids, DJs and various other guests who give constant direction about what, when and how to photograph the wedding. “Of course I’m going to photograph the flowers and capture the beautiful sunset,” McGraw says. “It’s my job.”
No photographer likes to be given constant art direction. Remember: you’ve hired a wedding photojournalist, because they don’t style photographs. Not only is it annoying, but perpetual third-party direction also takes away from the creative element of documentary style wedding photography. Directing is the antithesis of the natural, unscripted moment. And, as McGraw adds, the more art direction brides and grooms are giving, the less they are enjoying their wedding—and the fewer natural moments there are to photograph.
When there is too much direction, Crane admits to missing moments. “I approach each wedding with no pre-conceived ideas. I let the day unfold before my lens and capture what happens. If I am backed into a portrait-a-thon it never fails that I see real images unfolding out of the corner of my eyes and there is nothing I can do about it. The clients hired me for my ability to capture those honest fleeting moments and I am missing them because I am shooting every possible combination of bride, groom and family,” he says.
COORDINATE WITH OTHER CREATIVE VENDORS
Often times, brides and grooms don’t think about coordinating the styles of all of the other creative pros they’ve hired to cover their wedding. “Make sure all the creative individuals you’re employing are on the same page. If you like your photographers because they’re behind the scenes, and that’s why you hired your photographer, then make sure that approach is also going to work with your videographer,” McGraw suggests.
If the videographer has a style that involves a lot of direction (like making you put on your dress five times), that may not create the best situation for a wedding photojournalist who doesn’t take any staged shots. The creative pros, says McGraw, don’t need to be able to work together, per se, but they should all have a shared understanding of how the day is going to unfold. He suggests asking your vendors direct questions about their process, such as “Are you going to ask me to button up my dress three times?
He also recommends letting all of your other vendors know about your photographer’s style. That way, they won’t be interrupting or trying to pose shots for her.
TRUST YOUR WEDDING PHOTOJOURNALIST
“We’re not selling a product, we’re selling a promise,” says Cheung, who considers trust the single most important part of wedding photojournalism. “If you don’t trust your wedding photojournalist, then why did you hire them?”
If you’re constantly worrying about the photographers—are they getting good shots; taking enough pics; Do I look good?—then you’re not living in the present. “When you let that go,” says Cheung “the imagery is much more confident, because you’re not thinking about it the entire time. You can’t worry. If you’re being primped and prompted at every turn, you’re not going to enjoy your day, and the photos will reflect that.”
Cheung says you have to be comfortable enough in front of your photographer to cry, and trust them to document that in a beautiful way. After all, he says, you don’t have to look good every second of the day. “You just have to trust that wedding photojournalists are artists and thereby trust their vision of your day,” Cheung says.
YOU CAN’T CONTROL EVERYTHING: ACCEPT IT
Trust is also closely related to giving up control. Part of trusting your photographer is being able to hand over the reigns. Accept that you cannot control everything; that’s why you hire professionals to carry out a shared creative vision. Realize that when you try to control too much, you’re actually hijacking the creative process.
For example, McGraw is not a fan of the list. “The family list is fine,” he says. “But not the lists of all the moments: the candles, the garter toss, the bride walking down the aisle.” McGraw once received a four-page list, down to the silverware on the table. “It was beyond duty,” he says, “And I was just going down, checking off the list.”
If you give a wedding photojournalist too long of a to-do list, it distracts them from what you hired them to do in the first place: shoot spontaneous, once-in-a-lifetime moments that can’t be predicted, and therefore, could never be included on a list.
“I don’t want to think about all these expectations,” says McGraw. “I just want to tell the story.”
— by Meghan McEwen for The Wedding Photojournalist Association
Wedding photography started a long time before the camera, where the very rich could sit and have a portrait painted by an artist. Many of the modern posing techniques and portraits find themselves rooted in these early painted portraits. Some of those artists became involved with the new modern invention the camera, and early photographic portraiture was born
Wedding photography goes back almost as far as the camera itself, and the earliest examples are from about 1840. Photography was very different back then, and each photograph took a long time to set up, and even longer to actually take. In the main wedding photography was kept in the studio, as the cameras, and all of the jigs used to keep everyone still long enough for the exposure were large and cumbersome. The photographs were very classical artistic in look – this is because in the main the backdrops were painted by the photographers, who were artists themselves.
The style of photography in the early days was formal, as the cameras and technologies were so slow in use. The finished result back then was the daguerreotype, which basically was an impression on a copper sheet. In the mid 1800’s there was no printing, as we know it now, just the little copper sheet. Wedding photography in terms of style remained pretty constant through the next 100 years into the mid 1900’s some things changed – the introduction of glass plates, paper, and colour. There are many Internet websites explaining these early processes, and interestingly the modern Internet has spawned a revival of some of the early techniques amongst photographic enthusiasts
For many years black and white photography was king, despite the introduction of colour photographic technologies. Basically this is because the colour faded. For this reason, even today us professional photographers are recommending that albums are made from acid free paper, and that archival quality materials are used for the production of photographs on paper
In the late 50’s when marriage was popular and the new social revolution began, the modern wedding photography industry was born. Soldiers returning from the war meant many marriages. This coincided with the advent of easier, smaller roll film based cameras and the new fangled flash. Wedding photographers then used to just turn up to weddings and then try to sell prints after the event. This was the fundamental shift that moved social photography out of the studio, into the real world – where real events were documented
Back then there were only 2 types of wedding photograph – those taken by a professional and enthusiast. The professional was basically a studio photographer forced to make a living in the field, and the influence from the studio tradition showed in the poses and lighting. The professional photographers were basically emulating what they had been doing for many years, for a couple of generations in their studios. The enthusiasts however lacked the resources and classical training of the professional, and took a variety of photographs ranging form the badly posed copy of the professional shot (without the lighting) through to the more informal snapshot. A while ago I was ploughing through some images from the time, and was stunned by the quality of some of the enthusiasts black and white work. Truly both a industry in terms of wedding photography was spawned then, but also the masses has access to a medium that was just affordable and nearly reliable in results.
In the very late 60’s a new style of working emerged in photography – partly as a result of enthusiasts, and partly as a result of changes in press photography – enter photojournalism. The sixties was when the press started really glamorising “stars” from the music and film industries, and the camera technologies let the press introduce a new style: photojournalism. The introduction of the 35mm rangefinder, and 35mm SLR with electronic flash pretty much opened the door to what we now call the modern candid reportage style. A roll of film now took 36 exposures instead of 12, and the flashgun took limitless flashes instead of 1 or 4
This brings us to events in the last few years. Digital is the biggest event – this allows the modern wedding photographer to almost take unlimited amounts of images, and distribute them easily. A combination of digital photography is changing and will continue to change the face of social and wedding photography
Modern photography clearly has some of its values rooted in the past, all the way back to classic painted portrait. Modern wedding photography also has one eye clearly focussed on the present and future, embracing technological changes to create new artistic ways of conveying the event
You can get married by a civil ceremony or a religious ceremony.
In both cases, the following legal requirements must be met:-
the marriage must be conducted by a person or in the presence of a person authorised to register marriages in the district
the marriage must be entered in the marriage register and signed by both parties, two witnesses, the person who conducted the ceremony and, if that person is not authorised to register marriages, the person who is registering the marriage.
Civil marriage ceremonies
You and your partner must give notice of marriage in your local Register Office, whether or not you wish to marry in that district. The Superintendent Registrar or Registrar in Northern Ireland then issues authority for the marriage and you may marry in any Register Office or local authority approved premises in any district.
If either you or your partner is from overseas, special rules may apply when giving notice to marry. If so, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau.
In the period between the notice of intention to marry and the ceremony, anyone with strong grounds for objecting to the marriage can do so. Making a false statement is a criminal offence.
In England and Wales, both partners must be resident in England or Wales for seven days before notice is given (on the eighth day). A notice must state where the marriage is to take place. The marriage can then take place after 15 days have elapsed from the date on which notice of the marriage is entered in the marriage notice book. The fee for giving notice of the marriage is £30 per person. There is no requirement for the 15 day notice period if the one of the partners has been issued with a gender recognition certificate and was previously the civil partner of the person who they wish to marry. In this case, notice of the marriage and the marriage itself can happen on the same day.
In Northern Ireland, a marriage licence is called a marriage schedule. Couples do not need to have been resident in the country before getting married, provided they apply for notice from the General Register Office.
If you and your partner are visiting Northern Ireland to be married and are citizens of a country that is not a member of the European Economic Area, you may need to enclose special documentation.
Couples must submit their completed marriage notice forms and any other relevant documents to the Registrar of Marriages in the district where the marriage is to take place.
It is normal to give eight weeks notice. However, you can give a minimum of 14 days notice, although this may mean that the wedding ceremony will have to be postponed. The registrar will issue a marriage schedule. You won’t be able to get married without this. If you are having a religious ceremony, this must take place within 14 days of receiving the schedule. In addition to this, the schedule must be signed at the religious ceremony by the person performing the marriage.
The marriage must take place within 12 months from the date of entry of the notice (three months if one of you is housebound, detained or resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland). If the marriage does not take place within that time, the process must be repeated.
Procedure for marrying
You and your partner will be asked for certain information when giving notice of your intention to marry. Giving false information is a criminal offence. The information which may be required is:-
evidence of name and address
evidence of date of birth
if one partner has been married before or in a civil partnership, documentary evidence that the marriage or civil partnership has ended, for example, a death certificate or decree absolute. Uncertified photocopies are not accepted. A certified copy of a decree absolute may be obtained from the court which decided the divorce. This can take about a week
evidence of nationality.
A variety of documents can be used as evidence of the information required, but a passport, travel document or birth certificate is usually sufficient. You should contact the register office where you’re getting married for more specific advice on what they will accept.
People from overseas may be asked to show their passports. There is no legal requirement to show a passport before getting married and instead, they can produce a birth certificate (accompanied by a certified translation if necessary), an affidavit or other personal identity document.
If the registrar believes that a person is entering or has entered into a marriage for immigration purposes, the registrar has a duty to report this to the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency. The registrar must provide the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency with certain information, including the marital status and nationality of the person.
The marriage ceremony in the local Register Office or local authority approved premises will take approximately 10-15 minutes. The Superintendent Registrar or Registrar in Northern Ireland will make a short statement about marriage; you can ask the registrar beforehand to indicate what form of words will be used. It is not possible to use religious words in the civil ceremony. However, the ceremony may include readings, songs or music that contain reference to a god as long as they are in an ‘essentially non-religious context’.
Each partner is required to repeat a standard set of promises. These may not be changed, but may be added to, as long as the additions are not religious. Rings are not required but can be exchanged if the couple wishes to.
After the ceremony, the marriage register is signed by both partners. Two witnesses, who must be over 16, must also sign at the time of the marriage. Witnesses must understand the language of the ceremony and have the mental capacity to understand the nature of the ceremony. Register Office staff are not allowed to act as witnesses.
Before signing the register, you should check the information in the entry is correct. It is possible to get incorrect information in the register on marriage certificates changed if there is proof that the errors were notified at the time of the marriage. When trying to correct information at a later stage, you will have to explain in writing how the incorrect information came to be recorded at the time of the marriage and may need to provide documentary evidence to prove any statements. The process may take a long time.
A fee must be paid for the ceremony. A certified copy of the entry in the register may be obtained at the time of the marriage for a fee. Additional copies may be obtained for a further fee.
For details of the fees, contact your local Register Office or Citizens Advice Bureau.
Religious marriage ceremonies (England and Wales only)
The Church of England and the Church in Wales are allowed to register a marriage at the same time as performing the religious ceremony.
Ministers and priests of all other religions can be authorised to register marriages and must have a certificate or licence to do so from the local Superintendent Registrar. For Jewish and Quaker marriages, the authorisation is automatic. For all other religions, if the official performing the ceremony is not authorised, either a Registrar must attend the religious ceremony or the partners will need to have separate religious and civic ceremonies.
Marriages in the Church of England and Church in Wales
Instead of going to the Superintendent Registrar before the ceremony, banns (a notice of the proposed marriage) can be read in the parish church of both of the partners or in the church where it has been agreed the marriage can take place. Banns must be read on three Sundays before the ceremony.
Religious marriage ceremonies in Northern Ireland
Church of Ireland
You can be married in the Church of Ireland by one of three methods. These are:-
Licence – If you or your partner is a member of the Church of Ireland (or any other Protestant Episcopal Church i.e. Anglican), you may give notice to a Church of Ireland licensing minister that you wish to be married in a Church of Ireland church within your own district. Either you or your partner must have been living in the district for seven days before notice is given. The licenser will notify the clergy of the churches that you and your partner attend. Seven days after the licenser is notified, an oath will be administered to either you or your partner to the effect that one of you has lived for the past fourteen days within the district attached to the Church in which you intend to marry, and grant the licence. Any Church of Ireland clergyman will be able to provide you with the address of a licensing minister.
Special licence – If you or your partner is a member of the Church of Ireland (or any other Protestant Episcopal Church), a Bishop of the Church of Ireland may grant a special licence. This will allow the marriage to take place at any time and any place within his diocese. A special licence is useful where you and your partner have forgotten to give the required notice to a licenser, or wish to marry somewhere other than a church
Banns – If both you and your partner are members of the Church of Ireland, banns may be read out for three consecutive Sundays in the churches of which they are members, instead of applying for a licence. Seven days notice to the minister(s) may be required. The marriage ceremony must take place in the church (or one of the churches) in which the banns have been published.
Presbyterian
You may be married by the same three methods in the various Presbyterian churches (excluding Free Presbyterians):-
Licence – If both you or your partner is Presbyterian, a licence may be granted by a licensing minister. You or your partner must give the licencing minister a certificate from the minister of your congregation, stating you have been a member of that congregation for at least one month. Immediately before the licence is granted, you must make an Oath that you have lived within the Presbytery for the preceding 15 days. A congregational minister will able to put clients in touch with a licensing minister.
Special licence – A special licence authorising marriage at any time and any place within Ireland may be granted by the Moderator of the Church, as long as you or your partner is a Presbyterian. This method is useful if you have forgotten to give the necessary notice or have your normal residence outside Northern Ireland.
Banns – If both you and your partner are Presbyterians, banns may be published in each of your congregations on the three Sundays preceding the marriage, instead of obtaining a licence. Six days notice is required by the minister before the banns are due to be read out for the first time. The marriage must take place in a church (or one of the churches) in which the banns have been published.
Roman Catholic Church
Arrangements for a wedding in a Catholic Church are always made through the priest in the parish in which you are living. Three months notice must be given to the priest.
Pre-marriage preparation courses, which you and your partner must attend, are held by Accord, formerly the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC). There are centres in Belfast, Ballymena and Downpatrick. Details of the courses will be available to the priest.
If you are both Catholics you should approach the priest of the bride’s parish to arrange a date. If you are both from the same parish, the priest in that parish does the preparations for you both, including the pre-nuptial enquiries, which are compulsory.
You must each have certain documents:-
baptism certificate of recent date, that is, within the last six months before the wedding
confirmation certificate
letter of freedom, that is, a certificate that you have not married before and are free to marry
If you are Catholic and marrying someone who is not a Catholic, arrangements are made by the priest in your parish. He will apply to the bishop for permission (if your partner is baptised), or for a dispensation (if your partner is not baptised).
If your partner is not a Catholic they should present a baptism certificate (if baptised), and proof of freedom to marry should be presented. This can be in the form of a letter from, for example, parents or a minister, or an affidavit from a solicitor.
In all cases, the priest acts as a civil registrar and he registers the marriage with the registrar of marriages.
Other denominations
Members of other denominations, including Baptists, Brethren, Congregationalists, Free Presbyterians, Methodists, Salvation Army, must obtain a registrar’s certificate or licence as for a civil wedding, as the church official are not authorised by the state to issue certificates or licences.
Where you or your partner is Baptist, Congregationalist, or Methodist, you may also proceed by obtaining a special licence from the governing body of your church. Couples should ask a minister of the relevant denomination for details. A fee is usually payable to the governing body, the amount being decided by that body. Marriages by special licence may be celebrated at any time and at any place in Ireland.
Jewish marriages
After giving notice to the Superintendent Registrar or Registrar in Northern Ireland, a marriage can take place in any synagogue, private house or other place as long as you and your partner are Jewish and the ceremony is held under the auspices of a synagogue which has a Secretary for Marriages appointed by the Registrar General. The marriage must be registered by the Secretary of the husband’s synagogue. The marriage can only proceed under a registrar’s certificate in Northern Ireland.
Marriages in the Society of Friends
A marriage ceremony in the Society of Friends (Quakers) requires the approval of the Registering Officer of the Society of Friends acting for the meeting concerned. It must take place in the Meeting House or another place regularly used for worship.
Marriages in all other religions
In all other religions, religious marriage ceremonies can take place but the couple must first give notice to the Superintendent Registrar, or Registrar in Northern Ireland, at the local Register Office. The Superintendent Registrar, or Registrar in Northern Ireland, will know whether the building in which the ceremony is to take place has been registered. If the building has not been registered, the couple can still have a religious ceremony, but will also need to have a separate civil ceremony for the marriage to be valid under United Kingdom Law.
If the building is registered, an authorised person must be present at the ceremony to register the marriage. They will give the couple a marriage certificate on receipt of the fee. If there is no authorised person, the attendance of a Registrar is necessary and this should be arranged with the Superintendent or Registrar in Northern Ireland of the district.
Religious ceremonies and civil ceremonies
If a couple has been married in a Register Office in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, the partners can have a religious marriage ceremony afterwards. The partners are likely to be asked for their marriage certificate. A religious ceremony which does not comply with the conditions stated above and which takes place before a civil wedding is not a valid marriage under United Kingdom law and the couple’s status will be that of cohabitees.
The Nikon D90 is a fantastic camera. It’s Nikon’s newest and best DX format DSLR. I prefer it to the old D300, which costs almost twice as much. That’s the way it goes with digital cameras: new is almost always better, even for much less cost. The D90 has identical, or slightly better technical image quality than the D300, the exact same rear LCD, and adds several very useful ergonomic features for faster handling compared to the D300. These handling improvements will let you react faster to conditions, meaning you’re more likely to get better pictures by being better prepared.
If you’re considering a D300, forget it. Get the D90 instead.
The Nikon D90 is Nikon’s newest and smartest DSLR. It has the same or better technical image quality as the D300 that costs much more, and it handles better and it makes movies, too!
The D90 is newer and better than the D300, for a fraction of the price, so long as you prefer the D90’s lighter plastic body. Let’s be honest: I’ve used my plastic D40 for years and it still works like new, so I don’t see any reason to pay more for a D300’s metal body unless you’re shooting sports all day. All these cameras have metal lens mounts and are built to very high standards.
The more I use the D90, the more I like it. Compared to the old D300, the D90 offers the same or better image quality, with many new features, in a lighter plastic package with the same vivid and accurate 3″ LCD and a much improved rear multi selector for faster handling. The D90 also has better ergonomics than the D300 and D3, so it’s easier to get where you want in the menus faster.
The D90 is super easy to use. As Nikon’s newest camera incorporating over 60 years of continuous innovation, it’s got more clever features, like a multiple-shot self timer, and a 25-image and calendar display if you keep zooming out on playback, than any other Nikon to date. It all works intuitively, and unlike the D3 and D300, I can operate everything with one hand. I have to waste a frame to shoot a picture to get it to play images if I can’t hit the PLAY button, but I can get to all the menus and everything when set up as I like it in just one hand.
The only thing I miss from the more expensive D3, D700 and D300 are the option to set instant zoom on playback when hitting the OK button, and I do miss the 5:4 aspect ratio crop from the D3.
For you techies, as you can see at my Nikon D90, D3, D300 and D200 Sharpness Comparison, for use in daylight, the D90 renders images identical to the $5,000 Nikon D3. Of course the D3 shoots faster for sports, but the images are as good, the rear LCD is identical, and the D90 has a few new convenience features that weren’t invented back when the D3 came out.
The D90 is worlds beyond the old first-generationD80, which it replaces as Nikon’s mid-line DSLR.The Nikon D90 is a D80 with Live View, ADR, an almost three-dimensional 3″ LCD, it can shoot movies, and has far more advanced ergonomics.
Top, Nikon D90
(prototype with integrated WiFi; production model has no WiFi unless you use an Eye-Fi card, and then only for transferring files, not web browsing on the rear LCD).
Lens Compatibility
The D90 works perfectly with all traditional AF, AF-I, AF-D and AF-S lenses.
No metering or EXIF data with manual focus lenses, you need at least a D300 to use these well. Then again, you always can guess exposure and correct based on looking at the LCD on playback, or play with it even faster in Live View, or you can buy a small light meter which will slip into the hot shoe.
The D90 has the same lens compatibility as the D80, D70, D100 and D50, which is better than the D40/D60, but worse than the D300.
The D90 provides automatic correction of lateral chromatic color fringes.
Finder: Pentaprism, 96% coverage, 0.94x magnification with 50mm lens, 19.5 mm eyepoint. Selectable 16-frame grid. Still a crappy, small finder compared to any film or FX camera: remember, the 96% coverage is of a frame only 0.65x the size of FX.
AF: 11 points. Multi-CAM 1000 AF module. Annoying AF assist illuminator.
Light Meter: 420 segment RGB Color Matrix with face detection. Center-weighted and spot for old-timers, too. Movie mode only uses Matrix.
Depth-of-field Preview: Yes.
Shutter: 1/4,000 ~ 30 seconds and Bulb. Full, half and third stops. If you use the optional $17 ML-L3 remote release, the Bulb position becomes an extremely useful Time setting, meaning the shutter opens on the first press, and stays open (for up to a half hour) until you press it again.
Shutter Death: Tested to 100,000 cycles during design, Nikon doesn’t share how many of them passed or failed that test. No big deal, Nikon’s warrantees have never had a mileage (shutter count) limitation.
Fastest Shutter Speed with Flash (sync speed): 1/200. No mention of the trick FP mode.
Built-in flash: 18mm lens coverage, Guide Number 17/56 (ISO 200, m/ft.), 12/40 (ISO 100). i-TTL flash control: works as commander controlling up to two groups of remote flashes.
Flash Compatibility: i-TTL (SB-400, SB-600, SB-800, SB-900 and R1C1).
ISO: 100-6,400. ISO 200 ~ 3,200 come up the usual way, while ISO 100 is ‘cyrpted as “Lo 1″ and ISO 6,400 as “Hi 1.”
Still Image Sizes: 4,288 x 2,848 (L), 3,216 x 2,136 (M) and 2,144 x 1,424 (S).
Still Image Formats: JPG, NEF, or both.
Motion Picture Formats: 1,280×720p/24, motion JPG .AVI for great frame-to-frame editing. Also 640×424 and 320 x 216 pixels. No word yet about variable frame rates, 23.98, genlock or variable shutter angles, probably not.
Longest Movie Scene: Up to the least of 2GB, or 5 minutes in 720p or 20 minutes in SD or 320.
Longest Movie Shooting before a break: One hour before the D90 gets too hot..
Storage: SD and SDHC cards.
Video out: HDMI and composite analog (NTSC or PAL).
LCD: 3,” 640 x 480. BM-10 condom (clear removable cover).
Power: Standard EN-EL3e battery (D80, D200, D300, D700, etc.). Rated 850 shots with 50% flash.
Size: 5.2 x 4.1 x 3.0 in. (132 x 103 x 77 mm).
Weight: 1 lb. 6 oz. (620 g), stripped naked like abandoned cars in the Bronx (no battery, no card, no lens, no cap, no strap and no monitor cover).
Included (can vary by area, especially if you order from any store in Brooklyn):
EN-EL3e battery
MH-18a charger
DK-5 eyepiece cap
DK-21 Rubber Eyecup
UC-E4 USB cable,
EG-D2 AV cable,
AN-DC1 Strap
BM-10 LCD Monitor Cover
Body Cap
BS-1 Accessory Shoe Cover (don’t you love these Japanese designations?)
Software CD
Nikon ViewNX browsing and editing software, which also does raw (NEF) image adjustments and conversions. This is good; Nikon View is one of the very few decent pieces of software from Nikon.
Nikon Product Number: 25446 (body only), 25448 (kit with 18-105mm).
Price: November 2008: $890, body only. August 2008: $999 USA (€ 899), add $300 for the plastic 18-105mm kit lens.
Marketing: 16 page brochure. The photo examples suggest that buying a D90 will earn you a lot of young, colorful, outgoing and active friends. No photos are credited. As usual, most of the example shots are made with lenses like the 85mm f/1.4, 14-24mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8 that each cost as least as much as the D90 body alone and weigh several times as much, and would never be carried by someone young and exciting.
Notice that you will never, ever see anyone in a brochure sitting in front of a computer screen dicking with raw images. All you will see is skateboarding and bicycling, and the only time you’ll see a person portrayed as cool with any electronic device is if Apple is trying to sell them iPods, or a cell phone company is trying to push wireless devices, which do cause cancer. You also will never see anyone holding a camera, unless it’s a camera ad. Cameras and electronics are not cool. Dealing with people in person and participating in, not watching, active sports is where it’s at.
The D90 works great. I can’t find any real flaws, just the occasional small feature not present on more expensive cameras.
Ergonomics
The D90 handles great. I’ll be writing a complete users guide, and if you know how to shoot Nikon, the D90 will be the easiest camera yet.
It’s super easy to use. As Nikon’s newest camera with over 60 years of continuous innovation, it’s got more clever features than any other Nikon to date. For instance, you can use the dials to zip through setting the clock, and it all works intuitively.
The rear multi-selector is greatly improved over the D300. Call me silly, but I use this control a lot as I shoot, so having a good one as on the D90 means a lot to me compared to the mushy thing on the D300.
Image Quality
Exposure Metering
The meter seems identical to the D300 and D3. The defective meter of the D40 and D80, which often overexposed, is gone.
On the D90, D300, D700 and D3, I usually shoot at 0.0 exposure compensation, or often at -0.7 compensation outdoors if I’m shooting in VIVID picture control with +3 saturation. Forget me, just look at your LCD, and change the compensation (the +/- button near the shutter) for your next shot if your pictures are too dark or too light.
Flash Metering
As we Nikon users expect, flash metering is perfect. Pop up the built-in, and you get perfect fill light outdoors, or as the only source of light indoors.
Of course using the flash a the only source of light indoors looks crappy with black backgrounds, just as any other time you use
Technical Quality (for pixel counters)
As expected, the technical quality is as good or better than older, more expensive Nikons like the D3, D700 and D300 under the right conditions.
I don;t use Live View. The manual warns at high temperatures it may only work 30 seconds at a time. A countdown timer will show on the screen if its getting ready to time out on you.
Nikon suggests an AF-S lens for AF during live view, not a traditional AF lens.
Speed
The D90 is fast, but not as fast as a D300, D700 or D3.
At 4.5 FPS, the D90 is almost as fast as the professional D1H was, and has four times the resolution.
Data
Data Transfer
The D90 has one design flaw: when plugged into a computer, it does not always appear directly as a hard drive, as other Nikon cameras do.
There is no USB menu option for PTP or mass storage. It s stuck in PTP, meaning if you want to plug the D90 to your computer, that you’ll need certain software or operating systems to recognize it.
it works fine on some computers, but doesn’t work on mine unless I futz with software, which I won’t do.
You may need to buy a separate SD card reader, or gamble installing Nikon’s always buggy software on your computer to download directly from the D90 if Apple’s Image Capture or other software doesn’t do it for you.
Default JPG DPI
JPGs default to 300 DPI, which is too bad, because I have to reset it to 72DPI before I drop text in for web use. I doubt anyone else would care, but I prefer how Canon DSLRs make images already dialed-in at 72DPI so my text looks right.
Autorotation
Vertical shots come up with rotated thumbnails in my Mac’s Finder. Just like all other cameras today, the images themselves aren’t rotated, unless you read the with the right software. I prefer to hard-rotate the images using the Lossless JPG Rotate command in iView, so they are always vertical, no matter what software is used to read them
Pointed straight down, it’s not uncommon for shots to be rotated incorrectly.
The rotation sensor is worse then the D3; it’s not unusual for it to get fooled. No big deal, it’s easy to right these later.
Playback
Playback works great, with all the usual Nikon tricks.
The only step backwards in the D90 is the new YRGB histogram display. Unlike the D3, D700 and D300, this page in the D90 wastes space with smaller histograms, and when you hit the MAG button, only uses the smaller area of the screen dedicated to the image to display the enlarged image.
I prefer the other cameras with larger color histograms. When I hit the mag buttons on the other cameras, the image blows up to fill the entire LCD, while the histograms evaporate.
The D90 does this with color histograms because, if you zoom and pan in the color histogram page, the histograms are only reading the area shown! That’s a nice parlour trick, and may help some people.
Particularly nice is that the multi-way button also lets us scroll diagonally, YAY!!
Distortion Correction
Unlike the excellent automatic correction of lateral color fringes, the lens distortion correction is a manual parlour-trick that is conjured up in the Playback Retouch menu.
Worse, distortion correction works, but not completely. The distortion correction is handy for quick “almost perfect” fixes, but not acceptable for serious use. For serious use, get either DxO or correct it in Photoshop.
The “Auto” position works OK, but I got better results with a manual in-camera adjustment. Neither was perfect; there’s still curvature.
Worse, just like Nikon’s other Retouch options, a design flaw in the D90 makes new, altered files with the wrong file names. The new, corrected files have file names which start with CSC, instead of DSC, so they don’t catalog correctly. If Nikon did this correctly, the new files would add suffices, like DSC-0123-edit-1.jpg
Motion Pictures and HD
Movies are easy. Tap the rear Lv button to get Live View, and tap OK when you’re ready to roll.
That’s where the fun stops. There is no autofocus, so God forbid if anything moves (the whole point of a movie), because focus won’t track.
Since D90 can’t autofocus while shooting movies, they suck.
If you’re going to try to film anything that moves, the entire point of a movie, forget it. The “Live View” isn’t! The images on the rear LCD, just like every digital camera’s LCD, is delayed a fraction of a second. It will be very difficult to track and predict motion and action, since what you’re seeing on the LCD already is history by the time you see it. There is NO live finder, like a real SLR viewing on ground glass.
Unless you hire a Hollywood-bred Focus Puller and mount your D90 to a dolly and rig up that big white write-on calibrated external focus knob that the Focus Puller uses to pull focus from known point to known point as actors move between their known and rehearsed marks, your movies will be out of focus.
If you’re a DP (Hollywood Director of Photography), check out RedRock’s and Zacuto’s mount systems.
This is no problem for Hollywood, since theatrical movies have been shot with manual focus like this since the 1800s, but without a crew of four operators hovering around your D90, the results will be worse than from a point-and-shoot from Canon or Casio. Point-and-shoots focus while you’re shooting a movie, while the D90 is clueless.
Nikon’s USA User’s Guide, page 51, warns movies will have nasty tilts, banding, bends, and distortion if anything moves horizontally or if you pan. Even if nothing moves, the manual warns objects can have jagged edges, false colors, moiré and bright spots appearing before your eyes. So why bother with movies on the D90?
Movies are a kludge on the D90. They are such a kludge that when scrolling through the file EXIF info on playback in the D90, it all comes up blank! Nikon goofed, since AVI files have whatever data they have in different places than still image files, and Nikon didn’t get to writing the D90 firmware to display whatever is there properly. My 5-year-old Canon point-and-shoots display movie data properly, but not the Nikon D90.
The D90’s movies can’t do stereo and can’t do smooth power zooms either, as my Casio EX-V8 does, and the D90 certainly doesn’t fit in my pocket.
If you can get focus, you still can’t set exposure. Exposure seems to run off on its own. In dim light the D90 applies hellaicious amounts of noise reduction to the additional ISO it piles on.
Another gotcha about shooting movies with the D90 is that you have no viewfinder — whoops! It blacks out! You have to use the rear LCD like a common tourist, or mount a larger video assist on your dolly, using the video or HDMI outputs.
Another gotcha is that I see no mention of how long your shot can be, but other Nikons with Live View (the same technology used for movies) warn that you can’t do it for more than a few minutes at a time before the sensor overheats.
My video stinks, but if you have a crew and get anything good, the D90 shoots 720p/24 for theatrical release! Just call Ascent Media in Burbank to strike your prints. Nikon claims, probably correctly, that you’ll be getting much better results than an old-style camcorder because the sensor of the D90 is so much bigger.
What Nikon’s still camera division probably doesn’t realize yet is that the DX sensor is very close to the size of Hollywood 35mm movie film, which is a half of the frame that still photographers call “full-frame.” In the roughest terms, Hollywood shoots 18 x 24mm frames all day.
You Hollywood folks just need to hack your Zeiss and Panavision lenses and go, but if you use Nikon’s VR lenses, maybe your Steadicam rig can stay in its case. The flange focal distance is 46.5mm, so I’m unsure if it will be easy to adapt cine lenses to the D90.
In simple English for everyone else, unlike camcorders, you can throw backgrounds way out of focus for movies shot on the D90. The slow zoom kit lenses aren’t good for this, but pop on a 135mm f/2 DC or 300mm f/2.8 and see what happens. Heck, you now can steal back your Hollywood neighbor’s 300mm f/2 AI-s that he had converted to Arri mount and recombobulate it back to use on your Nikon!
24 FPS means movies will look like movies, presuming you shoot at 1/50 shutter speed. In bright light, shorter exposures will make things look a bit jumpy, and movies at 24 PFS are never as smooth as real video, which is shot at 60 fields per second. The video of the D90 can look like movies, but will never have the smooth fluid motion of regular camcorders.
Believe it or not, the jumpiness of theatrical movies is something for which professional video shooters pay FilmLook in Burbank (Hollywood) a lot of money to add back in!
Unlike a $250,000 Arriflex movie camera, the D90 records sound and has its own microphone. I don’t see any particular audio input or output jacks; it’s likely that unless the built-in mic does it for you, that you’ll have to treat this as MOS. Unlike the Casio EX-V8 which records in glorious stereo sound, the D90 appears to be mono only.
If I were Nikon, I’d shoot any TV commercials advertising the D90 on the D90. Hand this to someone in the ASC and he’ll get great results.
Works great with manual-focus AI-s lenses, in fact, they work better than the AF lenses!
Shows shutter setting, but ignores it. (Live view has the same idle screen, not knowing if you’re about the shoot a movie or a still)
Exposure Compensation, WB settings and Picture Controls all work in movie mode.
In daylight at f/.4, you can get poor images that flicker in and out slowly. If you see this, stop down or use an ND filter.
Image quality is limited by the data compression in 720p. Al the textures are lost even though edges stay sharp. IN hollywood, we refer to this making your video “look like cartoons,” which also have sharp edges but no textures.
Movie File Sizes, 10 second clips: 720p: 21.4MB. 480: 7.2MB. 320: 4.1MB.
Movie Image Quality:
320×216: Sharp, but that’s because its jaggy and aliased. It looks like a mistake! Wrong aspect ratio! No video uses 1.5:1.
640×424: Looks fine, but it’s the wrong aspect ratio! Its not 640×480, but only 640×424. There is no 1:1.5 aspect ratio on film or video anywhere, unless you’re trying to match the old double-frame Vista-Vision format! It’s sharp but aliased. I wouldn’t want to spend much time watching it.
1280×720: Soft, with textures smoothed over by compression.
Exposure: automatic, from daylight to dim light. It works pretty well.
Blooming: None, go ahead and point it at the sun if you dare.
320 x 216 file example (2 seconds, 789kB).
24 FPS for Sports
I didn’t tell you this, but with the right software (maybe even included with the D90 for all I know), you can pull single frames out of the 24 FPS video stream.
I know I can do it in iMovie. My Casio EX-V8 can do it in-camera. We’ll see with the D90.
Sales (Fluff) Features
Active D-Lighting (Adaptive Dynamic Range) for taming highlights and shadows. There’s a new “Extra High” mode for really nasty situations, and personally I’d just leave it in the Auto mode. If you’re a turkey, you can bracket pictures with and without ADR. Nikon doesn’t mention if this works for the video mode; I doubt it does but it would be awesome if it did.
Live View, with face-recognition AF.
Live View Focus Modes: Contrast-detection: Face priority AF automatically detects up to five faces and focuses on the closest, Wide area AF, and normal area AF used on a tripod.
Picture Controls similar to the D3, D700 and D300.
Scene Modes: Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports and Night Portrait. The D90 is smart enough to know if VR is working and adjusts accordingly.
In-Camera Editing: The D90 adds Lens Distortion Correction and the ability to straighten horizons. There’s also a goofy Spherize mode to screw up images as if they were shot with a fisheye, but it won’t see any wider than the image did in the first place.
Playback Tricks: 72-frame playback, calendar playback and histogram display for a cropped portion of an image.
Gag me: “Pictmotion” menu creates slide shows combining five choices of both background music and image effects.
Silly Preset Scene Modes, like most less expensive cameras.
What’s Missing
What’s missing compared to the D300, D700 and D3 (not much!)
No ability to program the center OK button to zoom-in full-size in playback.
No options for JPG optimization.
No selection of NEF/raw characteristics.
No Shooting and Custom Setting Banks.
11 versus 51 AF points. I didn’t miss the extra 40, which are just in-between points.
No AF Area Mode switch; need to call this up in a menu (easy if you use the FUNC button to get to My Menu, and put this selection in My Menu.
No PC connector for studio flash. No big deal, I use the pop-up flash to trigger my studio strobes, or you can buy a hot-shoe to PC adapter.
Can’t program the Preview button to do tricks.
No ability to use a custom prefix, like KEN_0123.JPG, for the file names.
No Mirror-up mode. This mode sucks in the D3, D700 and D300 anyway.
WB/ISO/QUAL buttons shared with other functions, but still easier to use than the hidden ones on the D3, whose locations date from the F5.
No option for seeing the Focus Point Selection in playback, but who cares?
No Intervalometer (automatic timed shooting).
Can’t set ISO or exposure in full stops: ISO sets only in third stops, and exposure only in third or half stops.
No ability to change the focus and release priorities in the AF-S and AF-C modes.
No metering, finder read-out or EXIF data with manual-focus lenses. (buy a small light meter and a hot-shoe adapter if you can’t use the LCD to guess exposure.)
No macho-man metal body, so the D90 weighs much less. The D90 has a metal lens mount.
Maximum sync speed fixed at 1/250. (The D3, D700 and D300 can be set from 1/60 ~ 1/320 FP.) All these camera allow setting the slowest sync in P and A modes to any speed as slow as 30 seconds.
No compatibility with Nikon’s 1970s-inspired wireless transmitter.
No compatibility with Nikon’s expensive (like $500) Image Authentication software.
No ability to Save/Load camera settings and Picture Controls to an SD card.
No AF fine tuning, which I never use, and for most people, just lets then screw up a good thing.
No RESET option in Easy Exposure Compensation.
Only uses SD, not professional CF cards. This matters because SD cards don’t come in professional speed grades, like Lexar 300x and 233x and SanDisk Extreme IV, and because SD card readers aren’t available in Firewire to support those speeds. This means that it takes too long to download photos in the large quantities shot by pros. This is too bad, because the D90 is up to pro needs in every other way.
No 4:5 professional aspect ratio, but only the D3 does this.
What’s Weird
Compared to the D3, D700 and D300, the D90:
The FUNC button and Depth-of-Field Preview buttons are reversed.
When playing images with the ALL FOLDERS playback mode selected, instead of counting the images per folder (top right display might say 5/21), it counts as if all images on the card are in the same folder (top display might say 56/342). This gets confusing when images are in multiple folders.
The D90 has the option of five alphanumeric places for file names (better than the older D3, D700 and D300 which only have three digits and no letters), but there isn’t an easy option to create new folders incremented by one digit. Nice for naming files!
The D90 defaults to the wrong file-numbering convention. You need to remember to set Custom Setting d7 to ON to prevent starting file numbers from DSC_0001.JPG every time you format a card. (All other recent cameras do this by default.)
What’s Better (lots of new stuff!)
What’s better on the D90 than the D3, better than the D700 and better than the D300:
Easier selection of advance modes, frame rates, remote control and self timer, especially in the dark.
Works with the superior $17 ML-L3 wireless remote release.
ADR is on by default.
Adds the AF-A AF mode.
Easier Live View mode with dedicated button! The other cameras use the rotary top switch, which sucks!
Makes movies with sound. The D3 at least records sound alone, which the D90 can’t.
The AF Selector Lock is better designed so it won’t get knocked by accident.
Nikon finally fixed the design flaw where by default the Modeling Flash fired if you hit the Depth-of-Field preview button. Thank you Nikon!
The dials work during playback by default. In the other cameras, I have to look for a few minutes to find this option hiding in the Custom Settings > Controls > Customize Command Dials option.
By default, the D90 won’t shoot without a card. The D3, D300 and D70 default to the very dangerous DEMO setting which lets you happily shoot an entire wedding, look at each shot on the LCD in every display mode and zoom setting, and not realizing until the end of the day that you had no card in the camera!
Better than the D3 and Better than the D300:
Can call up the top item in My Menu with the FUNC button. This makes the D90 much faster to use, because I now can get into the menus and set everything with just one hand!
The rear LCD Monitor-on times are selectable separately for Playback, Menus, the INFO panel and Image Review.
The D90 has both the My Menu menu and Recent Items Menus. (D3 and D300 lack the Recent Items menu)
Better than the D300
Far nicer rear multi selector. The D300 has a mushy single piece of crap, while the D3, D700 and D90 have much better two-piece controls with a separate center OK button.
Recommendations
Camera Suggestions
Got less than $1,600 but more than $500 for a Nikon DSLR? Here’s your camera.
The ADR feature is a huge help in taming wild highlights and shadows, the new LCD, identical to the one on Nikon’s $5,000 D3, is incredible, and the expanded Picture Control options let me get state-of-the art image performance in a $999 camera. If you know how to turn these on and appreciate what they do (or want to make Hollywood movies cheap), get a D90.
If money makes any difference, forget the D90. Digital cameras are a rich man’s game. You don’t need to spend $999 every other year just because Nikon or some web site says so. If I was on a budget and didn’t shoot these cameras all day, every day, I’d never want anything other than the D40 for $499, complete with a great lens. I have no problem making great 20×30″ prints from my D40 and its dinky kit lens.
The reason to buy a D90 is for the many subtle extra features, like a depth-of-field preview button, and for the better pictures in most picture-taking situations afforded by the Auto ADR feature, which is always on by default.
If you know how to turn on all the hot stuff in the D90, like ADR and adjust the Picture Controls which are newer and more flexible than the D40, D60 and D80, by all means, get a D90. I hope to have a plain-English user’s guide to the D90 which will show you how to use all these great features, in which case, the D90 will be able to crank out more vivid colors and smoother skin tones than the D40.
Each of these is much tougher (and heavier) than the D90 if you’re going to bang it around. Each is also much faster if you’re shooting a lot of sports.
The funny reality of the world today is that the newer D90 has identical technical image quality to the older D300 and $5,000 D3 in good light.
Paying more gets you more durability and faster focus and frame rates, but that’s about it. All these have the same superb LCD and image quality.
If you shoot in the dark, pro photographers first improve the light. If you can’t improve the lighting and need to shoot at high ISOs, the D700 and D3 are vastly superior to an DX camera.
The 18-105mm VR is a swell idea, and even the cheapest 18-55mm kit lens is also excellent.
The 18-200mm VR does everything; if you get it, you won’t need any other lenses unless you’re an ultrawide junkie like me.
For Movies: the Nikon Zoom-NIKKOR*ED 50~300mm f/4.5 (discontinued).
For serious motion picture use, you might want to find one of the discontinued Zoom-NIKKOR*ED 50-300mm f/4.5 lenses (try these direct links to the 50-300 at Adorama and eBay
). By serious, I mean Hollywood-style where you have four people operating the camera: there is no AF and no metering with manual lenses like this for hobbyists. I don’t know if this is that smart an idea, the D90 doesn’t provide the level of control demanded in Hollywood, but give it a try.
The 50-300mm f/4.5 ED was frightfully expensive new, selling for $3,000 at full discount at B&H Photo Video through the 1990s, and today they sell used for about $1,000 to $2,000. The advantage of the 50-300 ED for movie work is its long 6x zoom ratio and that zooming happens internally. It holds focus very tightly as zoomed, and its zoom ring is extremely smooth and well spaced for smooth zooms, even by hand.
The older non-ED 50-300 4.5 lens isn’t very sharp and its barrel expands and contracts with zooming, so I’d skip it. Skip either 50-300 for still shots; they don’t couple to the meter. Live view stops when a lens is removed, so the D90 may or may not be able to make movies with manual focus lenses like this, since they have no CPU contacts and therefore the D90 probably won’t recognize them. Try it and see.
Deployment
Be sure to get an excellent optional $17 ML-L3 remote release. It’s tiny enough to fit in the key pocket of your jeans, and works even better than a real cable release.
PLUG
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Ken
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 4:31 pm. Add a comment
Breed 77 come from the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Old Gibraltarian school friends, Paul Isola, Danny Felice, and Stuart Cavilla met up in London and became informally known as the Gibraltarian Mafia. When, in late April 1996, this circle of friends formed a band, they wanted a name to reflect their joint origins and called themselves simply Breed. The band were forced to change their name because it was previously registered by Steve Hewitt (formerly of Placebo) on his vanity record label. Stuart Cavilla, the band’s bass player, had previously worked as a motorcycle courier under the call sign of Kilo 77 or K77, and the band became Breed 77
Breed 77’s self-titled debut album was first released in November 2001 and due to a high demand was re-released in April 2005. Their second album Cultura was released on 3 May 2004 and went to number 61 in the UK album charts and number 3 in the Rock Album Chart. Cultura produced the singles “La Última Hora”, “The River”, and “World’s on Fire”. “The River” managed to secure their first UK Top 40 position, getting to number 39 in the UK Singles Chart. “World’s On Fire” just missed out scraping in at number 43, but was number 1 in the Rock Singles Chart. Neither song received any mainstream radio air-time and the videos were featured only on the Scuzz and Kerrang! TV music television channels.
Breed 77 released their third album In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) internationally on 11 September 2006. In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) was produced by Ron Saint-Germain (The Saint) noted for his work with Soundgarden, Tool, Creed and Bad Brains. Two bonus tracks were produced by Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers). The first single from this album, “Alive”) was out on 12 June 2006, also known as Download Monday, and reached number 6 on the Rock Singles Chart. The second single was “Blind”, released on 4 September 2006. Their last single to date is “Look at Me Now”, released on 23 April 2007. The single includes a special cover of the song ‘Zombie’, by The Cranberries.
In early 2007, the band released the iTunes exclusive album Un Encuentro (to coincide with the launch of “iTunes Latino“. The album featured 11 songs from previous albums but all sung in Spanish. This album was re-released in physical CD format on 7 May 2007.
The band is currently finalising their fifth studio album, Insects.The first two tracks have been announced as “The Horns of Hattin” (April 2008) and “Wake Up” (July 2008). The album is set to be released early-mid 2009.
Taking their cue from the new album title, Panic Cell have striven forward defiantly through their first album (‘Bitter Part of Me’) and their intense live shows have won them acclaim, admiration and new fans all over the world, their reputation as a world class live act is unquestionable. “We’re a live band first and foremost, we’re entertainers and we do a damn fine job, we play every show with hunger and voraciously whether we’re first or last on the bill ” says vocalist Luke Bell. Three years of touring the UK, Ireland, Europe & the U.S.A has oiled the machine that is Panic Cell; the band have taken new found maturity and poured it into ‘What Doesn’t Kill Us’. “Having had the luxury of coming off tour and spending time in pre-production for these new songs, something we couldn’t do with the first album and Panic Cell sound all the better for doing it” says bassist Bobby Town.
Panic Cells evolution comes as no surprise when looking at the top international class of bands they have toured with on their first release: U.S Billboard No.1 artists Disturbed and Staind, Mudvayne, Devildriver, SOiL, Drowning Pool, ILL Nino, Testament, American Head Charge, In This Moment and many more. “We’ve had the privilege of playing with many a great band, literally world class acts that has ensured every night we go out on stage we’ve had to raise our game, giving the crowd one hell of a show.” says drummer Rob Hicks. One hell of a show is very apt for the bands set at the UK’s top rock/metal festival ‘Download 2007′ with many people believing this one of the main highlights of the festival. A packed out tent with outside standing room only is testimony to Panic Cells pulling power and longevity. Most astonishing of all, everything Panic Cell had achieved to this point was as an unsigned band. (words taken from the bands website)
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 3:29 pm. Add a comment
COMING SOON!!
