mike_halliwell

<p>Panayotis, I didn't say 'Make <strong>a</strong> Perfect Camera', I said 'make <strong>it</strong> perfect(ly)', ie have no faults, that is not the same.</p> <blockquote> <p>Which car company recalls <em>every model</em> they put out?</p> </blockquote> <p>OK, so which camera company recalls every camera model? Sure isn't Nikon!<br /> <br /> Unless of course I missed the recall on my DX D50, D80, D90, D300, D5100 and D5300 and my FX D700?<br /> _____________</p> <p>Axiom..</p> <blockquote> <p>Axioms are assumptions that either cannot be proven or have yet to be proven. They are accepted as truths in part because we have never seen a counter example, but mainly because our intuition tells us its true. We accept it because we are comfortable with the assumption.</p> </blockquote> <p>Seems good to me.</p>

<p>Yeah, but it's only like ....err.....like 9mm on DX!</p>

<p>How many players are there in the band? ie how 'wide' will you need to go and at what range?</p> <p>I'd guess using the SB-800 and dragging the shutter will get you the band <em>and</em> some ambiance. Rear-curtain sync will make any movement trails look more sensible.</p> <p>The Tamron 17-50mm will be your main friend. Unless there's a lot of ambient light, I'm not sure the long lens will cope that well. I think 50mm on DX will be just long enough to isolate an individual in the band and 17mm should get the whole band. </p> <p>Single portrait within the band.....hummmm....could you borrow a 85mm 1.8G? Although, maybe cropping the 50mm shot will be enough?</p> <p>Agreed on the 50-150mm 2.8 OS, I'm hoping Santa will be nice this Christmas!</p> <p> </p>

<p>Anyone know if the marker-pen spot in the tripod socket has been used before by Nikon?</p> <p>My Nikon refurbed D5100 has a red spot.</p>

<blockquote> <p>Too bad they don't innovate more <strong>today</strong>.<br> <br> <br> The 300mm f/2 is a glorified paperweight<br> </p> </blockquote> <p>Henry, to all intents and purposes, the last ones built for photo work, were made in 1985, almost 30 years ago! Now, if they updated it with AF-S and VR, that might be worthy of recent acclaim...:-)<br> <br> <br> </p>

<p>You've only got to think about the number of product recalls on cars to see it's 'Normal'.</p> <p>Those are often safety issues as-well, and you'd think that was way, way more important than the odd hot pixel...but they got through product testing too.</p> <p>There must be a suitable axiom somewhere that basically says...</p> <blockquote> <p><em>'The more complex a thing is, the harder it is to make it perfect'</em>.</p> </blockquote> <p>..and modern DSLR's are very complex.</p>

<blockquote> <p>CFast cards are not physically or electrically compatible with CompactFlash cards<br> <br> CFast cards use a female <a title="SATA" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA#Data">7-pin SATA data connector</a>, and a female 17-pin power connector</p> </blockquote> <p>Not sure that's even the same playing field is it??</p>

<p>AFAIK CF's current speed limit is 160MB/s</p> <p>SD UHS II is opening at 280MB/s</p> <p>XQD seems available at 168 - 180 MB/s</p> <p>What's the future format for Nikon DSLRs??</p>

<p>Has the happy day happened? How did it go? </p>

<p>I'd expect the next DX body to do 4K, and that will almost certainly fit your Tamron.</p> <blockquote> <p>image quality from the GH4 will be much much better than the D90</p> </blockquote> <p>They have quite similar DxO ratings for Dynamic Range (12.5 v 12.8) and Bit depth (22.7 v 23.2), and ISO (977 v 791) (All in Nikon v GH4 order)</p> <p>How does 'much, much' manifest itself? ...and they're both about 16MP.</p>

<p>The sooner Nikon and Canon automate AF fine-tune the better.</p> <p>It's remarkably simple for a machine to 'make' phase detect AF <em><strong>coincide</strong> </em>with the correct and accurate contrast detect of LV AF.</p> <p>Sort it out Nikon/Canon!</p>

<p>Save your money....to start with.</p> <p>Take some frames of a high contrast target, maybe sharp news print at your preferred working distance at maybe f2 on a tripod with shutter delay or a remote. (wide open at 1.4 is challenging to any AF system and may not check your lens, but your AF module!)</p> <p>Do 5 with zoomed LV AF and then 5 with conventional AF. Defocus between frames to ensure a new acquisition.</p> <p>If you can't tell them apart at 100%, no worries, it's just peachy. That's confirms you don't have a problem.</p> <p>If you can tell, them maybe go with the products and methods amply provided above.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Good find Ilkka!</p> <p>What's wrong with the 105mm 2.8<strong>G</strong> AF-S VR Macro I wonder??</p>

<blockquote> <p>Thanks for all the tech info. So what number should it be on if shot in Raw please</p> </blockquote> <p>As it's the frames remaining on the card 'NUMBER', it depends entirely on your card size. If you take 10 frames, if you're in RAW (only) that number will reduce by 10.</p> <p>If you half press the shutter button, you see the number of frames the camera can take until the buffer is full...and is prefixed by a small, lower case <strong>r</strong>, such as <strong>r10</strong>.....and that depends on all sorts of other variables such a Noise Reduction, ADL, etc etc</p> <p> </p><div></div>

<p>Sam, which dial are you turning? I guess the back Main Command Dial??? Which normally changes the RAW (only), RAW + JPEG FINE, RAW + JPEG BASIC option etc</p> <p>If your twiddling the front one, the Sub Command Dial, you're changing the Image Size...ie Large, Medium or Small.</p> <p>If you're in <strong>RAW ONLY</strong>, I guess the QUAL + Sub dial should have no effect??</p> <p>Potentially both/either will change that number bottom right of the VF (Frames Remaining) as they change the file size and so the effective card-capacity. </p> <p>It's on and around p.93 on the D600 English PDF.</p> <p> </p>

<p>I have the old variable aperture Sigma 10-20mm and it's my go-to UWA. 10mm is pretty wild and 20mm is fairly sedate. It's inevitable distortion is fairly easy to correct in post.</p> <p>It's only 'weakness' is it only has a zoom range of x2, but I find the visual difference between 10 and 20 HUGE..:-)</p> <p>Sadly, it's bit slow, but the wide angle reduces the effect of camera shake quite well!</p>

<blockquote> <p>Focusing on anything moving at 1.4 is gonna be tough, regardless of whether you are using an FX camera or a DX camera. i have much more of a comfort zone at f/2-f/2.2.</p> </blockquote> <p>Just to clarify the first bit, if you've got a f1.4 lens, you'll be focusing it at f1.4 even if you're going to shoot it in your comfort zone of f2/2.2....</p> <p>.....or do you mean your or the camera's inaccuracies in focus will be masked somewhat by having a slightly greater depth of field?</p>

<p>This is going to hurt..:-(</p><div></div>

<p>Here we go.....!</p><div></div>

<p>Horse-event a week or so ago. Horse and Rider fine. 3 shots from the middle of a 9 frame burst on a D700 + MB-D10 + 70-200mm VRII on CH 8fps.</p> <p>This isn't how it's supposed to be...</p><div></div>

<blockquote> <p>And don't forget to switch the Focus tracking (custom function A3 on the D800)<strong> off </strong><br> <br> After my deliberately focused first shot, I put my faith in Nikon's Dynamic AF and <strong>AF tracking,</strong> but with the knowledge that I have decided what starting point the system will use to make its calculations for AF and tracking on<br> <strong> </strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Paul K, is tracking on or off?</p> <p>Dynamic AF and AF Tracking put the camera in complete control of the range the lens will be set at when the shutter opens....not the photographer. The phrase 'Put my Faith in' sums that up rather nicely.</p> <p>ditto...</p> <blockquote> <p>the camera independently of the shooter decides where it will focus on, and not the shooter.<br> </p> </blockquote> <p>Yup, that's what Dynamic AF and AF Tracking do!</p> <p>I'm not saying you're wrong...quite the opposite infact. That's what I use to make a living shooting event horses.</p> <p>As I said much higher up this thread, I thought I'd see if the camera could spot and track the rider's face, and it couldn't, but they're going about 20mph over a 4ft jump, and lets face it, those 2 on the bike are not exactly Tour de France material! I'm just saying I'd give it a go. I rarely 'experiment' on paying jobs either....that's saved for other times.</p> <p>The only bit of duality here is some shooters saying 'Don't let the camera decide anything for itself, it can't be trusted', and then saying they're using..<strong><em>Dynamic AF and AF Tracking</em></strong> which are, by their very nature, computer generated and predictive....and patently not under the photographers control. </p> <p>Taking 500 shots on a 'try and see' is just being daft. If it doesn't work after half a dozen, try something else...;-)</p> <p>In the great Turf Dance shot <em>anything</em> that tried to spot a Face would go crazy!</p>

<p>If Nikon know it's Grey because of it's serial number, then they know EXACTLY where it's not grey!</p> <p>The idea that Grey's are quietly syphoned off the production line and sold on, warranty-less is fostered by Nikon's own overly-protective approach to fixing it's own products on a regional basis.</p> <p>I've even heard the idea that they're the ones that failed Nikon's overly rigorous quality control and were meant for destruction and 'somehow' got sold on as seconds.. I particularly like that one!</p>

<p>For slow cyclists, I'd say try it and see, that's all. It's a tool like any other to try in the armoury. To just <em>assume</em> it won't work is a very negative approach to new tech.<br> <br> LV focussing is far more accurate than phase detect anyway....just a bit slower. It would also do away with any front or back AF issues this camera-lens combo <em >may</em> have.<br> </p> <p> </p>

<p>There's a first! Never been called Gung-ho before...:-)</p> <p>But yup, quite often. I tried it on faster action like trotting horses (Rider's face....not the horses!), but it was indeed too slow. However, for people wandering about, it was quite capable of a) finding a face and b) keeping focus on it in quite a dim room. Maybe the D5300 has improved LV AF? It's certainly way better than my D90, D300 and a bit better than my D5100. I don't have a 'recent' FX to try it on. </p> <p>The aperture's 'behaviour' in LV is a bit unpredictable, but using f4 should allow adequate AF speed.</p> <p>Slow cycling-by wouldn't be a problem for it, especially in light like that.</p> <p>Eric, I gotta ask, have you actually tried it on a current generation DSLR?</p>

<p>Eric, did you follow your own Flikr link leading onto the D7000 manual? (page 50 of the English PDF) It has <em>exactly</em> the same Face-Detect AF as the vaulted D4 and D800/810....just as my D5300 has etc etc. They are also ONLY available in Live View. Interesting if Subject Tracking or Face Priority AF is better?..I suspect the latter.</p> <p>Now I guess if they are on such <em>professional</em> cameras as those, it should probably work sometimes??</p> <p>However, in keeping with the educational tone of this thread (rather than Auto AF Targeting etc) I'd have thought something like 1/250 f4, 9-Point AF-C 'aimed' at the pretty girl's head and panned gently to keep them centralish should have found focus OK. I'd guess the camera <em>might</em> grab the door-frame as being a good high-contrast marker if it loses the people. The D7000's predictive nature of AF-C in half-press should keep up OK with Menu a4 set to Normal.</p> <p>Not sure if I think a tripod is handy here with a video or panning head? maybe!.....not so much for stability, but for smoothness and predictability of tracking. After the first pass the 'driver' can follow the wheel marks!</p> <p>Many people use the AF-ON or back button focussing so as to <em>separate</em> AF activation from 'Fire' with the shutter button!</p> <p>If they did 4 passes, I'd expect 2 or 3 to be perfect. Get a local friend to cycle around you for practise before trying a real shoot. <br> _______</p> <p>As a slight aside, anyone reading this post with a current generation DSLR has Face-Detect AF in LV as an option, they should just switch it on and see how well it works before denouncing it as a worthless gimmick. It might just surprise you.</p>