{"id":2058,"date":"2012-07-29T14:14:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T05:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-07-29\/2058"},"modified":"2012-07-29T14:14:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T05:14:41","slug":"why-cant-nikon-do-software-a-rant-about-nikons-moronic-implementation-of-focal-length-aware-auto-iso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-07-29\/2058","title":{"rendered":"Why Can’t Nikon Do Software? A Rant About Nikon’s Moronic Implementation of Focal-Length-Aware Auto ISO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So, as I mentioned in my previous post<\/a>, I happen<\/span> to have acquired a Nikon<\/span> D4. I haven't<\/span> used it all that much yet,\nbut it mostly seems okay. However, my strongest impression so far is utter\ndisappointment in the one<\/i> feature that I was<\/span> really really\nreally<\/b> looking forward to: focal-length-aware Auto ISO<\/b>. It's implemented<\/span> so poorly as to be essentially useless to me. The one feature<\/span> I was<\/span> really looking forward to.<\/p>\n\n

I realize that many people will never care one way or the other about\nthe Auto ISO feature, but this plays a part<\/span> in almost every shot I take,<\/span> so\nit's a very<\/span> big deal to me.<\/p>\n\n

I've been a part of creating some big products (Yahoo! and Lightroom),\nso I'm quite familiar with the spouted opinions of ignorant know-it-alls\nbitching about how wrong<\/i> something is when it just happens to not be\nhow they personally wish it<\/i> to be, perhaps for very good reasons\nbeyond the ability of the so-called expert to comprehend. I really<\/span> don't\nwant to be that way... I know I<\/span>'m not an expert in camera design and\nmarketing.... but really, as an engineer and photographer I can't<\/span> possibly\nimagine why Nikon choose the implementation that they did, one that seems\nto me to be gratuitously sucky.<\/p>\n\n

It's pretty obvious how to do focal-length-aware Auto ISO smartly, and I submitted<\/span> an\nofficial request to Nikon many years ago (circa 2006? 2007?) detailing it, as I'm sure plenty\nof other folks did. It's so obvious<\/span>. You allow<\/span> the user to enter a\n“focal-length multiplier” for the minimum shutter speed; if the user enters\na “1”, then a 200mm<\/span> focal length would result in a minimum<\/span> of 1\/200th of a\nsecond.<\/span> If “1.5” is entered, the minimum would be 1\/300th of a second.<\/span> If\n“0.5” is entered, it'd be 1\/100th of a second.<\/span> Simple, obvious, and\nintuitive. The only twist<\/span> that comes to mind would be to have a separate<\/span>\nmultiplier setting to be used when VR (anti-shake) is active.<\/p>\n\n

But no, Nikon had to do something more complex and less intuitive. But at least<\/span> they avoided documenting it in the manual or anywhere else that I\ncan<\/span> find, to keep it a “fun” and ongoing mystery. I'll have to do a bunch<\/span>\nof tests to figure out just what's happening behind the opaque\n“faster\/slower” labels they use. Sigh.<\/p>\n\n

Even worse, though, is that it doesn't work at all<\/i> when a non<\/span>-CPU\nlens like my beloved all-manual Voigtl\u00e4nder 125mm f\/2.5<\/a>,\nmy favorite and most-used lens. It simply<\/span> shuts down and defaults to a\nuseless<\/span> 1\/50th of a second.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Can there be a technical reason for this? The camera<\/span> knows the focal\nlength of the lens, which is the only extra thing the camera needs to know\nwith respect to this focal-length-aware Auto ISO, so I can't<\/span> fathom a\ntechnical<\/span> reason why non-CPU lenses disable the feature. Can not fathom<\/span>.\nBut it's such an odd, unexpected restriction that there must<\/i> be a\nreason.<\/span>.. mustn't there?<\/p>\n\n

I'm so very disappointed, but it gets worse.<\/p>\n\n

Even if I can quantify what it does with a CPU<\/span>-enabled lens, to take\nadvantage of it I'd have to swap back and forth among settings every time I\nchange<\/span> lenses, something I might<\/span> do 50 times on a single<\/span> outing. (Really; I\nlike<\/span> primes and change lenses often, doing so at least 65 times on this outing<\/a> last year,\nfor example.) I would<\/span> have to turn it on when I switched<\/span> to a CPU<\/span> lens, and\nturn it off and select a specific<\/span> minimum shutter speed when switching to a\nnon<\/span>-CPU lens. This is a hassle<\/span> made all the worse because Nikon\ninexplicably removed the ability to put “Auto ISO Settings” into the\neasily-accessible “favorites” menu, meaning that I'd have to hunt for it in\nthe menu system every time I wanted<\/span> to do this. What a hassle!<\/span> It was just<\/span>\ndandy on the D200 and the D700, so why did they go to the extra trouble to\ndisallow this one particular menu item from the “favorites” menu on the new\ncamera? One believes<\/span> that there must<\/i> be a technical<\/span> reason, but the\nengineer in me is left without the slightest hint what it might be.<\/p>\n\n

Nikon's computer software has a reputation<\/span> for being horrible in every\nrespect (slow, kludgy user interface, inconvenient workflow, etc.), so when\nlooking at these inexplicable software choices for the camera firmware,\nit's hard to come to any other conclusion but that Nikon simply has no clue\nhow to do good software.<\/p>\n\n

I'd sure like to help. Does anyone know how I can<\/span> talk to Nikon firmware\nengineers? I'd make a<\/span> special trip to Tokyo just to chat with them, in\nJapanese no less, for 10 minutes. I really<\/span> would.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I happen to have acquired a Nikon D4. I haven't used it all that much yet, but it mostly seems okay. However, my strongest impression so far is utter disappointment in the one feature that I was really really really<\/b> looking forward to: focal-length-aware Auto ISO<\/b>. It's implemented so poorly as to be essentially useless to me. The one feature I was really looking forward to.<\/p>

I realize that many people will never care one way or the other about the Auto ISO feature, but this plays a part in almost every [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}