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tempted to trade my D810 for a Df


chulster

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According to Wikipedia - "The 'F' in Nikon F was selected from the term 're-f-lex', since the pronunciation of the first letter 'R' is not available in many Asian languages."

 

Ironically, Asians also have a hard time with the letter F. I've never heard a non-American Japanese person say "Nikon F3"... I wonder how they say it? I feel certain they don't say "three."

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I have a D850 and since a month or two a new Df. The Df is a thing on its own. Compared to the D850, these are the benefits: it's lighter, smaller, easy on the battery, better manual focus camera, lower ISO noise at 3200 ISO and higher, better auto-ISO performance. It's unobtrusive. I prefer the look of the pictures, certainly when shooting people. It will be my travel camera. The controls are weird for a day, then it makes a lot of sense. I don't know whether I would keep the D850 or the Df if forced to pick one or the other.
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I haven't bought a Df, mostly because of the price, not because I don't think I wouldn't like to have one.

 

Somewhat I still like film, and often enough go out with the FT3 or FE2 which both work fine.

 

According to Shutterfly, 3MP is enough for up to 20x30 inch prints.

The are pretty good about refunding your money if they don't come out well,

so they have to be careful with the numbers:

 

Shutterfly Help Center

 

Since larger prints are viewed from farther away, it isn't necessary to increase

proportional to size.

 

Yes more resolution is nice, and necessary for aggressive cropping,

but 16MP is fine a large fraction of the time. Very large.

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-- glen

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3MP is enough for up to 20x30 inch prints

people were always surprised when I did just that from the 3.3MP Coolpix 995, where-as their 6MP cameras faded by A3.

 

Those weird twisty bodied Coolpix 995's had very nice optics, esp. sharpness. With some judicious upsizing and photoshoping they were very good. As you say, there was almost no cropping space available, it got really bad really quickly!

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I haven't bought a Df, mostly because of the price, not because I don't think I wouldn't like to have one.

 

You know, I'm going to reconsider buying a Df once the price is under $1K—if there are any clean copies left by then!

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I have just a little bit thought about a medium format SLR. I don't really have a use for one, but at the right price I would probably buy one.

 

I think for me, it is about the same for a Df. It would be fun to have, but others will do the job.

 

We buy things both because they are useful, and also because they are fun.

 

For hobbies, fun is a bigger part than the usefulness.

I have some older film cameras that I only bought for fun, even when I do use them.

 

But each of us values fun and usefulness differently. I suspect that the OP has enough

fun value to buy a Df, but I can't be sure. Maybe if the Df supplies both the

fun and usefulness value.

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-- glen

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Cameras are like motorcycles. Some are very close together in features, speed, ability. But there are subtle differences that make them better for different purposes. I doubt the D850 will ever need to yield to the Df if there is good light to shoot in. It does everything, mostly, better. But the Df is way nicer to work with, produces a slightly different picture and certainly for portraits it's much more fun to work with. It also doesn't eat batteries like the D850 and for someone who is away from power for extended periods of time, the "range anxiety" the D850 causes is a constant worry.
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Nikon: Df Price Guide: estimate a camera value

 

says $800 to $900 for the Df, and a quick look shows that about right for

ones with shutter count in the 60K to 70K range.

 

Nikon: D850 Price Guide: estimate a camera value

 

says $1400 to $1500 for the D850, so it looks like there should be a good chance to

sell a D850 and buy a Df, and even get some money back.

-- glen

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I have just a little bit thought about a medium format SLR. I don't really have a use for one, but at the right price I would probably buy one.

If I were to buy a "medium format" digital camera, I would get a Fujifilm (not sure why the "film" is still stuck in their brand name, maybe for legal reasons) G series mirrorless. The lenses are in the $2000 price range, not too unreasonable, although a body is kind of pricy.

 

However, I think the likes of the D850, Z7 II, etc. already have plenty of pixels. Not sure I really need more.

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not sure why the "film" is still stuck in their brand name, maybe for legal reasons

I know there's at least one other major company in Japan that's just called Fuji, and there's a Fuji Corp. in the industrial electronics space, so Fujifilm still needs to differentiate and might have trademark issues if they dropped the "film".

 

But yeah, if I wanted medium format, Fuji GFX would be an obvious choice. Reasonably priced, as medium format digital goes. Not too huge. And there's a lot of synergy between the GFX line and the APSC line (e.g. software compatibility, interfaces, film modes) which makes it very usable. But the images from the Z7 are so good I don't feel a need for a larger sensor, and though I'm a bit jealous of my friend's GFX100 I'm not jealous of the fact that it cost him $10k.

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If only they'd add Pixel-Shift to the Z7, you could have as many pixels as you want from FX...:cool:

Does that really work? I never had a camera with pixel shift but I’m always seeing people saying it’s so hard to stabilize the camera well enough or finda scene still enough that they don’t bother.

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Does that really work? I never had a camera with pixel shift but I’m always seeing people saying it’s so hard to stabilize the camera well enough or finda scene still enough that they don’t bother.

All very true.

 

Pretty much 'limited' to still-lives, fine art or sculpture.... or a very still day!

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How many frames are you getting per charge?

On the D850 I can get a 1000 frames per charge, if I shoot them in a day or two. If I let the camera sit for a few days, the battery level will sit at 70% or so from full, even if I only took a few shots (like, 50 or less). It's pathetic. I've chased this ghost for a while. Shut all the wifi, Bluetooth and other connecting crap off and it still "leaks" power. Prob because it's Bluetooth LE and you can't really turn that off unless you remove the battery. But then you lose all your settings too ... poor design there vs the D70 for sure.

 

The Df ... don't know. I have 400+ pics on the current charge battery over the last 2 weeks and have yet to lose a bar on the display (it has no percentage depletion). I bought 2 spare batteries for the Df and now I feel that is overkill. I only ever had 2 batteries with the D700 and never felt I needed more, even when I was out hiking for a week on end sans power.

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But then you lose all your settings too ...

Really?

Then what happens when you swap batteries?

 

Honestly, this having to swap batteries every few weeks 'issue' really isn't an issue at all. Did anyone complain that they had to swap cassettes every 36 exposures with film? A procedure that took several times longer than just flipping a battery door open and changing batteries.

 

That's a bit annoying if the camera is mounted on a tripod that blocks access to the battery, but it's still not a disaster. And doesn't everyone check that a fully-charged battery is fitted before mounting the camera on the 'pod?

 

BTW, not being a fan of the plasticky-feeling Df, I think fate took the right decision for Chulster.

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Honestly, this having to swap batteries every few weeks 'issue' really isn't an issue at all. Did anyone complain that they had to swap cassettes every 36 exposures with film? A procedure that took several times longer than just flipping a battery door open and changing batteries.

I'd far prefer a nice ergonomically shaped camera that has a modest battery that's only good for 500 frames than a lumpy brick that can take 2000 between changes. I have smallish hands but my jackets have many pockets!

 

The new Z6ii/7ii mirrorless cameras have the ability to be externally fed by powerbank, so extended tripod use isn't an issue.

Edited by mike_halliwell
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The new Z6ii/7ii mirrorless cameras have the ability to be externally fed by powerbank, so extended tripod use isn't an issue.

Finally!

A use for those Poundland 'powerbanks' that I couldn't resist buying.:)

 

Now all I have to do is find the USB charging cables for my cameras.

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Really?

Then what happens when you swap batteries?

Well of course nothing happens when you swap batteries... there is a small backup battery for that, but that drains in a week.

The issue is not having to swap batteries. The issue is poor design that requires me to carry many more batteries than ever before when I had a D700. I solved the problem by buying a Df anyways :-). At 500 pics after 2.5 weeks (today!) I finally lost one of the 3 battery bars on the Df. Really happy it lasted that long. Still a long way to go.

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