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D850 - menu changes?!


iosif_astrukov

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Recently I was able to make some shots with the new D850 and I was quite puzzled with some changes Nikon made...

 

First they switched places of the MODE and ISO buttons which... is not so big deal

 

But why they put the ISO setting on the place where it was the counter left - on the upper LCD menu? when you switch it OFF it shows the counter - when ON you see what ISO you are on... ?! ridiculous to me... even from the film bodies at the right there was the counter??? All the time...

 

Also they removed the RECENT menu which was very useful when you have to switch some settings all the time (like color profiles etc)

 

And actually this is the worst thing I saw in D850 - the colours are awful!... so pushed up - I couldn't believe... I made some test I could link lately

 

What do you think?

 

Otherwise the resolution is great, the touch screen - not very handy, but nice to enlarge and view the photo, to go through the menu is useless for me

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I happen to like the new location for the ISO button, right next to the shutter release. Nikon first made that change with the D5 and D500 in 2016. It is now very easy to use your right index finger to hold down the ISO button and then your right thumb to rotate the main command dial to change ISO, all with just the right hand. You can also toggle Auto ISO on and off with your middle finger and the sub-command dial.
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With film I need the counter as I only have 36 exposures max and I don't need the ISO in the viewfinder as the film doesn't change. With digital and with auto ISO I need to know the ISO and not much on the counter because I have not yet get any of the card full in one shooting.
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What surprises me more is that Nikon ( among others) still is using that old faschioned LCD display on top of their camera's , while a current oled display could be so much more flexible and better reaable at the same or less cost.

Such a current oled dislay could allow the possibility for the user to choose what it shows in which spot and in which font (size) and color , and would also allow for the use of a non camera specific part ...

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Cost and power consumption must be why they keep it a basic LCD. One of the advantages of DSLRs is the relatively low power consumption during the pauses between shots where you're just viewing.

 

In that case E-paper displays would even be a better option, no power consumption what so ever between shooting sessions, and cheaper to produce since the free text format an placement does not ne to get pre-configured as part of the display as is the case with LCD-displays .. so no diffrernt displays for separate camera models would be required..

And ... e-paper is so much better readable .....

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What surprises me more is that Nikon ( among others) still is using that old faschioned LCD display on top of their camera's , while a current oled display could be so much more flexible and better reaable at the same or less cost.

Such a current oled dislay could allow the possibility for the user to choose what it shows in which spot and in which font (size) and color , and would also allow for the use of a non camera specific part ...

 

I second that. I was really hoping they would upgrade that LCD to something that was historically correct to the 21 century. A dot matrix, user-customizable, OLED display would be a step in the right direction. I haven't bought the D850 yet. Waiting for the upcoming full-frame mirrorless, holding my fingers crossed.

 

As per the buttons and the menus. At least Nikon have got that somewhat right. The ISO is so much more important than the frame counter with digital cameras and I love it that they moved the "mode" button to the other side because I NEVER use it, as I am ALWAYS on M. And with my D800 I have the "movie record" button as "ISO". I'm glad Nikon provided this option in the custom settings and they did it even better in the subsequent models.

 

Overall, the menu layout isn't too bad. When pressed for time, some of the settings may be a little hard to get to and that is why they have the "My Menu". In there I have pretty much everything that I ever need to fumble with. You can "prioritize" the items and place them in the desired order. And they're not just "Menu Items" to go into. Many of them actually display the current settings right there in the menu. Things like: Storage folder, Exposure delay, Max. continuous release, EV steps, etc... I have about 20 items in that menu and I've organized them to be a sort of a checklist. Before each shoot I quickly go over the "My Menu" and immediately know whether I need to change anything. It eliminates a lot of mistakes and saves time. I've assigned the "AE-L/AF-L" button (on the D800) to go to the first item in "My Menu" which is "Storage folder" in my case. All the other important items are always just one more press of a button away ("left" on the multi-selector").

Personally, I would like to see a lot more customizability in the Nikon bodies but I'm fairly content with the way they've done it with the D800 and I don't think I would complain much about the D850, should I get one. Having said that, the ability to program and run scripts would be pretty sweet. I know I'd love it.

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I thought this range had shown frames remaining when off and other ISO when on for a while? It's certainly way less useful to know ISO settings on a film camera, because you're not usually changing it every shot, but I find it important for the DSLRs, especially when I can see the number of shots remaining when you're actually shooting anyway, in the finder. I might have had my D810 set with option d8, which shows the ISO in the control panel LCD. It looks like you can change the option on the D850 with d3 in the menu so that it always shows shots remaining - Nikon may have changed the default, although the menu guide seems to suggest it should still default to "show frame count", so maybe someone changed your defaults?

 

Rummaging through manuals, it looks like the D700 showed ISO where shutter speed was - but then it didn't have such advanced auto-ISO as the later cameras. The D700 LCD was, I think, a bit deeper - but didn't need room for the movie record button.

 

The ISO button behaviour is exactly what you get on a D810 (or, I think, with a D800 if you had the patch) if you program the movie record button to change ISO; for me, since I'll immediately program the movie record button to do mode changes, the only change on the D850 is to swap the two buttons, which I'm sure won't bother me. Since one reason I like Nikon is their philosophy of letting you change shutter speed and aperture while simultaneously keeping your finger on the shutter release (whereas Canon require you to move your index finger for the front dial), I'd have preferred it if you could map ISO (and/or EC) to Fn or Pv, meaning you could keep your finger on the shutter release while changing any of the exposure controls. For the same reason, I disapprove of removing Easy ISO from the D500/D810/D7500 just because the ISO button is where you can hit it right-handed. It's all much better than on the D700 with ISO only on the top left, though - I was one of those who complained to Nikon about it.

 

The LCD is pretty legible for what it is, given that they have to show quite detailed content (although mostly for things like white balance which I never use). Going general purpose matrix with a low-power screen (like, say, the Pebble watches) would probably reduce contrast a bit, although I concede that the content of the top LCD isn't all useful to me. I'd love it to be programmable, but then most of my gripes about the Nikon hardware could be fixed if they'd allow some level of user customisation for bored software engineers like me, and many of us have been pointing this out for a few years. I'm not going to hold my breath, unless Nikon actually decide they've made their last ever DSLR.

 

Pebbles probably do have quite a bit more power drain than the Nikon DSLRs, though - while I love that I can charge mine once a week, I also like that I can leave my D810 on a shelf for a month and still have the battery showing full when I come back to it. I'm not 100% sold on eInk - you'd still need it to be able to update reasonably quickly for those who like the "look down on the camera and turn the dial" option, and it tends to need an inversion pass to avoid ghosting. Yes, zero power if it stays on, but I suspect Nikon made the right trade-off, and their LCD is actually pretty efficient. The viewfinder screen of the D810 and D850 is OLED, so they have the technology if they want more.

 

Regarding accessing menu options instantly, the one thing I'd like instant access to (ideally not using the rear screen) is the "program shift" fine tune on the auto-ISO automatic minimum shutter speed. As with actual shift in program mode, this ought to be a first class exposure control, but at least on the cameras I've tried you have to dive through a lot of menus to get at it. I've not played with a D850 yet, but it looks the same; I believe historically I've not even been able to put it on MyMenu because it's a sub-sub-menu option. (Although, now I look at the menu guide, is "maximum ISO sensitivity with flash" new? I've always turned off auto-ISO when shooting with flash on my D810 because of the stories of Nikon arbitrarily choosing higher sensitivities to balance the background in manual mode. Having the ability to set a maximum ISO of 64 on the D850 looks less error-prone, so good marks to Nikon for that.)

 

But I have a long list of things I'd like fixed, and as soon as I get a free weekend I really will turn them into a document with a survey attached to see how many of them people agree with me about.

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I can't comment on the D850 colours unless someone is kind enough to donate one to me. :-) I will say that JPEG rendering is mostly irrelevant to me for a D8x0 body - I have JPEGs as backups in non-critical circumstances, but the only times I'd shoot JPEG-only would be if I expected to be limited by storage or buffer.

 

Is there any evidence that the colour filters changed on the D850? Thom Hogan mentioned something about a possible change between the D800 and D810, and Nikon do tweak their raw output to offer some sort of colour consistency (I really wish they wouldn't, because this throws away data), but I'll be interested to know whether you're seeing changes in the JPEG engine (or its default settings - which don't forget you can tweak in the camera settings) or whether it's the captured data that's different. Saturation suggests a JPEG tweak to me, but I've not done an analysis. To be honest, I often find myself pushing the colour saturation a little in post anyway compared with the default raw conversion (at least for landscapes, since I tend to be under somewhat flat lighting and hazy conditions anyway); I've not felt the need to go the full Rockwell "argh my eyes" much, though. Except, you know, for this.

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Custom function d3 can toggle what to display on the top LCD. ISO or frames remaining.

 

The problem with my posting a reply containing a large wall of text is that nobody can be bothered to read it. :-) It is my curse.

 

(This probably includes the OP, so it's worth calling out separately.)

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The problem with my posting a reply containing a large wall of text is that nobody can be bothered to read it. :) It is my curse.

 

(This probably includes the OP, so it's worth calling out separately.)

 

I actually read it all, just thought I would summarize the part of your post that answers the OP's question. I enjoy reading your walls of text, apart from photography, I have also learnt a lot about the English language from you through the years.

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I actually read it all, just thought I would summarize the part of your post that answers the OP's question.

 

In that case, good call!

 

I enjoy reading your walls of text, apart from photography, I have also learnt a lot about the English language from you through the years.

 

You poor, poor person. I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you. :-)

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I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you.

Andrew: I, too, very much enjoy your thorough, thoughtful answers. I also appreciate excellent written language skills, so no apology is necessary. (I'm the kind of guy who sets standards for his staff regarding use of the "Oxford" comma, etc.) Always looking forward to your next post.

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ok, here is what I am talking about - D850 Color Test - Google Drive

 

all are direct JPEGs, with different picture profiles - first from up left is in Standard, than Portrait, than I changed WB as I thought was wrong - it was on daylight, I put it on clouds, than auto and than changed picture profile again - I don't remember exactly - I think I tried Neutral and maybe again Portrait - maybe you can check it in the psd file

 

the V picture is created afterwards from the first NEF - using the Flat profile and a tiny corrections, so that it was close to what I saw in reality

 

of course NEF is giving you the opportunity to correct all colours but I think than in many situations you really need good colors - for example - when you make HDRs, or videos - they also apply for video

 

also after the D4 they announced that the direct JPEG is improved and I think this is the correct way to be, as in many shootings I prefer the camera to do it's job and not to have me working hours to pre-compress all data - I mean general shootings, not special sessions when you do a lot of post processing afterwards on a single file

 

I didn't have time to try other custom profiles - as there is a web site with many, I use one specifically on my D90, and also I have to note that I reset all profiles, as I thought after this test they might be altered - they weren't

 

thanks for the information that on the upper LCD iso and counter could be switched

Edited by iosif_astrukov
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I think most people using the D850 would shoot raw by default, not only for "special sessions when you need a lot of post processing afterwards".

 

However, if you want to shoot jpg and are not satisfied with the built-in profiles, you could make your own profile using Nikon's picture control utility, which if I'm not mistaken is available for free from Nikon's website.

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David: I'm humbled, thank you.

 

BeBu: I always thought you struck me as the sane type. :-) I'm glad some are managing to blot me out, for their mental health. One of these days I'll learn to edit.

 

Iosif: Thank you for sharing, and... interesting. I agree that the default JPEG renderings aren't quite what I'd expect (and maybe a little under-exposed - were you on highlight metering?) While I definitely think most D850 shooters are going to have a raw processing path as default, that's not really an excuse for sub-standard JPEG rendering. Maybe the skin tone of the subject just fell between those for which the camera is optimised?

 

For what it's worth, I believe JPEG to be much more important for D4 (and D5) shooters - those cameras are intended to take a lot of shots under challenging conditions and squirt them to an editor in a timely fashion for publication. While they should still be able to take a decent raw image, workflow precludes sending a thousand raw files over a network connection, even if someone was in a position to edit them manually. I assume this philosophy is why the D5 seems to have de-prioritised low-ISO performance, in return for better high-ISO performance. However, once Nikon has optimised a JPEG engine for these cameras, it's not clear to me why the D850 would behave substantially differently, so the JPEGs should work. I've not checked EXIF - these seem to be under fairly low light? I'm curious to know whether this is an exception or normal behaviour.

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I wouldn't say it was low light situation... the sun was down but I was on 400 ISO and... about 100 shutter speed and f 2.8...

in other situations the color rendition is the same - harsh like...

 

but indeed it should be ok with custom profiles - I didn't know there is even utility... I use the nikonpc.com

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