Northern Parula in Maine 2004

Northern Parula. Taken in Maine on May 15th, 2004 (18 years ago!)

Nikon D1x 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 400, 400 mm(80-400 mm f/4.5-5.6). Processed in Lightroom Classic and Topaz. Amazing detail for a 5.3 megapixel camera – (iPhone is a 12 MP camera.)

Nikon Digital History https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/dslr.htm

June, 1999: Nikon announces the D1, the world’s first practical DSLR. It is the first practical DSLR because it’s the first DSLR with good enough image quality for print (2.7 MP DX), fast enough (4.5 FPS) and priced low enough ($5,000) and functional enough to be sensible to use daily as a primary camera. It’s also the first DSLR made with Nikon electronics in a Nikon body, by Nikon.

February 2001: Nikon announces the D1X and D1H, improvements to the D1. Performance was honed, a few features were added and price remained at $5,000.

They both replaced the numerical menu system with easy to understand menus in English.

The D1H kept the 2.7 MPDX sensor and increased speed to 5 FPS.

The D1X slowed to 3 FPS, but increased resolution to 5.3 MP. The resolution of the D1X is still decent in 2006. It used a bizarre CCD with twice the horizontal pixel density of the D1. Image quality was, and still is, extremely good because it had 4,024 horizontal pixels on the CCD. It had to do less Bayer interpolation and thus has much better image quality than one would expect in its 3,008 x 2,000 pixel images

The D1 was the landmark. The D1 is the camera that replaced film at newspapers. At the time I bought my D1x in 2002, the D1 accounted for 70% of all photos appearing in magazines.