Dust on the lens

"Dust me or how much time do you spend looking at me?"
D90 slide from movie
This photo shows 2 things, 1 that there's a new dimention to what I can do with video and 2 of course, we have a lot of dust here where we live.   We are not sure why.   Click on this photo to see how detailed it is.   I will show you more later that were taken with the D90 in Video mode.   Effectively it opens up the sensor completely and takes an image at about 24 frames a second.   This is a high definition image so one still has about the resolution of a 2 mega pixel camera (I have a 2 mega pixel camera, an expensive one from 1998).    Really amazing when you see things from frame to frame.  And great for getting that shot of something that you don't want people to know you are photographing or something that you don't have time to setup the shot for.  I think this feature to shoot HD movies in AVI format really is a tool for the still photographer!  One who needs to shoot LOTS of frames just to have the right shot of something.  Although focus is manual and quality is very good.  Pictures that can be extracted from an HD source are good enough to be printed as stills.   And so hidden photographs can be taken and moments frozen in time can be animated.   This live-view option of taking HD movies with sound is supposed to add a video element to still photographers.. well in this case it lets me do even more still shots.    As a still photographer having a video option in my camera was something I just thought might be interesting but really had no baring on why I chose to buy the Nikon D90.  I chose it because it met several professional need specks and because it has virtually the same image processing sensor and system as in the award winning D300 and D2x.   

When you want a quick picture.. hit high-def video record.

Taken from a high-def video shot with the Nikon D90
This form of image processing to get 2mp quality out of a 12.5mp camera why?? Why would video be important in a still camera..? I shot the above as other police cars drove by and captured this one drive right through this thourghfare.    I wanted to see if the images really were 2mp quality.. good enough to say print in a news papor..post on a blog..or even print as a picture.   Sure enough as long as the camera did not move it was taking streams as if the camera has a mode insteat of shooting 4.5 frames or so a second.. it could switch to shoot 25 frames a second.    Not quite as controllable or as high resolution as regular photos but none the less that's what the camera is doing.

There are lots of power wheel chairs on the Max train.   I've seen 100s of them and you see new one's every day.. but this one was by far the Largest.. Jese look at the size of those motors and this guy is riding in stile.   I did not want in those close quarters to take my large camera at photograph him obviously right in front of everyone and not ask his permission.   So I opened the shutter and hit record.    I was able to get several perfectly in focus frames from a quick swipe of the camera that did not look like I was trying to get a photo.

"Power chair city"
Nikon D90 slide from AVI

 These images were not even modified.  Just taken directly off the video footage from the high definition video.   Click on image to see a still from a high-def film.
Now as a photographer I can get pictures while blending in and get good ones.  The D90 is the first camera I owned that for the first time I truely feel it can nearly "see" just as well as I can... for so many reasons in terms of taking pictures quickly and not missing a shot or even taking undercover shots.

And also awesome is using the high def movie mode to shoot with the old late 70s early 80s Nikon auto and even auto focus (Nikons prosumer SLRs can operate older lenses that requre a gear in camera) lenses with the F-stop control ring.    You can set the Irus operating the D90 as a video camera by positioning a box anywhere on the screen.. also you can change the f-spot.    So what does this lead up too??   No matter what you will get the shot if you are afraid you will miss something or want to take a somewhat covert picture.. just run the camera in video mode.    Then I just use a simple frame by frame movie player to make still images of the movie.    I just find the one's that are in the best focus and save that frame as a JPEG.  It's really simple but it definitely adds a new dimension to taking photos.  I knew I could do this with consumer cameras but the quality would be really bad. I did not know that my D90 had the quality to do this either.. it does as you will see. 

"Walks of life"
Nikon D90 EFS 18-105mm lens
And this photo I wanted to make sure I posted.   When ever I doubt taking pictures and finding new things in them I look at this one.   There are so many moments going on at the same time in this picture it's like several TV channels.   From the girl up front to the family on the side there are alot of things happening here.   I thought that was interesting.

"Allready broke in"
And this door got SMASHED in.   I don't know how or how many times.

This is long exposure spanning seconds.

"Train of Motion"
D90 18-105
Another long exposure

"Two things happening at once"
I thought that would be the right idea behind this.  Clearly the train is gone.. or is it??   This is a  long exposure that let in more light from the building then the train blocked or created thus making this effect.