Rangefinder Magazine
August 2002

Digital Photography by John Rettie


With the introduction of three new Coolpix digital cameras, Nikon continues to be one of the most prolific producers of high-end prosumer digital cameras. Even though the company introduced the Coolpix 5000 only a few months ago, it has just announced another three Coolpix cameras, two of which should prove to be of interest for those looking for high quality point-and-shoot cameras to supplement professional level cameras.

Nikon’s new flagship Coolpix 5700 camera features a much bigger lens than on the 5000 and an electronic through- the-lens viewfinder.

The flagship Coolpix 5700 is Nikon’s first entry in the so-called fixed zoom SLR segment. It is also the first Coolpix to feature an electronic viewfinder rather than an optical viewfinder. The 8X optical zoom lens is made from Nikon’s ED low-dispersion glass and is equivalent to a 35–280 mm zoom on a 35mm camera. The body is based on the 5-megapixel Coolpix 5000 but is somewhat longer as the lens is much bigger. Some people reckon the small lens on the 5000 was not up to the potential quality of the 5-megapixel CCD, so hopefully the new lens will make a difference in image quality. As with other high-end Coolpix models, the camera offers plenty of manual settings and features to appeal to professional and advanced amateur photographers. One improvement is the ability to capture images in the same Nikon RAW (NEF) format as in the D1/D100 range of digital camera bodies. The NEF format allows maximum control and manipulation of images after capture.

The Coolpix 5700 should be on sale by the time you read this at a street price of $1199.95, which is competitive with similarly featured models from Fuji, Olympus and Minolta.

The other new Coolpix model is the 4500, which looks to be a direct replacement for the highly regarded Coolpix 995. Although the Coolpix 5000 was in theory an improvement over the 995, fans of the 995 did not universally like it. The unique feature of the 995, as well as the 990 and 950 before, is the revolving split body that allows for easy composing of images from many different angles. It was a feature loved by many owners. Although the 5000 has a rotating LCD screen on the back of the body, many users, myself included, did not find it as convenient to use as the rotating lens.

	The Nikon Coolpix 4500is the spiritual successor to the verypopular Coolpix 990 and 995 cameras with a swivel lens body.

Fans of the 9XX range will be pleased that the 4500 continues with this tradition. Nikon engineers have managed to make the camera even smaller than the 995 while improving its quality with a 4-megapixel CCD. The 4500 has sound capabilities that allow one to capture up to 20 seconds of recorded notes to go along with each photo. It can also capture 35 seconds of video with sound. What’s even better is the price: the new 45000 has a street price of $699.95, which is $300 below the original $999 price of the 995 when it was introduced. Incidentally, the Coolpix 5000 continues in the lineup and its price has dropped to $999, making it a better value than before.

At the time of this writing nobody had managed any hands-on experience with either of these cameras. Let’s hope the improvement in quality is worthwhile for those looking to upgrade from earlier Coolpix models.

Wacom’s Intuos2 tablet offers the best of both worlds with the simultaneous use of a cordless mouse or a pen.

Wacom Tablet
Many graphic artists find the use of a tablet with a pressure-sensitive stylus to be much more intuitive than using a mouse. It gives more control over tools such as brush and paint tools, where one needs to effectively increase or decrease the pressure to apply a finish. For many photographers a tablet and pen have proven to be difficult to use for straightforward everyday image editing. In addition, a pen is not as easy as a mouse to use with other programs such as a word processor. In the past it was also impossible to use a mouse and have a tablet connected at the same time, which effectively meant choosing between one interface system and the other. Because of this I found myself rarely using a tablet even though I own one.

Recently I had the chance to try out the newest Wacom Intuos2 tablet and it’s encouraging to find that the system has improved considerably from earlier models. It now comes with a cordless mouse that can be used at anytime on the same tablet surface in place of the pen. Consequently it is easy to just pick up the pen or the mouse depending on one’s immediate needs or desires.

What’s more intriguing but takes some getting used is the fact that the pen does not actually have to be touching the surface of the tablet to work. Instead, just touching the surface produces a click. The mouse on the other hand works like any other cordless mouse except it does not need any power for operation. The software that is included with the tablet provides an enormous variety of settings so that the operation of the mouse and the pen can be adjusted to suit one’s preferences. Now I suspect that if I opt to purchase a Wacom Intuos2 tablet that I could get used to using a pen instead of a mouse when I am doing some heavy editing of images. About my only complaint is that although the tablet’s working area is only 6 x 8 inches the actual tablet is more like 10 x 13 inches in overall size, which makes it difficult to squeeze on top of a small desk. The Intuos2 line of tablets range in size from 4" x 5" to 12" x 18" and are priced between $199 and $819.

	penPallette provides pressure-sensitive editing of portions of an image using filter sets from nik multimedia.

Wacom has also teamed up with nik multimedia, which publishes a range of software that provides sharpening tools and other filters that appeal to photographers, to make the Intuos2 pen and tablet work in a special way. A Photoshop plug-in called penPallette is activated under the automate option in Photoshop. When a filter is selected, the parameters such as strength are chosen and penPallette applies the effect to a layer. The results are not visible at first but the pen can be used to selectively apply the filter as a brush or deselected by using it as an eraser. By applying pressure on the pen the filter’s effect is varied. In this way a filter can be used on part of an image rather than being applied to the whole image, without resorting to using masks, etc. Once the changes are complete the apply button is clicked and the temporary layer is merged into the actual Photoshop layer.

As nik multimedia offers a wide variety of filters aimed at photographers, penPallette could be a tool that makes the Intuos2 tablet worthwhile purchasing. penPallette only works with the new painting engine in Photoshop 7.0 and it does run under Mac OS X.

Painter is an extremely sophisticated program that allows a computer to be used as a canvas for serious artists and photographers who fancy creating “paintings” from photographs.

Painter 7
Painter is the sort of program that cries out for use with a pressure-sensitive pen as artists who are most likely to use this program find a stylus to be similar to using a real brush or pen.

For those of you who fancy being an artist the program can be an intriguing extension to one’s range of programs. It is easy to take a photograph, for example, and turn it into a painting. Easy is perhaps the wrong word as Painter is not a very easy program to learn. On the other hand neither is Photoshop easy to master at first.

Painter contains a bewildering array of brush options and filters to create art from scratch. It’s intriguing to realize that some beautiful art seen in magazines has been created entirely using a computer instead of a canvas with real paint and brushes.

More OS X Compatible Programs
As a service to readers I am going to mention programs and drivers that have been introduced or upgraded for operation under Mac OS X. As I mentioned last month I have switched to OS X and am pleased with its smooth operation. It seems that many Mac users have come to the same conclusion—it’s now time to upgrade to OS X as long as one’s favorite programs are capable of continued operation under the new OS.

Filemaker Pro
Of all the database programs on the market FileMaker Pro is about the easiest to learn. Yet despite this it is very powerful and can produce a wide variety of sophisticated reports and forms with professional looking interfaces. FileMaker Pro 6 is the latest version of the venerable program and it now works under Mac OS X.

Portfolio 6
Although Filemaker can be used as a database for accessing a collection of photographs it is not specifically designed for this purpose. Portfolio on the other hand has been designed from the ground up for management of digital images. It has been on the market for sometime and is one among several image management programs. It has just been upgraded to work under Mac OS X.

PhotoMechanic
Many news photographers swear by PhotoMechanic. It is a program that can open a folder containing hundreds of images in a few seconds and display thumbnail images in a contact sheet format. Individual images can be rotated and information on each image is readily available for viewing. Images can be tagged for batch processing and/or renaming.

Painter 7 Wow! is an informative 400-page book that gives hands on tutorials and other instruction on using Painter 7.

Quick Book Review
Painter is a difficult program to master. Even though it is nowhere near as popular as Photoshop it does have a loyal following among artists. Because of this there are some books on the market that can be a tremendous help to those who want to learn how to be a painter. Painter 7 Wow!, written by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis and published by Peachpit Press for $49.95, is as it’s name suggests similar in concept to the popular range of Wow! books for Photoshop. The author is different but the approach is similar.

The 400-page full-color book takes one through processes to produce “paintings” such as a woodcut or an impressionist, from photographs. In fact it seems that almost half the book is dedicated to creating art images from photographs as opposed to creating art from scratch. It also includes many sections dedicated to learning about Painter 7, so it does not presume that a reader is savvy in operating Painter. The book includes many galleries of art produced by artists using Painter and a CD-ROM includes filters, custom brushes and scripts to help a reader create their own artwork.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 32 years, a computer for 22 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past nine years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.