The Pictures are grainy but no less amazing given it was so dark, I could not use auto focus and could barely see the deer to focus manually. Shot at ASA 12,800 and 25,600.

The title pretty much says it all. I have this working and I will do my best to explain the entire process. But first, the disclaimer.

The following is not an endorsement for any product real or imaginary. No user-serviceable parts inside. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Continued reading constitutes acceptance of agreement. This website, author, ISP, family, friends, known acquaintances, the dog that peed on your shoe, all known humans, living or dead (excludes zombies) are held harmless. This disclaimer does not cover misuse, accident, lightning, flood, tornado, tsunami, volcanic eruption, earthquake, hurricanes, or other acts of God, neglect, damage from improper use, incineration, or robo-calls. The fact that the content described here works is a miracle on an order of magnitude that is seldom seen in a single life time. The fact that the content described here worked for me is in no way a guarantee it will work for you. That fact that the content described here did not nuke anything, cause smoke, excessive cursing, or human or animal sacrifice is not a guarantee in whole or in part that any or all of those events may not befall others who attempt to reproduce the results. Buyer beware. No guarantees, real or implied. Use at your own risk.

Yeah, that was messy. While it is partly humor, it is also important enough that I will repeat – USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

In addition to a Nikon D700, an Eye-Fi Connect X2 Card, and Extreme SD to CF Type II Adapter you will also need a utility knife, sharp scissors, and a thin piece of plastic (I used the packaging from the adapter). I also suggest you find an old Compact Flash Type 1 card you won’t mind sacrificing.

All you need to know is contained in two videos. The first shows how to disassemble the adapter. The second is optional but a good safety measure explained below.

Note: the adapter I purchased did not have the thin plastic insulating film shown in the first video. It was not critical but something you may encounter.

The D700 memory card ejection button is connected to a small frame deep down in the CF slot. The modified adapter will likely catch on it. To solve this, you need to cut a thin piece of plastic to act as a guide. I used the packaging from the adapter. Cut the plastic almost as wide as a standard CF card. Cut it slightly longer than a standard CF card. Now drop the thin plastic rectangle into the CF slot on the D700 such that the end sits between the pins and ejection frame. This will allow the modified adapter to slide into the camera without getting caught up on the ejection frame.

The second video above describes how to cannibalize an old compact flash type 1 card.

I highly recommend this procedure. It was not absolutely necessary – I tested the adapter + eye-fi card after completing the instructions in the first video and it worked. However, here is your important safety tip – IT IS VERY EASY TO BEND PINS INSIDE THE CAMERA WHEN INSERTING THE NAKED ADAPTER. You would be seriously bummed if you did that. You might get lucking and insert it once or even twice but very soon, you will be sending your D700 in for service because you mushed a pin.

The use of the CF-1 frame aligns the modified adapter in the slot. There is a much smaller chance of messing up your camera if you complete the steps of both video one and two.

In the midst of all the dissection, it is easy to get confused which way is up regarding the modified adapter and the cannibalized CF-1 frame. Below is a picture of the finished setup inserted in the D700. Use a good memory card as a reminder of which way they go in and then assemble all of the parts to match the end result.

Addendum: The D700 really likes to power down the CF card (and thus kill the juice that runs the WiFi in the Eye-Fi card. The easiest solution is to set the Playback timer to 5 minutes (MENU -> CUSTOM SETTING MENU -> TIMERS/AE&AF LOCK -> Playback). This will not affect battery life when shooting since the “review” timer is a different setting. The playback timer affects when you hit the “play” button to review past shots. Setting it to 5 minutes lets you power to Eye-Fi card and then go to your iPhone or iPad and start the Eye-Fi app to transfer images. IT will often take 30+ seconds before the first image transfer so give it time.

One last time – Don’t blame me if you screw up your camera, Eye-Fi card, fingers, or anything else involved in this post.

I keep looking at my digital photos and thinking “dam, it’s out of focus! why is that ?!” Even after 8 years of digital SLR photography, I still expect my digital cameras to respond as fast as my 35mm film Nikon F4s. A good example is the shot of Zen coming out of the water in the previous post. When I look closely, the focus is right about where her shoulders to mid-back are – rather than her face.

continuous focus; 125mm; 1/350s; f9.5, ISO 200, e-1.0

My conclusion is that the Fuji S2pro (my current platform) has just enough processor lag that I tend to out run it. I have noticed this quite a bit when shooting agility dogs during standard jump runs. With head-on shots, the focus is usually about 16″ behind. In competition, I know where I will be positioned so I pre-focus on the target and then disable auto focus. this works well. It is less of a problem for shots of object moving past the camera such as bicycle racers and lure coursing.

I now salivate at the thought of the Nikon D3. It’s not in my future as far as I can see, but it’s nice to dream !

I realized, as I was dumping my camera data to the NAS, that these photos remind me of when I was a kid at summer camp. The days were filled with swimming, nature classes, and sports. By the end of the day,you were hungry and tired … pretty much an ideal situation for the camp counselors <smart!>

BTW – don’t worry that all my blogging will be about the dog. It’s the end of summer and we are trying to get in an extra dose of playtime before the days cool and we hunker down for the winter – then I’ll blog about technology, photography, and cooking more.

This is a very old subject by today’s standards *but* it has come up again for me.

I was having dinner with a photographer friend of mine and we started discussing what we liked and disliked about our current photographic “kit bags”.

My photography took a serious turn in the early 90′s when I started traveling extensively through Asia and to a lesser extent through Europe. I made the decision then to jump camp from Canon to Nikon. I did so by building out my camera bag centered around the Nikon F4s. Over the years, I definitely pushed that camera to most of it’s operational limits – tropical rain forest humidity and heat, pounding in boats and off-road trucks, thin air altitudes, and long stints in bone chilling cold. Within reason, the camera and accessories never let me down. I’m not a professional photographer but I’m very happy with the results I have achieved over the years.

A number of years ago I switched to a digital SLR. I have upgraded once (in 2002). Two things have struck me about the switch. First, my preference in color balance has not changed. I still strive for the tone of Ektar 25 film. That film was my standard for nearly everything I shot … just as long as I could provide enough light to deal with the extremely low ASA. While most of my photographer friends were trying to push me to shoot positives, I liked the flexibility and somewhat more forgiving dynamic range of the Ektar. The second observation was that, while I shot somewhat more frames with digital, I still leveraged many of my “film” behaviors such as bracketing for the critical “once in a lifetime” shots. And, while rolls and rolls of film were no longer needed, I now had sticks and sticks of batteries. So from a “bulk” point of view, my bag did not get any lighter or smaller.

I would never attempt to prescribe one digital camera over another – that would be paramount to discussing “money, religion, or politics” – the mirepoix of taboo topics. I will suggest that getting the right camera requires an understanding of what you want to do with it and what are your preferences.

I will soon debate upgrading once more. I am very happy with my current equipment with one exception. I shoot a lot of sports and action subjects. I find the subjects are faster than the shutter speed on my current camera. The recent generation of digital SLRs (2006/2007) have made significant improvements in speed. I may end up changing vendors but I will stick with the Nikon format. My lens investment is enough to keep me from jumping ship again. As a matter of fact, the lenses have been one of the greatest assets. I am still shooting with the same lenses I had in 1993. The only additions have been a very wide angle (15-30mm) and a super long lens (500mm). The wide angle was a necessity given my “standard” for nature and scenery was a 20mm fixed lens and with the 1.5x multiplier of digital SLRs (at least those that are not full-frame) I needed a 15mm to get close to my favorite old lens. The 500mm was to tackle the tough sports shots where I could not (or should not) get close enough to the subject matter. I’d love a good VR lens and I may break down and replace my trusty 80-200mm f2.8 at some point but that lens “upgrade” is more than the price of the new camera so it will require a bit more justification.