Well, I've had the D2x for coming up to ten months now and I thought I'd share some thoughts with you regarding this piece of kit.
Some earlier reported 'problems' regarding RAW/NEF image quality have been sorted out and were a combination of user error and the RAW processing within Photoshop CS2. I've now altered my practices at the capture stage and the problems vanished. Trust the histogram, in other words.
The control layout is still (to me) faultless and very intuitive - more so if you're familiar with Nikons, obviously.
As most of you are aware, most of my deployments this year have been to Afghanistan, but we did also do a few other trips to Malawi, Denmark and Norway, which made for some useful hot/wet and cold/wet test conditions. As with the dry/dusty/hot conditions in Afghanistan, I didn't use any covers or rain-capes with any of the kit and simply allowed the built-in seals to do thier job.
No problems with even quite heavy rain - I used a clean chamois leather to wipe the glass dry every so often - and no problems moving to and fro from cold outdoors to warm/humid interiors.
Malawi was just coming to the end of the monsoon season and we were treated to some incredibly heavy rain, the like of which cannot be imagined if you've never been to Africa or the far east. Both cameras performed very well, with the occasional problem with data connectivity through the lens mounts being remedied by switching on and off. I subsequently discovered that the problem lay with the 'old' generation 80-200 f/2.8 I was using, now resolved with the aquisition of the new 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens.
In Afghanistan the problems were reversed - very hot and almost zero humidity, combined with the finest, powdery talc-like dust you've ever come across. Dust ingress was minimal and I've only had to perform a sensor-clean once all year, which I put down to good drills in the field - never change lenses outdoors if I can avoid it and if I do, always switch the camera off first and shield the body away from the prevailing wind.
I've come across instances of two canon users suffering camera faults in Afghanistan, mainly due to seals failing (or not being good enough in the first place) and from heat. The daytime temperatures reached 59C in Helmand last month and one guy had all the LCD panels go black on him, never to recover. In fact it was so hot last month that I had to wear thin leather pilot's gloves as the cameras became too hot to touch with bare skin! Not something I'd previously thought would be possible and for them to still continue operating.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the way the cameras have stood up to all the bashing and clobbering they've been subjected to over the past 10 months, including smashing a 80-200 lens off the front of one of them as I was blown down the flight deck of an aircraft carrier by the jet-wash of a Harrier Jet taking off, dropping the same camera body 6 feet into the back of an armoured Land-Rover (another smashed 80-200) and general bashing around in the backs of vehicles whilst being covered with dust.
They've been given a good scrub now and last week I treated them both to another girlie-shoot (results yet to be posted, pending the sitter's approval tomorrow) as a rest from all the war and mayhem. The results are really good, and it's the first real outing under studio conditions. I've printed a few out to A1 and the quality is superb - way better than 35mm 125iso Black and White film in my opinion.
Some earlier reported 'problems' regarding RAW/NEF image quality have been sorted out and were a combination of user error and the RAW processing within Photoshop CS2. I've now altered my practices at the capture stage and the problems vanished. Trust the histogram, in other words.
The control layout is still (to me) faultless and very intuitive - more so if you're familiar with Nikons, obviously.
As most of you are aware, most of my deployments this year have been to Afghanistan, but we did also do a few other trips to Malawi, Denmark and Norway, which made for some useful hot/wet and cold/wet test conditions. As with the dry/dusty/hot conditions in Afghanistan, I didn't use any covers or rain-capes with any of the kit and simply allowed the built-in seals to do thier job.
No problems with even quite heavy rain - I used a clean chamois leather to wipe the glass dry every so often - and no problems moving to and fro from cold outdoors to warm/humid interiors.
Malawi was just coming to the end of the monsoon season and we were treated to some incredibly heavy rain, the like of which cannot be imagined if you've never been to Africa or the far east. Both cameras performed very well, with the occasional problem with data connectivity through the lens mounts being remedied by switching on and off. I subsequently discovered that the problem lay with the 'old' generation 80-200 f/2.8 I was using, now resolved with the aquisition of the new 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens.
In Afghanistan the problems were reversed - very hot and almost zero humidity, combined with the finest, powdery talc-like dust you've ever come across. Dust ingress was minimal and I've only had to perform a sensor-clean once all year, which I put down to good drills in the field - never change lenses outdoors if I can avoid it and if I do, always switch the camera off first and shield the body away from the prevailing wind.
I've come across instances of two canon users suffering camera faults in Afghanistan, mainly due to seals failing (or not being good enough in the first place) and from heat. The daytime temperatures reached 59C in Helmand last month and one guy had all the LCD panels go black on him, never to recover. In fact it was so hot last month that I had to wear thin leather pilot's gloves as the cameras became too hot to touch with bare skin! Not something I'd previously thought would be possible and for them to still continue operating.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the way the cameras have stood up to all the bashing and clobbering they've been subjected to over the past 10 months, including smashing a 80-200 lens off the front of one of them as I was blown down the flight deck of an aircraft carrier by the jet-wash of a Harrier Jet taking off, dropping the same camera body 6 feet into the back of an armoured Land-Rover (another smashed 80-200) and general bashing around in the backs of vehicles whilst being covered with dust.
They've been given a good scrub now and last week I treated them both to another girlie-shoot (results yet to be posted, pending the sitter's approval tomorrow) as a rest from all the war and mayhem. The results are really good, and it's the first real outing under studio conditions. I've printed a few out to A1 and the quality is superb - way better than 35mm 125iso Black and White film in my opinion.
