I’ve been using for a while a very little known and rare (only 800 were built) Manual Focus lens on the Nikon D2X, that I found at this camera store in Shanghai. It is the Auto-Topcor 58mm f1.4 with Nikon F mount built by Cosina in Japan, which happens to be the same manufacturer that builds all new manual focus lenses for Zeiss. I made several comparisons between it and the Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZF, but ultimately I chose the Auto-Topcor as it was a little sharper and has smoother mechanics than the Zeiss. It is a very high quality all metal construction lens with very smooth bokeh. I’ll have to make some comparison between the Topcor and the Leica Noctilux, which is about 8 times more expensive. All images in the After Eight gallery have been taken using this lens.
Anyone merely interested into photography HAS to visit this relatively new location in the XiJiaHui district. You can find it on the right hand side corner of Xietu Lu and Luban Lu. They also have a website, in Chinese here.
I found it by accident because my regular place next to the Shanghai Main Railway Station has been shut down. Basically all the little stores that populated the old Mall premises have relocated to this new location. As the photograph I am posting illustrates, the new location is a modern building of seven floors crammed with medium to tiny sized stores filled to the gills with every kind of photographic equipment, from the cheapest digicam to the 39MP Medium Format digital back. Imagine a store the size of B&H in NYC, but subdivided into small stores. The place is organized by categories, in the sense that on each floor you get a certain range of equipment.
On the ground floor you can find all new equipment from the big Japanese manufactures, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, Fuji, etc. I have found that they usually have a very wide selection of lenses for Nikon and Canon, pretty much everything with the exception of the most expensive glass which needs to be special ordered, not a big deal since in Shanghai both Nikon and Canon have a very strong presence, not counting the fact that Japan is only a couple of hours away by air. The Second floor is dedicated mostly to Point and Shoot, accessories, camera bags and tripods. There are also 2 book stores that are crammed to the gills with exclusively camera and photography related material. Mostly Chinese editions of foreign books, but also beautiful publications about Chinese photographers.
The third floor is dedicated to printing and acquisition both digital and traditional. You can find any size of Epson, Canon and HP printer units. CIS systems appear to be a big thing, with many Chinese manufactured inks and hardware for the big (44″-24″) printers. There are several companies that offer an incredible variety of printing and scanning services. I am planning to have all my slides and negatives scanned and saved to DVD’s. The best part is that I got quoted for 2RMB ($25c) per each 6×6 slide, and that’s before any kind of price negotiation.
I wanted to highlight the location of the Nikon Showroom in Shanghai, situated on the corner between Nanjing Xi Lu and XinChang Lu.
The Showroom does not sell any products, but rather have on display every Nikon camera past and present, as well as the full lens lineup along with current DSLR’s for customers to try out. Ever wanted to try out a 600mm f/4D ED-IF AF-S II on your camera body and feel the sheer weight in your hands of that mighty glass? Then, you should definitely go check the place out. There is also a full range of point and shoot cameras as well as film based bodies including the F6. Staff is knowledgeable and generally one representative is English speaking.
Nikon has updated Capture NX to v1.0.1. The latest version of Nikon’s image editor and NEF processing application for Mac and Windows adds the support for the new D80 NEF files and improves the software’s functionality in various areas. Unfortunately v1.0.1 of Capture NX is still not a Universal Binary.
If you’re a proud owner of a Nikon camera you will want to make sure to check out Thom Hogan’s site. It is by far the most informative and complete online resource regarding anything Nikon, including excellent eBooks on virtually any Pro and Semi-Pro Nikon in the past 10 years.
All the images contained in all portfolios with the exception of the USA, Malta and Italy collections, have been processed using Nikon’s latest RAW converter - Nikon Capture NX. I won’t delve into technical details as on the web there are a few good reviews here: 1 - 2.
Despite some shortcomings, namely the lack of Universal support on the Mac, slowing down things considerably on my MacBook Pro, I can’t say enough good things about this software. The conversion of NEF files is the best, better than Lightroom and Aperture. The standout feature is the so called U-Point™ technology, developed by Nik Software, a tool that allows the user to define a control region applying non destructive local corrections to the image. The tool is absolutely brilliant and enabled be to edit images in minutes compared to hours in Photoshop. Capture NX works with NEF, TIFF and JPEG format and a 30 day trial version is available here.
