D700 in DX Mode - question

<p>I have found a quirk. Let me quote the manual, page 59:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The DX Format Crop<br>

If Auto (the default setting) or On is selected for Custom Setting a6 (AF point illumination), the DX format crop is shown by a frame in the viewfinder when DX format is active. If Off is selected, the area outside the DX format crop is indicated by a transparent mask.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I tried this, and it is true. It is only transparent, however, not opaque. It's like a neutral density filter on the lens with a rectangle cut out of the middle. But I tried it with an FX lens, so I don't know if it would behave differently with a DX lens. I don't have any to test.<br>

If your D700 is doing something other than this transparent gray--not opaque--with anything other than this esoteric set of settings (why would you turn AF point illumination off?), then I don't believe you have a stock D700, and that the mod you readily admit has done something to affect your masking.<br>

Clearly, you are all hot and bothered by this for some reason, and your tone attacking several others who are skeptical of your claims is unwarranted.</p>

<p>Thanks Kyle. I read that this morning too, but didn't completely understand what that meant. Unfortunately I didn't test that with my camera. I'll give that a try tonight when I get home. Maybe there is yet another little feature/detail I wasn't aware of.</p>

<p>Sounds like the grayed out area Scott observed was due to a combination of factors: the non-standard focus screen; using manual focus lenses only, which might obviate the need for the AF point illumination (which might not function with the modified Canon screen anyway).</p>

<p>Kyle, thanks for figuring this out. If Custom Setting a6 is off, which means the AF point red illumination is off, the area outside of DX is grayed out in the crop mode as Scott Murphy describes. If a6 is set to on or auto, the DX area is specified by a frame as I pointed out earlier.</p>

<p>Such trivia probably does not deserve so much discussion in this thread, but once again it reminds us that those DSLRs are very complex. After owning the D700 for well over a year, I had never paid attention to this feature. I also checked Thom Hogan's D700 Guide, and he did point this out on page 585 in the first edition. It was another detail I overlooked when I proof-read it.</p>

<p>Considering 70-200 f/2.8 VR is "almost" a Dx lens what with its heavy vignetting characteristics, using it in Dx mode on Fx cameras may be actually a sensible thing to do under certain circumstances and OP might have a valid point in posting this question.</p>

<p>Apurva, if your copy of the lens has 'heavy' vignetting on your FX body, perhaps you should send it in for service as heavy vignetting is certainly not normal.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Considering 70-200 f/2.8 VR is "almost" a Dx lens what with its heavy vignetting characteristics, using it in Dx mode on Fx cameras may be actually a sensible thing to do under certain circumstances and OP might have a valid point in posting this question.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That is an exaggeration that has been repeated in this forum over and over.</p>

<p>"Considering 70-200 f/2.8 VR is "almost" a Dx lens what with its heavy vignetting characteristics, using it in Dx mode on Fx cameras may be actually a sensible thing to do under certain circumstances and OP might have a valid point in posting this question."</p>

<p>Actually, I prefer a little vignetting on a number of my images.</p>

<p>This is such a hilarious thread. I'm sorry I didn't find it earlier. Considering that the answer to the OP was a simple "Yes", given in the first reply, I wonder incredulously that a few of you are have been arguing so religiously about your perspective on what is, it turns out, a "Custom Functions" issue. These have been a sticking point for 2 decades, so it's surprising that some photographers can be tricked still. You should always refer to your custom functions first, before assuming that your (or someone else's) camera is acting up, and certainly before you call someone else a liar.</p>

<p>I just wanted to show the two different Dx crop viewfinder views for anyone interested.</p><div></div>

<p>Shun, is this true that it grays it out? I just used the DX mode for the first time when I was at a basketball game and the grayed out area would really, really have been helpful with framing the pictures. I'll need to play with "a6" and see if it does indeed gray out the screen.</p>

<p>A lot of people on a different site complained that the people's feet were cut off. Others said that I should have used FX mode instead and crop later. I like cropping in camera and though the feet were cut off I thought the pictures came out pretty well, especially at 6MP. The grayed out area would have helped tremendously with framing the shots though.<br>

<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4260718017_c8071fde33_b.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="680" /></p>

<p>For most people, this may seem to be a trivial issue, but it was one of my biggest complaint about the D2X a few years ago. While the D2X is a DX body, it has a high-speed crop mode to further crop the DX sensor to about half of the area. The problem is that the D2X merely uses a few corner brackets to indicate the crop mode, and I have indeed accidentally chopped off the head of some birds, not literally, but in the images.</p>

<p>Later on Nikon introduced the D2XS that would gray out the area outside of the cropped area so that it would clearly indicate that the camera is in the crop mode. That was one of two small changes Nikon made between the D2X and D2XS. I was glad to see the D3 followed the same convention.</p>

<p>Therefore, when the D700 was introduced, I was very surprised that it uses a frame to indicate the crop mode. When I wrote the review for photo.net, I checked a lot of sources and all of them indicated that it uses a frame, as most people pointed out on this thread earlier. Apparently the focusing screen cannot display the color red and black at the same time. Therefore, if you switch on a6 so that the AF point selection would be highlighted in red, it would only give you a frame that can turns red along with the AF point selection. If you turn off a6 so that the focusing screen does not need to turn red, it can gray out the "outside" area. That is a major plus for those who use the corp mode.</p>

<p>To me, it is important to get the facts straight and sometimes I go into extremes to figure out the little details. Again, these are complex cameras and I am sure that there are still some small features and options on them that I am not aware of. In particular, there are so many variations for these camera now so that there are small differences between the D300 vs. D300S, etc. etc.</p>

<p>I just hope that these are the threads that all of us can learn something new each day so that we can use our cameras more effectively. Some will say "Who cares about this?" and perhaps rightly so, but there is certainly no need to over-react and flame one another. I am a well known target on photo.net; every time I make a mistake, people will point that out quickly, and I am glad that they do.</p>

<p>Last but not least, Peter Lilley, thanks for posting the images.</p>

<p>Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. a6 really does do the trick. Thanks everyone!</p>

<p>Interesting thread. Not a waste of time at all. I doubt many folks could possibly remember every detail of their dSLR's operation. I can't even remember how to switch my D2H to full aperture ring control without referring to the manual. And the options menu for some AF options is confusing due to convoluted wording. Ditto the SB-800 instructions for wireless CLS operation - a circuitous mess than never completely answers certain questions.</p>

<p>quote: I doubt many folks could possibly remember every detail of their dSLR's operation unquote<br>

Yes P&S is relatively simpel, but DSLR's operation is not meant for simple minds -:), which nobody promised us.<br>

I am happy to learn something everyday.</p>

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<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=24372">Shun Cheung</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Moderator" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/mod.gif" alt="" /><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub10plus.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Feb 02, 2010; 09:53 a.m.<br>

<br />It does not gray out the "outside" FX area. Only the D3-family DSLRs will gray out the area outside of DX in that mode.</p>

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<p>You are incorrect Shun. I have a D700 and it <em>does indeed</em> gray out the area outside the DX crop.</p>

 

Old topic, but relevant since I went looking this week.

My D700 (S/N 2290114, A=1.04, B=1.03) was indeed displaying a shaded area in the viewfinder whenever I attached a DX AF-S lens -- ***until this week***. The sudden change surprised me right away. I bought this used unit several years ago, on KEH *I think*, with an insanely-low shutter-count of 729 and it has never given me a moments trouble until this. It is 20,811 shots now.

Scott, I cannot explain why my camera was showing the shaded are when it supposedly could not, but I second your experience. It's a shame that I didn't run across this thread before this week...now I only get the rectangle, but I know for a fact that it used to shade.

Perhaps in the 12 years since someone ran across an explanation...

SSepan, this thread was from 12 years ago. I vaguely recall that depending on settings, the area outside of DX may or may not be grayed out when the D700 is in the DX capture mode. I don't remember exactly which settings will cause which situation.

 

I still have my D700. If I have time, I can check that again when I am home, but I can't promise that I can still figure that out. I still have a couple of EN-EL3e batteries to power it and a few CF cards. Those seem to be historical accessories now. Most likely you have changed some of your settings recently.

I do not have a D700, but when I was considering a DSLR, I did download the PDF version of the manual.

 

DX crop is discussed starting on page 58 through 63 (of the English 2008 version of the manual). The DX crop is shown in the viewfinder if the option Auto DX Crop is set ON in the Shooting Menu > Image area > Auto DX Crop ON (page 61) and a DX lens is mounted.

 

At least that is what the manual says.

SSepan, actually the answer to your question was already posted earlier to this thread, from 12 years ago. Please take a look at Kyle McMahon's post from February 2, 2010. Custom Setting a6, AF point illumination, will also control whether the area outside of the DX frame is gray out or not in the DX mode. If a6 is set to Auto or On, you will only get a DX frame but the area outside is not grayed out. If a6 is set to off, the area outside of DX is grayed out.

 

Yes, I tested that on my D700 just now.

I never quite got this idea of an in-camera crop?

 

I know camera card capacity was once an issue, but really is/was it ever worth it??

Edited August 26, 2022 by mike_halliwell

I never quite got this idea of an in-camera crop?

 

I know camera card capacity was once an issue, but really is/was it ever worth it??

From back then, some FX DSLRs would give you a faster frame rate in the DX crop mode, since it would be dealing with a much smaller image, in terms of file size. E.g. my D2X is a DX body to begin with, but it has a 2x crop mode (2x relative to FX) and would provide a faster frame rate.

 

Memory card space was also a lot more expensive back then.

Edited August 26, 2022 by ShunCheung

Contributing to the zombie thread, I still use the 1.3 crop factor on my D7100 occasionally when I know I'm going to crop anyway, since it is a little faster, and increases the frame rate by a puny one frame per second, and the puny buffer by a tiny bit as well. These days with cheap cards the file size is immaterial, but on a D7100 every little bit of speed helps.

I always thought the crop mode was so that you could use DX lenses.

 

I believe, though, that you can turn it on or off, and with or without a DX lens.

 

And I have so far not tried it on the D700 I bought used 6 years ago.

 

Instead, I put my DX lenses on the D200, and the FX lenses on the D700.

(Or sometimes on the D1X.)

I always thought the crop mode was so that you could use DX lenses.

 

I believe, though, that you can turn it on or off, and with or without a DX lens.

On Nikon FX DSLRs, one reason to use the crop mode is for using DX lenses, but it can also generate smaller image files so that you can save on memory card space. That was a more important factor when the D700 was introduced back in 2008 than it is today. Most memory cards are pretty cheap, especially SD. (Perhaps CFexpress, especially the Type A Sony uses, is still on the expensive side.) Another factor is that on some bodies, the frame rate can go up using the crop mode.

 

On Nikon FX DSLRs, you can engage the auto DX crop mode. I.e. when you mount a DX lens, the FX body will automatically enter the DX crop mode, but you are free to use either the DX or FX mode with either an FX lens or DX lens. Of course you'll have vignetting using a DX lens on an FX capture area.

 

On Nikon FX mirrorless bodies, if you mount a DX lens, the body will automatically enter the DX crop mode, which cannot be changed.

(snip)

 

On Nikon FX DSLRs, you can engage the auto DX crop mode. I.e. when you mount a DX lens, the FX body will automatically enter the DX crop mode, but you are free to use either the DX or FX mode with either an FX lens or DX lens. Of course you'll have vignetting using a DX lens on an FX capture area.

 

(snip)

 

I always believed that, at least for some zoom lenses, it might not vignette at all focal lengths.

 

And even if it did, you could crop later.

 

Besides, maybe you wanted a circle!