Hal MacLean

Just a few words on this one, as I don’t actually have time to write a full review right now.

The Nikon D200 is an astonishingly good camera for the money. It feels solid, reliable and trustworthy in my hand, which can’t be a bad thing! The feature set is superb - very ‘pro’ level stuff in there - my current favourite time saver being the automatic ISO adjustment. I realise I ought to take more control over things than let the camera do it, but when in a rush, in low levels of light (or fluctuating levels on a cloudy day with sunny intervals) I just didn’t have time to keep re-setting it. Using the auto setting was a lot easier, ensured the images were exposed more appropriately and allowed me to use aperture priority rather easily.

The histograms are very good - colour charts help me to establish what is going on in the pictures before I get it to a computer, and enable me to effectively set the exposure where it needs to be.

Using a Sigma lens is nice as well - the lens responds quickly to most situations, although I do occasionally find it struggles to focus when using one of the outer-most focus points in the viewfinder. Using the  central set gives very few problems, so perhaps this is something any lens would struggle with… I need to test it more.

In practice, using this range of lens gave me all I needed for wider shots, portrait type shots and close ups on details… a Macro lens would help with the latter, but in all other respects this lens is a lovely compromise across a wide range of focal lengths. So much so, in fact, that I wouldn’t automatically carry many others.

So is the Sigma as good as the Nikkor counterpart? Hard to say without a scientific test, but apart from the VR capabilities on the Nikkor, I can’t see any real differences on most images - the Sigma performs well across a range of settings. I did get a touch of barrel distortion at the wider end of the scale, but in all honesty this could as easily have been down to the angle of the shot as much as anything else.

Since the camera body came along so reasonably priced, and the lens is a good performer, I can recommend folk this combination. Of course, don’t take my word for it - pop along to your nearest tame retailer and try them both out to see which you prefer. Shoot in RAW format, compare the images on a computer and see which you like best.

Talking of RAW - a 2GB Compact Flash card in a D200 will store about 120 images in RAW format from this camera. Don’t forget this is over 10 megapixels and files coming in to Aperture are regularly over 15Mb each. Shoot in JPEG fine and get hundreds of images… or JPEG normal and see the numbers grow - but I am preferring RAW format at the moment - it allows more possibilities for manipulation when on a computer.

We have been very fortunate lately to be working with some excellent people. One such is Phil Sharp who works for Canon UK. Part of what we do is to undertake film and animation workshops around the UK, and occasionally get to do some filming for a wider project brief. Whilst at Ultralab we were fortunate indeed to have some pretty good kit to help us along the way, but at Cleveratom we have yet to purchase what we want/need. That’s where Phil comes in! He has arranged for us to have access to one and we have been using it on a project in the north of England.
Having a good camera like the XL2 for a few weeks (seemed like at least a month) really allowed us to get to grips with it’s capabilities. We were used to the ‘XL’ way of working, having had an XL1 previously. The XL2 has a much nicer interface and access to the common features is a lot more straight forward. Things like switching to 16:9 aspect ratio - on the XL1 this is buried deep in the menus… on the XL2 it’s a physical switch on the left hand side of the camera. The two XLR jacks on the back are a big improvement, as is the ability to switch easily into progressive scan mode.
So ok… it is not the newest of cameras, having largely been usurped by the HD trend. However, it is a great performing camera in the SD range, and I would buy one as soon as look at it. The lens is fabulous for the reportage style documentary work we have been engaged in, and whilst the camera is quite bulky, I like the solidity it offers.

Would I buy this over something like a Sony HVR Z1U? A tough call, since they are two different beasts, but I would definitely have one to hand if I could… and I’d have a sony as well

My mate Matt has a very dirty car. In fact,he took it for a service and got told off by the main dealer for the state it was in… my guess is that they didn’t like the rodents they found in the back!

However, Matt is resourceful, and on finding that he would have had to spend a very long time indeed with a chamois leather, he took it to a nearby hand car wash, staffed by some energentic Europeans.

Now, I am a BIG fan of these places, and seldom do you see a team of folk working so hard for their money. Plus, the job is a good one - the car is inevitably going to be much cleaner than before, and since they also do the inside (all for less than a tenner), it’s got to be worth while if your car is like Matt’s.

There is a similar carwash near me - I love it! It’s got to be better than doing this on your own driveway, and they certainly do a far better job than I would do anyway.

So, well done Matt… now don’t leave it another two years before the next time! I note from the picture that you had a double helping of car hands to do your car…