D30 Decision

[Alan Wlasuk]

Like a lot of people I continue to watch the progress (quality and price) of digital cameras.

I seriuosly considred a D1, then a S1 and now the D30.

My hope is digital, b&w photography.

Assuming many of you scanning this forum have a D30, can you give me any feedback regarding your satisfaction with the D30 and how you would compare it to the D1 and S1?

Thanks
AW

[dogears]

If you're interested in b&w digital you might check out the Fuji S1. I saw a beautiful b&w portrait (shot at 1600) on Lonestar Digital page.

the D30 doesn't have a B&W option, the D1 did, though I didn't try it. The D30's automatic exposure is right on all the time. The D1 was often all over the place. I ended up metering and manual settings.

The D1 has better focus points and control for that. The D30's images are absolutely wonderful and have noiseless shadows.

If you've waited this long for a digital camera, and you were willing to pay for a D1, you might as well wait for the Canon Pro or 2nd generation Fuji Pro. Then again you might want to have some fun and get a D30. This will be a great camera for a long time.

[joemitchell]

I gotta tell you, I am extremely happy with my D30. Yes the autofocus seems not to be as fast as my 1n, but I'm making pretty good NBA photos with it. The images I'm getting out of it at 100,200,400 and 800 are better than what I got with the DCS520. The flash system is amazingly easy. In short, I'm pretty happy. The browser thtat comes with it leaves a lot to be desired, but hopefully third party software engineers will offer something better. I understand the D1's browser is not great either.

Hope this helps.

Joe Mitchelll

If you're interested in b&w digital you might check out the Fuji S1. I saw a beautiful b&w portrait (shot at 1600) on Lonestar Digital page.
the D30 doesn't have a B&W option, the D1 did, though I didn't try it

As a D-1 user, i tried the B&W mode (it looks a lot like the desaturation fonction in PS and give you RGB file the same size as a full color one.)
Given that i may use it to get a B&W preview but i now shoot everything in color and convert later in PS.
From the D 1 shot i got better results using desaturate than converting to grayscale.
results where great up to ISO 800 and D-1 banding was less evident on B&W than on color photos.

Hope this help.

Pierre

[lennycohen]

You might try the plug-ins from www.silveroxide.com to do your B&W conversions from color. You can select the response curve from any number of b&w films. I use the tri-x conversion and it works much better than the greyscale or lab luminance conversions.