ilkka_nissila

When I pan using the tripod, I have VR OFF, and when I do it hand-held, I have VR in SPORT mode (if available, otherwise NORMAL). While VR reduces off-axis blur in panned shots (over the blur when hand-holding with VR OFF), I find that it doesn't work quite as effectively in reducing the blur as a tripod with a fluid head. Of course, hand-holding with VR offers greatly increased freedoms of movement, but when faced with a long wait with a subject not seemingly doing anything and then suddenly taking off from the water, I can more easily maintain the subject in the frame when using a tripod to hold the rig. I can then easily follow the swimming and take-off without having to first re(acquire) the subject in the viewfinder. The waiting time could easily by 30 min or longer between take-offs (e.g. of red-throated divers). They can do stuff also between flights, but the waiting times can still be long. For me holding the camera pointed at the subject hand-held for such long waiting times would be frustrating. I think panning at slow speeds really takes a lot of practice to get the technique right, it's one of my weak areas. I read a travel photographer's book about slow shutter speed use to convey movement and the author said that you have to use every opportunity to practice this technique (a thousand times ...) before it starts to produce good results consistently. I really love the way some photographers are able to nail it, the smooth tones due to low ISO look great, and so does the feeling of movement. I have two leveling solutions for my tripods. This one can be really time-consuming to set up but does not require any space under the tripod so it is good for low-level work: https://www.manfrotto.com/global/levelling-base-338/ I had it modified with little holes to allow a metal rod to be used to make adjustments so that the skin in my fingers doesn't wear off. However, it's so slow to set up that I usually use the other solution which is a Gitzo bowl adapter and leveling base: https://www.gitzo.com/global/leveling-base-systematic-gslvls/ This part replaces the top plate in Systematic tripods: https://www.gitzo.com/global/75mm-half-bowl-video-adapter-systematic-series-2-4-gs3321v75/ and allows the bowl adapter to be used for leveling (some fluid heads fit directly the bowl). The Gitzo leveling base and bowl adapter work great and are very quick to adjust to get the top plate level, and after that all the flat-base fluid and gimbal heads are always leveled. 🙂 If you have a Systematic 2-, 3-, or 4-series tripod, the bowl adapter fits. Some other modular tripod systems may also have similar accessories available. When working for a longer time (several hours) at a location the setup time is not that bad. I do understand that if you prefer to stay mobile and walk around to find subjects, then the tripod can be annoying and cause lost shots. But my (limited) experience with bird photography suggests that the birds take their time to get used to my presence and by staying reasonably still at one spot, I increase my chances of seeing a bird come very close without being bothered by my presence. This has pretty much been the only way I've been able to get some successful bird shots... 🙂 Usually the close encounters have been at dusk, so that means also my ISO will be fairly high. But the lighting can be quite moody, which I suppose is a good thing.

A second image of the male goldeneye from yesterday. The bird area has some large buildings in the background which create these bright reflections (not exactly the sunset but a reflection of the sun near sunset).

I have not used the Gitzo fluid-gimbal head, but I have two gimbal heads and two fluid heads. None of them are really "high-end" but not the cheapest either. High-end fluid heads have more adjustment options to achieve the desired level of drag. One of my problems with gimbal heads is that when starting a slow movement from rest, there is a "jolt" in the resistance (rest friction?) and subsequent movement. But it could be a question of the quality of the product. Fluid heads make it easy to start a slow movement without any jolt. They also dampen high frequencies in the movement which can be unwanted (at least in some cases). Of course, this also means that when following a fast and erratically moving subject, the fluid head provides some resistance to faster movement (to go faster you need to apply more force) while gimbal heads do not. Fluid heads are more compact in external dimensions than gimbal heads and they allow mounting of the camera to the head when you need to shoot at shorter focal lengths that don't have tripod mounts in the lens. But for me the soft and fluid slow movements and compact size really make me use them instead of gimbal heads. Although I am not skilled at panning I want to learn that and I find the fluid head does reduce the off-axis blur in panned shots at slow shutter speeds. With gimbals or hand-held I get blur in two axis; with the fluid head I mostly have blur in the direction of panning (due to my limited ability to follow the subject's movement precisely). But I'll practice and hopefully get there. 😉 I'm not at all saying that a gimbal head isn't better when following a fast and erratically moving subject with a fast shutter speed set in the camera - I do think it is, especially with larger lenses. However, when working with a more compact tele such as the PF Nikkors, or the 100-400, the adjustable counterweight on my two-way fluid head makes it easy to balance the lens. With my gimbal heads, some of the light tele + camera body combinations can be difficult or impossible to balance on a gimbal (as the lenses have become less front-weighted, the balance point of the combination moves to the back and there can be physical obstructions preventing correct balancing). Note that not all fluid heads are equipped with the same features, some don't have internal adjustable counterweights.

Goldeneyes at Suomenoja, Espoo. Z8, 100-400/4.5-5.6 at 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/800 s, ISO 5000.

You can see a US and Canada price history here: https://www.photoprice.ca/product/06403/Nikon-D850-price.html I don't know how these prices reflect overall prices in the market since they're from specific stores, but you can see that the price is sometimes higher, sometimes lower, over the course of several years.

I guess you are referring to situations when photographing fast action? I find that when photographing birds in water, a fluid head allows easier following of slow movement than a gimbal. The fluid head smooths jitters and I find it easier to get very controlled slow to medium speed pans with it. When shooting wildlife video, e.g., of some courtship behavior in water, or other kinds of wildlife video action (such as mock fighting by male deer), I find it advantageous to be able to follow very slow movement by panning smoothly. All the other heads than the fluid head seem to make it difficult to do pans (which may not be 100% horizontal, they may involve some diagonal movement) without jitter. The fluid head that I have (Gitzo GHF2W) is quite small and lightweight and it's designed for focal lengths up to 200 mm, but it can handle a payload of up to 4 kg, so this includes combination such as Z8 + 180-400, 180-600, 500 PF etc. I've used it with the 500 PF and I find it to have advantages over other heads in dampening vibration and smooth panning at slow speeds, but a larger fluid head would be better for long focal lengths for sure, I just haven't committed to such a purchase mainly due to the weight of such heads (1.8-2.2 kg is a typical weight for a Sachtler fluid head, and of course there is no Arca-Swiss mounting, they have their own systems). Another type of shot that can benefit from the dampening abilities of fluid heads is in long focal length landscape photography, if there is even a slight bit of wind the effects of that wind are alleviated by a good tripod and head. Finally, when working with very very long focal lengths in wildlife photography, one may need to use long shutter speeds to get adequate light to the image. One thing I love about fluid heads is that many of them have adjustable internal counterweighting so one does not have to rely completely on a long quick-release plate but most of the balancing happens by adjusting a dial that moves a weight internally. Gimbal heads require external balancing which can mean that e.g. with some lenses a vertical grip cannot be attached, depending on the design of the components. Another advantage is that fluid heads can be used with normal (non-telephoto) lenses while gimbal heads cannot, so for shorter focal lengths, one may need to carry a separate head for those shots. With a fluid head mounting a camera on it does require a QR plate that is aligned in the front-rear direction and so a the built-in grooves in an L-bracket wouldn't work without some kind of adapter, but still it's easier to make this work than with a gimbal head. There are some hybrid gimbal/fluid heads such as the Gitzo GHFG1 that may solve the slow panning problem that I've had. That too has an Arca-Swiss compatible mount, so it's not like the big manufacturers have completely ignored Arca-Swiss; they are slowly adopting its use in more heads but still there are a lot of heads that are not compatible, including most video heads.

Normal mode in lenses which have the normal/active switch does not fight smooth panning. Sport and active are completely different modes; active is meant for use from moving/shaking platforms, and it can handle more vigorous shake, but the level of correction is not as good as with the normal mode. Sports mode is for photographing erratically moving subjects which change direction frequently. In case the lens has normal and active modes, sport mode is not available.

I also find the Arca-Swiss plates to be slightly uncomfortable when hand-holding (sharpish corners). Some of my A-S "compatible" products do not physically fit or lock across brands. And finally, last summer I got a DJI gimbal for video. Does it use the Arca-Swiss plates for mounting the camera? No, it does not, it comes with its own, incompatible, plate.

It isn't really. If you want the best stability for your long lens, you need to use a fluid head and among those brands (Sachtler, Cartoni, Manfrotto) who make fluid heads for video cameras the Arca-Swiss plate is not commonly used. I would venture a guess that worldwide, even for still photography some kind of Manfrotto plate is probably the most common, but things may have changed somewhat with the many Chinese Arca-Swiss compatible brands. 10-15 years ago there was no camera store in my country who stocked Arca-Swiss compatible heads and most even didn't know what it was. Now, with the numerous less expensive tripod brands adopting Arca-Swiss compatible QR systems, they are finally available here as well. But Arca-Swiss themselves now make incompatible heads where the plate was slightly modified so that the typical "compatible" plates and feet cannot be mounted. I would say the situation with tripod plates is as chaotic as it has ever been. But the really limiting factor for Arca-Swiss becoming an universal standard is that very few fluid heads use it. And Arca-Swiss doesn't seem to want a standard based on their old plates, either.

It does use the optical VR in the lens (which moves the VR group in the lens) as well as the VR system based on sensor movement in the body. If you have a VR lens, you cannot choose to turn ON/OFF the VR in the body separately from the VR system in the lens, they are both either ON or OFF. This is the case also with native Z lenses that have optical VR: the optical VR in the lens is always ON or OFF together the VR in the body. In adapted F-mount lenses, the control for VR ON/OFF is on the lens whereas when you use a lens that doesn't have this switch, then the control is in the body.

There is basically no gray market here as far as I know. Gray market in the US exists as Nikon can avoid warranty responsibilities via supplying to the gray market and somehow they feel this is worthwhile. In the EU the warranty is the same irrespective of import path (official vs. gray), so Nikon would not be able to avoid warranty responsibilties by supplying products to other importers for a lower price, and so there is basically no gray market supply. Yes, VAT of 24% is included in advertised consumer prices. To be increased to 25.5% later this year, due to current economic difficulties in Finland.

It depends on the region, in my country the Z7 II is between 2479€ and 3499€ and the Z8 is 4799€, so there is a 1300€-2320€ difference. For those who mostly shoot static or slowly moving subjects, the Z8 may not give significant benefits, and being forced to abandon old third-party flashes because of banding issues with the electronic shutter also adds to the cost of the Z8 for some users.

In this shot I positioned the sun to get a slight bit of flare. Z8, 100-400 mm at 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 2800.

The snow that we had the previous week melted and we finally got some sun & warmth. Z8, 100-400mm at 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 640.

Sunday morning in Porkkala. Z8, 100-400 mm, 250 mm, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 140.