D800E on Yosemite trip

<p>I just returned from my first visit to Yosemite where I used the D800E. If you have never been to Yosemite and love photography, you owe it to yourself to make the visit at some point in the near future. I know the word is overused, but all I can think of to describe the first time you drive into the valley is breathtaking. As far as photography it is the most "target rich" area I have visited.<br>

The D800E performed flawlessly and produced some of my best landscape photographs. Of course the subject had a lot to do with that as indicated. I did a lot of bracketed shots for later use in Photomatix Pro and Nik HDR Efex Pro. Not surprisingly this created more work than normal each night downloading the very large NEF files to three different devices. Processing time is also increased for the same reason. The results however were well worth the extra time. There will definitely be some new photographs on the walls of my home soon. <br>

I did not experience any focusing issues, including the left focusing problem mentioned in some other posts. I only ran into two rather odd issues and wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same. Two times during the trip I found the battery grip had become loose, one time to the point that I could see space between it and the body. I have never had that to happen with any other body/grip combination. The other issue involved dust and lint particles in the viewfinder. When I received the body there was a small piece of debris visable in the bottom of the viewfinder, and it seemed that each day of the trip there was a new piece of dust or lint visable. It didn't affect the photographs of course, but was just bothersome. I also had my D3s along and used both of them daily but didn't experience the same problem with it. Anyway, the trip was great and I wanted to thank those of you who provided tips and advice about Yosemite from an earlier post of mine.</p>

<p>Oh, now you've given me a dilemma. I'm due at a conference in LA in August. I was wondering about diverting to Yosemite before heading home (to the UK). I'd <i>just</i> decided it was too much effort and I should wait a year...<br />

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Glad you had fun. I am, needless to say, envious. Now I just need a D800E (and a 21mm Zeiss, and a Nikkor T-S, and a swimming pool and a pony...)</p>

<p>Bravo Mr. Garrard! You should, without a doubt, be on a comedy circuit with a well deserved stop in Yosemite.</p>

<p>Andrew, if you do decide to go and have an Apple device, be sure to download the app "Photographer's Guide to Yosemite" by Michael Frye. The only thing missing from a visit in August will be the waterfalls that stop after the snow has melted. But believe me, there will be plenty of other things to photograph.</p>

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<p>Not surprisingly this created more work than normal each night downloading the very large NEF files to three different devices.</p>

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<p>Sorry, but could you explain this in more detail? To which three devices were you downloading your files, and what was the purpose of doing so?</p>

<p>Gable: Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.<br />

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Barry: Alas, I work for Samsung and I'd feel bad owning an Apple phone (not that this has stopped my colleagues). So I'll have to see whether there's an Android version I can put on my, er, HTC. :-) Thanks for the heads-up.</p>

<p>Dan: I backed up my files from each day to my laptop, a portable back-up device (Epson P-7000) and then to a high capacity USB 3.0 thumb drive. I know that is probably overkill but that has been my routine while traveling for years. Once I get home I store the P-7000 and use the thumb drive to transfer the files to my desktop computer for further processing and back-up of the files I choose to keep. In the past the nightly routine didn't take that long, but with the D800E I may have to re-think it.</p>

<p>Barry, what size of memory cards do you use?</p>

<p>I have a 64G SD card for my D800. For a landscape trip, that one card can probably last a week. If I have a couple of 64G or 128G cards inside the D800, I probably don't need to backup for a little while.</p>

<p>I too backup on 2, 3 portable drives; that tends to take time.</p>

<p>Shun, at the moment I am using 32G cards but plan to purchase 64G cards in the near future. I would still download to my laptop at night plus at least one other device. I have never had a problem with a memory card going bad but have had friends who did. I try to have all of my gear in one rolling bag but did have to gate check it on one trip. That is when I started downloading to another small device that could be moved into my backpack in case I have to gate check again in the future. </p>

<p>Barry, my point is that if you have two 64G or two 128G cards inside the D800 in the backup mode so that you have two copies of every image, you are pretty much set for the trip. I know in your case it is a bit more complicated since you have a D800 and a D800E.</p>

<p>Shun, that's a good point. I shot over 1,400 photos in six days with the D800E, but a lot of that was bracketing shots for HDR which I did a lot more than normal. I ended up with 66G of shots with the D800E. My wife and I travel to Hawaii every year or so and usually spend over two weeks. That would probably be pushing even a 128G card, but I have enough 32G cards at the moment to probably fill in. I normally buy the highest speed cards for the D3s because I do a lot of sports shooting, but that wouldn't be necessary with the D800 or D800E. I played with the video just a little on the Yosemite trip, but I don't normally do much video at all. I did notice it eats up memory in a hurry. The Lexar Class 10 400x card would work just fine, but two 128G SD cards and two 128G CF cards are still over $1,000 total at today's prices. Two of each would cover both the D800 and D800E. I probably wouldn't have both cameras on the same trip so I can probably get by with one of each until prices come down a little more. The fun thing about digital photography is there's always something new you need to buy!</p>

<p>At least I wouldn't spend $1000 on memory cards. Those things depreciate so quickly that makes DSLR depreciation like nothing. Whatever cards you spend $1000 on today can be purchased for $500 in a year.</p>

<p>I bought this Sandisk 64G SDXC card back in April when I started using the D800. It is a farily fast card but not the fastest so that it is priced more reasonably, yet one lossless compressed RAW file from the D800 (about 45M bytes) takes about 2 seconds to be written onto this card. I think that is not bad. That write time is somewhat important as the D800's back LCD will black out for that duration during the live view mode: <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/839982-REG/SanDisk_SDSDRX3_064G_A21_64GB_SDXC_Memory_Card.html">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/839982-REG/SanDisk_SDSDRX3_064G_A21_64GB_SDXC_Memory_Card.html</a></p>

<p>Back in April I paid like $83 for it. The price has gone down by a few dollars. A comporable CF card will cost about twice as much.</p>

<p>However, SD cards are still more fragile than CF, though. The little lock switch on another one of my SD cards just broke so that it is now permanently in the "read only" mode.</p>

<p>If you have one large-capacity card, perhaps SD, in the camera for the whole trip, you can rotate CF cards and maybe back up to just one hard drive during the trip. Or you wait another year and those prices will seem a lot more reasonable.</p>

 

<p>Shun, my next multi-week trip isn't until next February so I'm sure memory will have come down by then. I have a short trip to Savannah in early August but I should be able to handle that with what I have. Both Adorama and B&H normally have some pretty good sales on memory as Christmas approaches, so I will probably put that on my wish list to give to my wife.<br>

I have been fortunate so far with my SD cards but have always worried a little more about their durability. They can also hide in corners of camera bags a little easier than CF.</p>