mike_halliwell

Are the sensor/electronics more or less susceptible to radiation damage than film?

Z8 + 800mm PF + ZTC1.4. 1/1000 f9 ISO 4500. Stonechat.

To put it mildly, no-one in their right mind is going to pay B&H $250 for an 18-55mm kit lens. I'd take this opertunity to upgrade to the much better 18-140mm which can be got for a lot less than that. £100 gets you an excellent condition used lens here in UK.

It does work very well. 👍 Sometimes when the small retaining clip is unclipped the battery doesn't pop out. Batteries only seem to swell across the narrow direction. The tape is attached on the narrow side. Comes out with the slightest tug. I don't keep a battery in it when not in use. If It is slightly tight when I pop it in, I'm not so worried.

There's some chat around that NX Studio creates artefacts on merging..... and Adobe Lightroom doesn't on the same set. I find that hard to believe. Or maybe it was a landscape with waving trees or some such and not the same merge files? I tried it on a copystand shot of a nice fine-art postcard and got the sharpest and most noise free image with stunning halftone pattern. Didn't think of that 🤪 Will try some proper art at the weekend, but it looks promising. I'm guessing binning the resulting huge pixel file will further reduce noise?

Wrong thread maybe?

Yup, the BIN file has to go the drive's root, as it were, not inside a folder or the camera can't find it. I think this is the first time I remember downloading the actual Firmware bin file without messing about with extracting compressed files to specified folders etc. Much better method 🙂

I've had that happen once or twice before I realised what was happening... and it was usually with a grab shot in so, so light, with focus a long way off to start with. I never use focus priority for moving things.

That would be why Photoshop has 13 different Save As options but only 3 Export options.... non of which is TIFF !! Guess Adobe has to be different ! 🤣

Regarding 'Wake-up' time..... Carry a few extra batteries and don't let it sleep at-all. c3.. Standby Timer... No Limit.

Another 'oddity' i found when trying to make a TIFF from the NEFX file the Z8 makes from a pixel shift set (in NX Studio) is that you can't do a Save As, you need to EXPORT it. Wasn't expecting that ! Is there a computer difference between Save As and Export?

That's what i meant... 🤣 Maybe... 😉

Ah. OK. I'm obviously still in old fashioned mode ! "The VR Sport mode is designed specifically for situations in which a photographer needs to pan the camera, much like the Image Stabilizer Mode 2 on Canon lenses: “When shooting action, especially on a monopod, the VR Sport Mode recognizes a panning motion to provide accurate compensation for camera shake, resulting in super-sharp images, with motion blur where the photographer intended,” Nikon says. https://petapixel.com/2015/01/05/heres-look-vr-sport-stabilization-nikons-new-12000-400mm-f2-8-lens/

I guess if VR is set to SPORT, ie just stabilised in UP/DOWN, the assumption is you are panning... and if your technique is good the only thing not moving (much) in the frame is your target.... could be a Bird or a race Car. Just had a thought. I've not tried Bird Mode with 3D tracking yet. Maybe the distance criteria is addressed in that?. It never worked that well before, but it often didn't pick up birds before either, so not too surprising really!

Regarding tracking-whilst-panning and having VR set to SPORT, I wonder sometimes if the algorhythm could look more for non-moving, ie well panned 'objects' rather than trying to 'find' a bird or plane etc. If a BIF is crossing in front of you, and your panning technique is OK, everything but the bird is horizontally blurred, and in a fairly linear way. Equally, only look at pixels +/- 2m infront or behind those semi-static pixels, not the trees 20m away! Maybe it already does, but i've often seen the locked 'symbol' find a tree knot or some-such way, way further behind the bird. Maybe the experience/data from Auto Capture that focusses (sorry!) a-lot on distance info will trickle into future firmware as a kinda focus limiting feature?

I've never heard what the AFS motor squeal sound actually is. It's very characteristic!

A sad day indeed. 🙁

They can't. They refurbish old AFS motors and/or make from new. I've got a 500mm AND 600mm f4 with dead motors. The 600mm f4 went to be fixed and they found the last spare motor in the World in Japan. Fitted it and found the CPU was shot. Midwest offered to remake mine but the shipping from here in the UK is prohibitive. Nikon Z has given them a new lease of life for astro use. My last AFS purchase was a mint 400mm 2.8 FL..........for considerably less than the Z400mm 2.8 TC.

You could reset (d8 RESET) the frame ID number, ie to DSCN 0000 before a shoot. But it can make filing tricky as you end up with lots of duplicate file numbers, depending on your chosen system. If your display setting show frame ID, it's there after every shot, although if you delete a frame the latest file number doesn't go down.

Very interesting bird. African Hawk-Eagle. He was an intercepted smuggled bird, had a rough deal with bad humans. He rejected any 'perch to glove work', standard falconing routine, and now just does his own thing, within reason! But to answer your question.... 😉 https://www.hawk-conservancy.org/

If you've got pretty deep pockets, the 180-400/4 E TC FL ED VR would be nice. 180-560mm in a single (heavy @ almost 8Lbs) lens.... 🙂

Tried the Z8 2.0 with Bird Mode yesterday at the local Hawk and Owl centre having set the AF mode onto Ln2 on the 500mm PF. I set it to spot, custom wide and Auto AF. After about 1/2 hour I removed custom wide, so just Spot or Auto AF. Auto AF with Bird Mode was very good even with far-off birds. Better than the Z9, I think. I've got some fine art to shoot next week, I'll give Pixel Shift a go 🙂

46mm, that well known common filter size! At least they didn't make it a Nikon Special 45mm thread filter and charge £80 for a standard UV/clear filter and £200 for a rotating polariser housing.

So, nothing that flies for the Z9. But planes for the Z8? Gotta say, sounds like a continuation of model 'separation' by crippling in reverse. Big Z9 update coming very soon 😉

Funnily enough, I noticed that on the Ricci youtube video. I guessed he'd made it before the Bird Mode had been implemented, but maybe not!