D850 vs D500 Pixel Density

I would just shoot some shots with your D850 in JPG saving mode. Mind you I don't recommend this permanently, as RAW has much more flexibility, but just see if it's your postprocessing workflow that causes the difference. I have observed myself that Nikon's JPGs are outstanding and require quite a bit of lightroom processing to bring the RAW file up to their in camera JPG standards myself.

SOOC JPEGs have progressively got a lot better from the early D50/D90 era. I'm not sure whether this corresponds to the EXPEED processor development and/or the JPEG creation algo. being refined.

 

Equally, the presets of image style (PICTURE CONTROL) such as VIVID, FLAT etc have allowed a lot more choice of how you want them to look SOOC.

 

I knew that the histogram on back LCD, even when taking RAW, is from the embedded JPEG, but it hadn't occurred to me that that is directly effected by the Picture Control setting chosen, i.e., if you use FLAT you end up with a lot 'truer' histo. compared to using VIVID regarding the exposure of the RAW file.

 

So, if you get blinkies with VIVID you may well not get them if set to FLAT WITH THE SAME EXPOSURE and you're only taking raw anyway!!

I realise this thread has died down, but I've almost got over my eye infection, I'm back, and Someone Is Wrong On The Internet.

 

It makes little sense to shoot a larger format if magnification is the name of the game - wildlife, field sports, macro, etc.

 

If and only if. If light gathering is relevant to you, or you want less depth of field, larger formats help. A longer lens may be more expensive, but if you're matching the ISO behaviour and depth of field, a DX body is a lot like an FX body with a TC14 on the back. And I've got one of those. If all else is equal, that gives me very nearly the performance of a D500 (not, I admit, quite, partly because of losses across the bigger sensor, partly because 1.4 is not roughly-1.5, partly because optical teleconverters damage the image a bit). Except that it would be a 45MP D500.

 

I often find that I'm surprised by changes in cropping - for instance, wanting to jump between an environment shot and a close-up, or if a subject suddenly gets closer. Nikon would like me to buy a 180-400 with an integrated TC14 that can adjust the crop with a switch. I'd like to shoot a D850 but have a button to toggle DX crop mode. (The main reason to do so is for a bigger buffer and less wasted storage space, so long as I never wanted the extra area. On a D810, I often wanted the 1.2x crop to get an extra fps.)

 

Full-frame comes into its own for wide-angle and studio work, where a low ISO can be guaranteed.

 

O.o Except that you can't always get the same equivalent aperture in different formats, and many optical aberrations grow with aperture. So I'd argue that even if you're trying to use a 50mm f/0.95 on DX to emulate what an 85mm f/1.4 can do on FX (ish), odds are the 50mm won't be very good optically. This is where I've seen the advantage, if there is one, of medium format - the lens may only be f/2.8, but it's getting the depth of field control of an f/1.8 lens on FX while behaving a lot better. People shooting in low light are better off with a D5 than a D500, even if they need to buy bigger lenses.

 

Because you can only realise the full image-quality potential of full-frame under controlled conditions, or when natural conditions happen to be just right. For example; any atmospheric heat turbulence is going to impair the definition of full-frame and DX to an equal degree.

 

That I agree with. I'd like to think that an early morning shoot might get rid of the worst of the turbulence - or some kind of stacking might allow for corrections. I don't know whether Adobe have yet given this a go.

 

The smaller format also offers greater depth-of-field for a given aperture and angle-of-view. For instance, your brother might only need to zoom in to 350mm to fill the frame with the subject, whereas you'll have to zoom fully to 500mm and still not get the frame filled. And with a variable aperture zoom that's also going to impact on the aperture and maybe slow the AF speed down.

 

Stopping down is always easier than, er, stopping up. :-) But I do agree that if the D500 shooter is using a 200-500mm at 350mm and the D850 shooter is using it at 500mm, the 200-500 is a lot better at 350mm than at 500mm, and you may well see that. I'd also suggest checking the AF fine tuning on the D850. Or take him on with a 500mm f/5.6 PF.

 

So for wildlife, full-frame just isn't the best tool for the job. This is an instance where 'digital zooming', AKA cropping, shows an advantage.

 

I'm standing by "it depends". I certainly like the "sports finder" effect of being able to see outside the DX crop when using a full frame camera (at the cost of magnification). If using the full frame, the AF points are more tightly clustered than on a DX body. That's worse for reaching to the edge of the frame, but better for accurate placement. It's also the exception to the "teleconverter" argument - the larger (relative to the frame) DX AF points have more light to work with.

 

And FWIW, the D500 shows only about a 3% improvement in absolute resolving power compared to your D850. Using pixel area as a comparator is a completely misleading parameter, except as a very rough guide to noise performance. For all practical purposes the cameras are equal on a pixel-for-pixel basis.

 

I thought it was actually less, but I admit that the D500 sensor is more under-sized (less than "DX" 24x16mm) than I thought. Reports are that the D500 does behave a bit better than the D850 in DX crop mode, presumably because there isn't a load of sensor area between the pixels you care about and the readout circuitry. It's much less than the difference in light hitting the whole frame, though.

 

I guess if you're trying to fill the frame with a hummingbird, an FX 800mm , a 500mm on DX or a 300mm on CX would all work OK.

 

... from the same shooting position.;)

 

Except that the FX body would potentially have a lot more pixels to work with, and the CX body would have to be attached to a 300 f/2 to be competitive. Last time I was shooting wolves in Yellowstone (with a camera, lest someone google this) there was someone there with a 600 f/4, a TC20 and a D5. It didn't really feel like the right tool for the job, but it's not like my D810 + 200-500 + TC14 was ideal either. I'm standing by my D850 + a hired 800mm as a better solution, and know that having pixels I can crop is better than even more reach, especially with a prime.

 

- Effectively, that's what using a hide or camouflage does!

 

I've decided that the next time I go out to shoot squirrels (again...) while hiding in my car, I'm going to hang a sign on the window:

 

"Hello. I'm taking photos of squirrels, not of children. I'm happy to prove this and show you my images, but please wait until there isn't a squirrel doing something interesting in sight. I appreciate that you're looking out for the local kids; please also check for people using something more subtle than a 3kg lens."

 

(I'm not annoyed at people bothering me, I'm annoyed at the culture that convinces them long lenses are only used by paedophiles. Although putting a playground next to a wildlife area and fast food car park frequented by animals didn't help. I should probably find another venue.)

(I'm not annoyed at people bothering me, I'm annoyed at the culture that convinces them long lenses are only used by paedophiles. Although putting a playground next to a wildlife area and fast food car park frequented by animals didn't help. I should probably find another venue.)

 

People do that even in the UK? I thought the paranoid people are only in the US.

 

People do that even in the UK? I thought the paranoid people are only in the US.

 

No, the rest of the world is paranoid about the US.

But first let me explain my eventual question. I shoot occasional wildlife, mostly birds with a D850 and a 200-500mm lens. My brother shoots with a D500 and the same lens. I shoot raw entirely and edit with LR. He shoots jpeg only and edits only with the photo editor on his IPad.

If sharpness is the difference that you are concerned with, it must be caused by his in-camera sharpening. Your raw files are not sharpened in-camera even if you have the same setting. So comparing his images and yours for sharpness is not meaningful.

If you’re jealous of the D500’s resolution when taking advantage of the crop factor to extend the range of tele lenses, don’t be. Just put your D850 in DX mode. You get 19.6 mp, which is so close to the D500 resolution you’ll never notice the difference. The 5% difference in pixel density (which is a function of total pixels and sensor size) is tiny.

BeBu: The UK has a surveillance state (especially near London) - there are CCTV cameras everywhere (including the car park where I was shooting squirrels), and people are paranoid about a) terrorists, and b) paedophiles, when it comes to the belief that either would be using an SLR in a public place. (Cellphones get much less attention, despite the fact that I doubt anyone has ever taken an upskirt photo with a 500mm lens.) (a), at least, have achieved quite a lot of disruption, which presumably was part of the goal. Remember we used to have the IRA in the 1980s, so those of us of a certain vintage are fairly used to people blowing things up. There are probably no more paedophiles out there than there used to be (I don't know whether the internet has made the situation better, because there's an outlet, or worse because it stokes the preference) but people are certainly more aware of them, and anyone whose job it is to ensure nothing bad happens isn't going to say "you can stop being vigilant now".

 

I heard a piece on the radio this morning where a guest said he'd ask attendees to his talks about the age when their parents let them wander around on the streets - the over-forties were allowed out around the age of 6 (probably about right for me), but for under 25s, nobody was allowed out until their teens and parents have been arrested for letting a 9-year-old out alone. The claim was that kids weren't socialising during key formative years and this was causing harm.

 

Most people are perfectly sensible, and I guess I'm glad that there are people watching out for the wellbeing of the kids, but it does make going wildlife shooting a less enjoyable experience. It's just sad that the thought that anyone could be photographing wildlife seems to be so implausible to some people. (In the same car park I was waiting for some people who'd parked by a squirrel-frequented bin to leave, holding but not using a big lens, and got called names - well, name whose meaning I don't think they knew - because they for some reason though I was going to try to photograph them.) It certainly discourages me from trying street photography.

 

Maybe a 200-500 isn't big enough, and if I'd set up a big prime and a tripod I'd have looked more professional? It defeats the whole "don't disturb the squirrels" thing a bit, though. Using an 800mm from farther away might work if anyone would like to give me one - I was already using all the pixel density and light gathering I could get, and choosing my crop depending on the number of squirrels in shot...